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Single Idea 12627

[filed under theme 20. Action / C. Motives for Action / 3. Acting on Reason / a. Practical reason ]

Full Idea

You can't think a plan of action unless you can think how the world would be if the action were to succeed; and thinking the world will be such and such if all goes well is thinking the kind of thing that can be true or false.

Gist of Idea

Before you can plan action, you must decide on the truth of your estimate of success

Source

Jerry A. Fodor (LOT 2 [2008], Ch.1)

Book Ref

Fodor,Jerry A.: 'LOT 2: the Language of Thought Revisited' [OUP 2008], p.13

A Reaction

This is part of Fodor's attack on the pragmatic view of concepts (that they should be fully understood in terms of action, rather than of thought). I take Fodor to be blatantly correct. This is counterfactual thinking.

The 41 ideas from 'LOT 2'

12628 Knowing that must come before knowing how [Fodor]
12625 Pragmatism is the worst idea ever [Fodor]
12624 Only the labels of nodes have semantic content in connectionism, and they play no role [Fodor]
12630 If concept content is reference, then my Twin and I are referring to the same stuff [Fodor]
12629 For the referential view of thought, the content of a concept is just its reference [Fodor]
12627 Before you can plan action, you must decide on the truth of your estimate of success [Fodor]
12626 Cartesians put concept individuation before concept possession [Fodor]
12632 In the Representational view, concepts play the key linking role [Fodor]
12633 Definitions often give necessary but not sufficient conditions for an extension [Fodor]
12634 'Inferential-role semantics' says meaning is determined by role in inference [Fodor]
12635 Having a concept isn't a pragmatic matter, but being able to think about the concept [Fodor]
12636 Mental states have causal powers [Fodor]
12651 Some beliefs are only inferred when needed, like 'Shakespeare had not telephone' [Fodor]
12649 We think in file names [Fodor]
12648 Names in thought afford a primitive way to bring John before the mind [Fodor]
12650 'Paderewski' has two names in mentalese, for his pianist file and his politician file [Fodor]
12652 Concepts have two sides; they are files that face thought, and also face subject-matter [Fodor]
12647 Mental representations name things in the world, but also files in our memory [Fodor]
12637 Frege's puzzles suggest to many that concepts have sense as well as reference [Fodor]
12638 If concepts have sense, we can't see the connection to their causal powers [Fodor]
12639 Belief in 'senses' may explain intentionality, but not mental processes [Fodor]
12642 Co-referring terms differ if they have different causal powers [Fodor]
12640 Associative thinking avoids syntax, but can't preserve sense, reference or truth [Fodor]
12641 Connectionism gives no account of how constituents make complex concepts [Fodor]
12644 Who cares what 'philosophy' is? Most pre-1950 thought doesn't now count as philosophy [Fodor]
12643 Ambiguities in English are the classic reason for claiming that we don't think in English [Fodor]
12645 Semantics (esp. referential semantics) allows inferences from utterances to the world [Fodor]
12646 Semantics relates to the world, so it is never just psychological [Fodor]
12653 There's statistical, logical, nomological, conceptual and metaphysical possibility [Fodor]
12654 You can't think 'brown dog' without thinking 'brown' and 'dog' [Fodor]
12655 Frame Problem: how to eliminate most beliefs as irrelevant, without searching them? [Fodor]
12656 P-and-Q gets its truth from the truth of P and truth of Q, but consistency isn't like that [Fodor]
12657 Abstractionism claims that instances provide criteria for what is shared [Fodor]
12661 The different types of resemblance don't resemble one another [Fodor]
12658 Nobody knows how concepts are acquired [Fodor]
12662 We have an innate capacity to form a concept, once we have grasped the stereotype [Fodor]
12659 Maybe stereotypes are a stage in concept acquisition (rather than a by-product) [Fodor]
12660 One stereotype might be a paradigm for two difference concepts [Fodor]
12664 A truth-table, not inferential role, defines 'and' [Fodor]
12663 We refer to individuals and to properties, and we use singular terms and predicates [Fodor]
12631 Compositionality requires that concepts be atomic [Fodor]