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Single Idea 12630

[filed under theme 18. Thought / C. Content / 5. Twin Earth ]

Full Idea

If the content of a concept is its reference, we can stop worrying about Twin Earth. If there are no senses, there is no question of whether my twin and I have the same WATER concept. Our WATER concepts aren't even coextensive.

Gist of Idea

If concept content is reference, then my Twin and I are referring to the same stuff

Source

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

Book Ref

Fodor,Jerry A.: 'LOT 2: the Language of Thought Revisited' [OUP 2008], p.17

A Reaction

This seems like a neat solution. So do 'tap water' and 'holy water' have the same content to a Christian and non-Christian, when they co-refer to the contents of the font?

The 170 ideas from Jerry A. Fodor

6650 Fodor is now less keen on the innateness of concepts [Fodor, by Lowe]
12614 I prefer psychological atomism - that concepts are independent of epistemic capacities [Fodor]
12615 Mental representations are the old 'Ideas', but without images [Fodor]
12613 Empiricists use dispositions reductively, as 'possibility of sensation' or 'possibility of experimental result' [Fodor]
12617 Associationism can't explain how truth is preserved [Fodor]
12616 English has no semantic theory, just associations between sentences and thoughts [Fodor]
12618 It is essential to the concept CAT that it be satisfied by cats [Fodor]
12619 We have no successful definitions, because they all use indefinable words [Fodor]
12620 If 'exist' is ambiguous in 'chairs and numbers exist', that mirrors the difference between chairs and numbers [Fodor]
12622 Many concepts lack prototypes, and complex prototypes aren't built from simple ones [Fodor]
12623 The theory theory can't actually tell us what concepts are [Fodor]
12621 Definable concepts have constituents, which are necessary, individuate them, and demonstrate possession [Fodor]
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]
2471 Are concepts best seen as capacities? [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]
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]
2487 Mentalese may also incorporate some natural language [Fodor]
2483 Mentalese doesn't require a theory of meaning [Fodor]
2482 It seems unlikely that meaning can be reduced to communicative intentions, or any mental states [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]
2485 Do intentional states explain our behaviour? [Fodor]
2489 Why bother with neurons? You don't explain bird flight by examining feathers [Fodor]
2490 Modern connectionism is just Hume's theory of the 'association' of 'ideas' [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]
2499 Modules analyse stimuli, they don't tell you what to do [Fodor]
2496 Blindness doesn't destroy spatial concepts [Fodor]
2498 Modules make the world manageable [Fodor]
2497 Something must take an overview of the modules [Fodor]
2495 Obvious modules are language and commonsense explanation [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]
2504 Rationalism can be based on an evolved computational brain with innate structure [Fodor]
2503 Empirical approaches see mind connections as mirrors/maps of reality [Fodor]
2506 If I have a set of mental modules, someone had better be in charge of them! [Fodor]
2508 The function of a mind is obvious [Fodor]
2505 Turing invented the idea of mechanical rationality (just based on syntax) [Fodor]
2509 Modules have in-built specialist information [Fodor]
2507 Rationality rises above modules [Fodor]
2432 Is content basically information, fixed externally? [Fodor]
2434 Broad semantics holds that the basic semantic properties are truth and denotation [Fodor]
2433 For holists no two thoughts are ever quite the same, which destroys faith in meaning [Fodor]
2436 It is claimed that reference doesn't fix sense (Jocasta), and sense doesn't fix reference (Twin Earth) [Fodor]
2435 Psychology has to include the idea that mental processes are typically truth-preserving [Fodor]
2437 XYZ (Twin Earth 'water') is an impossibility [Fodor]
2439 Semantic externalism says the concept 'elm' needs no further beliefs or inferences [Fodor]
2438 In the information view, concepts are potentials for making distinctions [Fodor]
2441 Truth conditions require a broad concept of content [Fodor]
2440 Propositional attitudes are propositions presented in a certain way [Fodor]
2442 Inferences are surely part of the causal structure of the world [Fodor]
2463 A standard naturalist view is realist, externalist, and computationalist, and believes in rationality [Fodor]
2461 An experiment is a deliberate version of what informal thinking does all the time [Fodor]
2459 Externalist semantics are necessary to connect the contents of beliefs with how the world is [Fodor]
2446 Cartesians consider interaction to be a miracle [Fodor]
2445 Semantics v syntax is the interaction problem all over again [Fodor]
2443 I say psychology is intentional, semantics is informational, and thinking is computation [Fodor]
2453 We are probably the only creatures that can think about our own thoughts [Fodor]
2462 Control of belief is possible if you know truth conditions and what causes beliefs [Fodor]
2458 Theories are links in the causal chain between the environment and our beliefs [Fodor]
2460 Participation in an experiment requires agreement about what the outcome will mean [Fodor]
2454 We can deliberately cause ourselves to have true thoughts - hence the value of experiments [Fodor]
2455 Interrogation and experiment submit us to having beliefs caused [Fodor]
2447 Hume has no theory of the co-ordination of the mind [Fodor]
2450 Rationality has mental properties - autonomy, productivity, experiment [Fodor]
2452 Knowing the cause of a thought is almost knowing its content [Fodor]
2457 If meaning is information, that establishes the causal link between the state of the world and our beliefs [Fodor]
2451 To know the content of a thought is to know what would make it true [Fodor]
2464 Type physicalism equates mental kinds with physical kinds [Fodor]
3114 Concepts aren't linked to stuff; they are what is caused by stuff [Fodor]
11143 If concept-learning is hypothesis-testing, that needs innate concepts to get started [Fodor, by Margolis/Laurence]
8090 Since the language of thought is the same for all, it must be something like logical form [Fodor, by Devlin]
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]
12625 Pragmatism is the worst idea ever [Fodor]
12628 Knowing that must come before knowing how [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]
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]
12651 Some beliefs are only inferred when needed, like 'Shakespeare had not telephone' [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]
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]
12662 We have an innate capacity to form a concept, once we have grasped the stereotype [Fodor]
12658 Nobody knows how concepts are acquired [Fodor]
12661 The different types of resemblance don't resemble one another [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]
2597 Contrary to the 'anomalous monist' view, there may well be intentional causal laws [Fodor]
2598 Lots of physical properties are multiply realisable, so why shouldn't beliefs be? [Fodor]
2599 Either intentionality causes things, or epiphenomenalism is true [Fodor]
22186 Mental modules are specialised, automatic, and isolated [Fodor, by Okasha]
3975 Folk psychology explains behaviour by reference to intentional states like belief and desire [Fodor]
3976 Intentional science needs objects with semantic and causal properties, and which obey laws [Fodor]
3977 Laws are true generalisations which support counterfactuals and are confirmed by instances [Fodor]
3980 Intentional states and processes may be causal relations among mental symbols [Fodor]
3978 Associations are held to connect Ideas together in the way the world is connected together [Fodor]
3981 Most psychological properties seem to be multiply realisable [Fodor]
3982 How could the extrinsic properties of thoughts supervene on their intrinsic properties? [Fodor]
2604 We must have expressive power BEFORE we learn language [Fodor]
5498 Mind is a set of hierarchical 'homunculi', which are made up in turn from subcomponents [Fodor, by Lycan]
7326 Intentionality doesn't go deep enough to appear on the physicists' ultimate list of things [Fodor]
7014 A particle and a coin heads-or-tails pick out to perfectly well-defined predicates and properties [Fodor]
15494 We can't use propositions to explain intentional attitudes, because they would need explaining [Fodor]
2990 Contrary to commonsense, most of what is in the mind seems to be unlearned [Fodor]
2991 Hume's associationism offers no explanation at all of rational thought [Fodor]
2992 We may be able to explain rationality mechanically [Fodor]
2993 Any piece of software can always be hard-wired [Fodor]
2994 In CRTT thought may be represented, content must be [Fodor]
2995 Supervenience gives good support for mental causation [Fodor]
2996 Mental states may have the same content but different extensions [Fodor]
2998 Grice thinks meaning is inherited from the propositional attitudes which sentences express [Fodor]
2999 Obsession with narrow content leads to various sorts of hopeless anti-realism [Fodor]
3000 Meaning holism is a crazy doctrine [Fodor]
3002 If mind is just physical, how can it follow the rules required for intelligent thought? [Fodor]
3001 Behaviourism has no theory of mental causation [Fodor]
3003 Very different mental states can share their contents, so content doesn't seem to be constructed from functional role [Fodor]
3004 The meaning of a sentence derives from its use in expressing an attitude [Fodor]
3005 'Jocasta' needs to be distinguished from 'Oedipus's mother' because they are connected by different properties [Fodor]
3006 Whatever in the mind delivers falsehood is parasitic on what delivers truth [Fodor]
3007 Many different verification procedures can reach 'star', but it only has one semantic value [Fodor]
3008 Evolution suggests that innate knowledge of human psychology would be beneficial [Fodor]
3009 Sticklebacks have an innate idea that red things are rivals [Fodor]
3010 Belief and desire are structured states, which need mentalese [Fodor]
3011 Causal powers must be a crucial feature of mental states [Fodor]
3012 Do identical thoughts have identical causal roles? [Fodor]
2988 Folk psychology is the only explanation of behaviour we have [Fodor]
3135 Is thought a syntactic computation using representations? [Fodor, by Rey]
2985 Are beliefs brains states, but picked out at a "higher level"? [Lyons on Fodor]
2983 Maybe narrow content is physical, broad content less so [Lyons on Fodor]
15473 How does anything get outside itself? [Fodor, by Martin,CB]
2981 Is intentionality outwardly folk psychology, inwardly mentalese? [Lyons on Fodor]