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Full Idea
It's an embarrassment for attempts to construct content from functional role that quite different sorts of mental states can nevertheless share their contents.
Gist of Idea
Very different mental states can share their contents, so content doesn't seem to be constructed from functional role
Source
Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987], p. 70)
Book Ref
Fodor,Jerry A.: 'Psychosemantics' [MIT 1993], p.70
A Reaction
That is, presumably, one content having two different roles. Two contents with the same role is 'multiple realisability'. Pain can tell me I'm damaged, or reveal that my damaged nerves are healing. Problem?
| 18818 | Sentence meaning is given by the actions to which it would lead [Ramsey] |
| 12588 | Meaning from use of thoughts, constructed from concepts, which have a role relating to reality [Harman] |
| 12589 | Some regard conceptual role semantics as an entirely internal matter [Harman] |
| 12600 | The content of thought is relations, between mental states, things in the world, and contexts [Harman] |
| 16278 | A particular functional role is what gives content to a thought [Lewis] |
| 18033 | The meaning of a representation is its role in thought, perception or decisions [Block] |
| 12634 | 'Inferential-role semantics' says meaning is determined by role in inference [Fodor] |
| 3003 | Very different mental states can share their contents, so content doesn't seem to be constructed from functional role [Fodor] |
| 9640 | A term can have not only a sense and a reference, but also a 'computational role' [Brown,JR] |
| 9378 | If meaning depends on conceptual role, what properties are needed to do the job? [Boghossian] |
| 9377 | 'Conceptual role semantics' says terms have meaning from sentences and/or inferences [Boghossian] |
| 21641 | Inferential role semantics is an alternative to semantics that connects to the world [Hofweber] |