19 ideas
| 12619 | We have no successful definitions, because they all use indefinable words [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: There are practically no defensible examples of definitions; for all the examples we've got, practically all the words (/concepts) are undefinable. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (Concepts:where cogn.science went wrong [1998], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: I don't think a definition has to be defined all the way down. Aristotle is perfectly happy if you can get a concept you don't understand down to concepts you do. Understanding is the test, not further definitions. |
| 12620 | If 'exist' is ambiguous in 'chairs and numbers exist', that mirrors the difference between chairs and numbers [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: People say 'exist' is ambiguous, because of the difference between 'chairs exist' and 'numbers exist'. A reply goes: the difference between the existence of chairs and the existence of numbers is strikingly like the difference between chairs and numbers. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (Concepts:where cogn.science went wrong [1998], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: To say 'numbers are objects which exist' is, to me, either a funny use of 'exist' or a funny use of 'object'. I think I will now vote for the latter. Just as 'real number' was a funny use of 'number', but we seem to have got used to it. |
| 12613 | Empiricists use dispositions reductively, as 'possibility of sensation' or 'possibility of experimental result' [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: Using dispositional analyses in aid of ontological reductions is what empiricism taught us. If you are down on cats, reduce them to permanent possibilities of sensation; if you are down on electrons, reduce them to possibilities of experimental outcome. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (Concepts:where cogn.science went wrong [1998], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: The cats line is phenomenalism; the electrons line is instrumentalism. I like this as a serious warning about dispositions, even where they seem most plausible, as in the disposition of glass to break when struck. Why is it thus disposed? |
| 12617 | Associationism can't explain how truth is preserved [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: The essential problem is to explain how thinking manages reliably to preserve truth; and Associationism, as Kant rightly pointed out to Hume, hasn't the resources to do so. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (Concepts:where cogn.science went wrong [1998], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: One might be able to give an associationist account of truth-preservation if one became a bit more externalist about it, so that the normal association patterns track their connections with the external world. |
| 2534 | Mindless bodies are zombies, bodiless minds are ghosts [Sturgeon] |
| Full Idea: When bodies are conceived without mind, Zombies are the topic; when mind is conceived without bodies, Ghosts are the topic. | |
| From: Scott Sturgeon (Matters of Mind [2000], Intro) | |
| A reaction: Personally I am not too impressed by either possibility. I doubt whether either of them are even logically possible. Can you have a magnet without its magnetism? Can you have magnetism with no magnet? |
| 2537 | Types are properties, and tokens are events. Are they split between mental and physical, or not? [Sturgeon] |
| Full Idea: The question is whether mental and physical types (which are properties) are distinct, and whether mental and physical tokens (which are events) are distinct. | |
| From: Scott Sturgeon (Matters of Mind [2000], Intro) | |
| A reaction: Helpful. While the first one gives us the rather dodgy notion of 'property dualism', the second one seems to imply Cartesian dualism, if the events really are distinct. It seems to me that thought is an aspect of brain events, not a distinct event. |
| 2532 | Intentionality isn't reducible, because of its experiential aspect [Sturgeon] |
| Full Idea: The link between Aboutness and consciousness, plus the latter's theoretical recalcitrance, have prevented reduction of the former. | |
| From: Scott Sturgeon (Matters of Mind [2000], Intro) | |
| A reaction: I remain unconvinced that Aboutness (intentionality) has to be wholly (or even partly conscious). We are more interested in our conscious mental states, because those are the ones we can report to other people, and discuss. |
| 2533 | Rule-following can't be reduced to the physical [Sturgeon] |
| Full Idea: If you can't squeeze an 'ought' from an 'is', then the feature of normativity will prevent the reduction of Aboutness. | |
| From: Scott Sturgeon (Matters of Mind [2000], Intro) | |
| A reaction: A dubious argument. Hume's point is that no rational inference will get you from is to ought, but you can get there on a whim. I don't see normativity as being so intrinsically magical that it is irreducible. |
| 2535 | The main argument for physicalism is its simple account of causation [Sturgeon] |
| Full Idea: The dominant empirical argument for physicalism is the Overdetermination Argument: physics is closed and complete, mind is causally efficacious, the world isn't choc-full of overdetermination, so the mind is physical as well. | |
| From: Scott Sturgeon (Matters of Mind [2000], Intro) | |
| A reaction: I find this argument utterly convincing. The idea that there is only one thing which is outside the interconnected causal nexus which seems to constitute the rest of reality, and that is a piece of meat inside our heads, strikes me as totally ridiculous. |
| 12615 | Mental representations are the old 'Ideas', but without images [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: The idea that there are mental representations is the idea that there are Ideas minus the idea that Ideas are images. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (Concepts:where cogn.science went wrong [1998], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: Good for you, Fodor. I've always thought that the vociferous contempt with which modern philosphers refer to the old notion of 'Ideas' was grossly exaggerated. At last someone puts a clear finger on what seems to be the difficulty. |
| 2536 | Do facts cause thoughts, or embody them, or what? [Sturgeon] |
| Full Idea: Does a thought relate to its truth conditions like a tree to its age, a bee dance to its target, or smoke to its cause? | |
| From: Scott Sturgeon (Matters of Mind [2000], Intro) | |
| A reaction: Nice question. Is truth the purpose of thoughts, or the cause of thoughts, or the constitution(?) of thoughts? I vote for the bee….but we mustn't confuse truth with truth-conditions. |
| 6650 | Fodor is now less keen on the innateness of concepts [Fodor, by Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Fodor has recently changed his mind about the innateness of concepts, which he formerly championed. | |
| From: report of Jerry A. Fodor (Concepts:where cogn.science went wrong [1998]) by E.J. Lowe - Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind Ch.7 n25 | |
| A reaction: There is some sensible middle road to be charted here. We presumably do not have an innate idea of a screwdriver, but there are plenty of basic concepts in logic and perception that are plausibly thought of as innate. |
| 12618 | It is essential to the concept CAT that it be satisfied by cats [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: Nothing in any mental life could be the concept CAT unless it is satisfied by cats. If you haven't got a concept that applies to cats, that entails that you haven't got the CAT concept. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (Concepts:where cogn.science went wrong [1998], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: Of course, having a concept that applies to cats doesn't entail that you have the CAT concept. Quine's 'gavagai', for example. I think Fodor is right in this idea. |
| 12614 | I prefer psychological atomism - that concepts are independent of epistemic capacities [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: I argue for a very strong version of psychological atomism; one according to which what concepts you have is conceptually and metaphysically independent of what epistemic capacities you have. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (Concepts:where cogn.science went wrong [1998], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: This is a frontal assault on the tradition of Frege, Dummett and Peacocke. I immediately find Fodor's approach more congenial, because he wants to say what a concept IS, rather than just place it within some larger scheme of things. |
| 12621 | Definable concepts have constituents, which are necessary, individuate them, and demonstrate possession [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: The definition theory says that concepts are complex structures which entail their constituents. By saying this, it guarantees both the connection between content and necessity, and the connection between concept individuation and concept possession. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (Concepts:where cogn.science went wrong [1998], Ch.5) | |
| A reaction: He cites Pinker as a spokesman for the definitional view. This is the view Fodor attacks, in favour of his atomistic account. He adds in a note that his view also offered to reduce conceptual truth to logical truth. |
| 12622 | Many concepts lack prototypes, and complex prototypes aren't built from simple ones [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: Many concepts have no prototypes; and there are many complex concepts whose prototypes aren't related to the prototypes of their constituents in the way compositional explanation of productivity and systematicity requires. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (Concepts:where cogn.science went wrong [1998], Ch.5) | |
| A reaction: His favourite example of the latter is 'pet fish', where the prototype of 'pet' is hardly ever a fish, and the prototype of 'fish' is usually much bigger than goldfish. Fodor is arguing that concepts are atomic. |
| 12623 | The theory theory can't actually tell us what concepts are [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: If the theory theory has a distinctive and coherent answer to the 'What's a concept?' question on offer, it's a well-kept secret. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (Concepts:where cogn.science went wrong [1998], Ch.5) | |
| A reaction: Not an argument, but worth recording as an attitude. I certainly agree that accounts which offer some sort of answer to 'What is a concept?' have an immediate head's start on those which don't. |
| 12616 | English has no semantic theory, just associations between sentences and thoughts [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: English has no semantics. Learning English isn't learning a theory about what its sentences mean, it's learning how to associate its sentences with the corresponding thoughts. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (Concepts:where cogn.science went wrong [1998], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: This sounds remarkably close to John Locke's account of language (which I always thought was seriously underrated). Presumably we can then say that the 'thought' (or Locke's 'idea') is the meaning, which is old-fashioned real meanings. |
| 5994 | Is the cosmos open or closed, mechanical or teleological, alive or inanimate, and created or eternal? [Robinson,TM, by PG] |
| Full Idea: The four major disputes in classical cosmology were whether the cosmos is 'open' or 'closed', whether it is explained mechanistically or teleologically, whether it is alive or mere matter, and whether or not it has a beginning. | |
| From: report of T.M. Robinson (Classical Cosmology (frags) [1997]) by PG - Db (ideas) | |
| A reaction: A nice summary. The standard modern view is closed, mechanistic, inanimate and non-eternal. But philosophers can ask deeper questions than physicists, and I say we are entitled to speculate when the evidence runs out. |