green numbers give full details | back to texts | unexpand these ideas
| 8090 | Since the language of thought is the same for all, it must be something like logical form |
| Full Idea: Fodor and Jackendorff argue that since the internal language of thought, or conceptual structure, has to be more or less the same for all people, of whatever language, it will surely be something like logical form. | |||
| From: report of Jerry A. Fodor (The Language of Thought [1975]) by Keith Devlin - Goodbye Descartes Ch.8 | |||
| A reaction: The discovery (by, e.g., Frege and Russell) that there is something called 'logical form', which we can track down and represent in precise and fairly unambiguous symbolism, may be one of the greatest of all human discoveries. Perhaps. |
| 11143 | If concept-learning is hypothesis-testing, that needs innate concepts to get started |
| Full Idea: Fodor argues that virtually all lexical concepts are innate, because most models of learning treat concept-learning as hypothesis testing, but that invariably employs the very concept to be learned. | |||
| From: report of Jerry A. Fodor (The Language of Thought [1975]) by E Margolis/S Laurence - Concepts 3.3 | |||
| A reaction: The obvious response is to reject the theory which gave rise to this difficulty. I take concept formation to be a fairly mechanical and barely conscious response to environment, not a process of fully rational and conscious hypothesising. |