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Single Idea 2508

[filed under theme 15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 1. Mind / b. Purpose of mind ]

Full Idea

Like hands, you don't have to know how the mind evolved to make a pretty shrewd guess at what it's for; for example, that it's to think with.

Gist of Idea

The function of a mind is obvious

Source

Jerry A. Fodor (In a Critical Condition [2000], Ch.17)

Book Ref

Fodor,Jerry A.: 'In Critical Condition' [MIT 2000], p.210

A Reaction

I like this. This is one of the basic facts of philosophy of mind, and it frequently gets lost in the fog. It is obvious that the components of the mind (say, experience and intentionality) will be better understood if their function is remembered.

The 41 ideas from 'In a Critical Condition'

2465 Maybe explaining the mechanics of perception will explain the concepts involved [Fodor]
2469 The world is full of messy small things producing stable large-scale properties (e.g. mountains) [Fodor]
2467 Functionalists see pains as properties involving relations and causation [Fodor]
2468 Type physicalism is a stronger claim than token physicalism [Fodor]
2472 For Pragmatists having a concept means being able to do something [Fodor]
2470 Transcendental arguments move from knowing Q to knowing P because it depends on Q [Fodor]
2471 Are concepts best seen as capacities? [Fodor]
2473 Analysis is impossible without the analytic/synthetic distinction [Fodor]
2474 It seems likely that analysis of concepts is impossible, but justification can survive without it [Fodor]
2475 Don't define something by a good instance of it; a good example is a special case of the ordinary example [Fodor]
2476 The goal of thought is to understand the world, not instantly sort it into conceptual categories [Fodor]
2477 If to understand "fish" you must know facts about them, where does that end? [Fodor]
2484 The theory of the content of thought as 'Mentalese' explains why the Private Language Argument doesn't work [Fodor]
2482 It seems unlikely that meaning can be reduced to communicative intentions, or any mental states [Fodor]
2483 Mentalese doesn't require a theory of meaning [Fodor]
2485 Do intentional states explain our behaviour? [Fodor]
2481 Despite all the efforts of philosophers, nothing can ever be reduced to anything [Fodor]
2486 Content can't be causal role, because causal role is decided by content [Fodor]
2480 Language is ambiguous, but thought isn't [Fodor]
2487 Mentalese may also incorporate some natural language [Fodor]
2490 Modern connectionism is just Hume's theory of the 'association' of 'ideas' [Fodor]
2489 Why bother with neurons? You don't explain bird flight by examining feathers [Fodor]
2491 Modules have encapsulation, inaccessibility, private concepts, innateness [Fodor]
2492 Experience can't explain itself; the concepts needed must originate outside experience [Fodor]
2493 According to empiricists abstraction is the fundamental mental process [Fodor]
2494 Rationalists say there is more to a concept than the experience that prompts it [Fodor]
2498 Modules make the world manageable [Fodor]
2495 Obvious modules are language and commonsense explanation [Fodor]
2499 Modules analyse stimuli, they don't tell you what to do [Fodor]
2496 Blindness doesn't destroy spatial concepts [Fodor]
2497 Something must take an overview of the modules [Fodor]
2500 Babies talk in consistent patterns [Fodor]
2502 How do you count beliefs? [Fodor]
2501 Berkeley seems to have mistakenly thought that chairs are the same as after-images [Fodor]
2506 If I have a set of mental modules, someone had better be in charge of them! [Fodor]
2509 Modules have in-built specialist information [Fodor]
2504 Rationalism can be based on an evolved computational brain with innate structure [Fodor]
2505 Turing invented the idea of mechanical rationality (just based on syntax) [Fodor]
2508 The function of a mind is obvious [Fodor]
2507 Rationality rises above modules [Fodor]
2503 Empirical approaches see mind connections as mirrors/maps of reality [Fodor]