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2 ideas
12640 | Associative thinking avoids syntax, but can't preserve sense, reference or truth [Fodor] |
Full Idea: The virtue of associative theories of thinking is that they don't require thoughts to have syntactic structure. But they can't be right, since association doesn't preserve either sense or reference (to say nothing of truth). | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (LOT 2 [2008], Ch.3.3 n28) | |
A reaction: This is using the empiricist idea that knowledge is built from mechanical associations to give a complete account of what thinking is. Fodor resolutely opposes it. |
12641 | Connectionism gives no account of how constituents make complex concepts [Fodor] |
Full Idea: Connectionist architectures provide no counterpart to the relation between a complex concept and its constituents. | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (LOT 2 [2008], Ch.3.3 n29) | |
A reaction: This is the compositionality of thought, upon which Fodor is so insistent. Not that a theory of how the mind is built up from the body is quite likely to give you a theory about what thinking is. I try to keep them separate, which may be wrong. |