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Single Idea 2074
[filed under theme 18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 4. Folk Psychology
]
Full Idea
The desire that grips Fodor, as it once gripped me, is the desire to make belief-desire psychology "scientific" by simply identifying it outright with computational psychology.
Gist of Idea
Can we give a scientific, computational account of folk psychology?
Source
Hilary Putnam (Representation and Reality [1988], p.7)
Book Ref
Putnam,Hilary: 'Representation and Reality' [MIT 1992], p.7
A Reaction
An "outright" identification looks very implausible. It seems that we should accept that belief-desire psychology is a very good guide to normal brain events, but a bad guide to unusual brain events. See Ideas 2987 and 7519.
Related Ideas
Idea 2987
Folk psychology works badly for alien cultures [Lyons]
Idea 7519
Many mental phenomena are totally unexplained by folk psychology [Churchland,PM]
The
22 ideas
from 'Representation and Reality'
2334
|
Meaning holism tried to show that you can't get fixed meanings built out of observation terms
[Putnam]
|
2335
|
Understanding a sentence involves background knowledge and can't be done in isolation
[Putnam]
|
2336
|
Holism seems to make fixed definition more or less impossible
[Putnam]
|
2338
|
Reference (say to 'elms') is a social phenomenon which we can leave to experts
[Putnam]
|
2339
|
Aristotle implies that we have the complete concepts of a language in our heads, but we don't
[Putnam]
|
2343
|
Reference may be different while mental representation is the same
[Putnam]
|
2340
|
We should separate how the reference of 'gold' is fixed from its conceptual content
[Putnam]
|
2341
|
Like names, natural kind terms have their meaning fixed by extension and reference
[Putnam]
|
2342
|
"Water" is a natural kind term, but "H2O" is a description
[Putnam]
|
2344
|
If we are going to eliminate folk psychology, we must also eliminate folk logic
[Putnam]
|
2345
|
Semantic notions do not occur in Tarski's definitions, but assessing their correctness involves translation
[Putnam]
|
2346
|
Meaning and translation (which are needed to define truth) both presuppose the notion of reference
[Putnam]
|
2347
|
Asserting the truth of an indexical statement is not the same as uttering the statement
[Putnam]
|
2348
|
Is there just one computational state for each specific belief?
[Putnam]
|
2349
|
Realists believe truth is correspondence, independent of humans, is bivalent, and is unique
[Putnam]
|
2351
|
Aristotle says an object (e.g. a lamp) has identity if its parts stay together when it is moved
[Putnam]
|
2352
|
The job of the philosopher is to distinguish facts about the world from conventions
[Putnam]
|
2354
|
"Meaning is use" is not a definition of meaning
[Putnam]
|
2331
|
Functionalism says robots and people are the same at one level of abstraction
[Putnam]
|
2332
|
Functionalism can't explain reference and truth, which are needed for logic
[Putnam]
|
2074
|
Can we give a scientific, computational account of folk psychology?
[Putnam]
|
2071
|
If concepts have external meaning, computational states won't explain psychology
[Putnam]
|