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Full Idea
Fodor sees behaviour as manifestations of psychological capacities, which result from the subject being a set of interconnected 'homunculi', which in turn have subcomponents, all of it arranged in a hierarchy.
Clarification
A 'homunculus' is a little man
Gist of Idea
Mind is a set of hierarchical 'homunculi', which are made up in turn from subcomponents
Source
report of Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987]) by William Lycan - Introduction - Ontology p.9
Book Ref
'Mind and Cognition (2nd Edn)', ed/tr. Lycan,William [Blackwell 1999], p.9
A Reaction
This may well miss out the most interesting parts of a mind (such as awareness, and personal identity), but it sounds basically right, especially when an evolutionary history is added to the system. Parts of my mind intrude into my trains of thought.
7371 | All functionalism is 'homuncular', of one grain size or another [Dennett] |
4875 | We descend from robots, and our intentionality is composed of billions of crude intentional systems [Dennett] |
5498 | Mind is a set of hierarchical 'homunculi', which are made up in turn from subcomponents [Fodor, by Lycan] |
3188 | Homuncular functionalism (e.g. Freud) could be based on simpler mechanical processes [Rey] |