It pays to be unusual.

I thought it'd be nice to take a break from philosophy with a short post on economics.

In economic theory, there is a term called compensating wage differential. It's pretty easy to understand. The idea behind it is that all jobs are are equally attractive to workers in the long run because of a difference in wage rate.

Obviously this excludes some major factors. For one, you need a degree, or even an MBA to even be considered for most high-paying jobs in corporate America. So we are taking a narrow view of economics when we are talking about compensating wage differentials. Instead of comparing broad market fields like being a doctor in New York with a drug runner from Colombia, we compare jobs like window washing.

In window washing markets, the compensating wage differential is, for example, the difference in a pay check a sky-scraper window washer receives compared to a ground-level washer. In the long run, the window washer for the Empire State building or the Sears Tower makes considerably more. Obvious, huh?

So here's the point, as I wrote in the title, it pays to be unusual. Think about unusual tastes you might have. A addiction to danger is perhaps the best. If you have no fear of heights, you might find window-washing skyscrapers nets you more money than your current job - even if you have a degree! Robert Hall of Stanford writes,

"One implication of compensating wage differentials is that workers with unusual tastes often have a monetary advantage in the labor markets... ...if you like the frigid winter weather in Alaska, if you like washing windows on the 90th floor, or if you think it would be fun to defend the cigarette industry in the media, you can earn a higher wage by putting your somewhat unusual tastes to work."

~ Hall, Robert. Microeconomics: Principles and Applications. Thomson: South-Western Publishers. 2008. Page 369.

Damn straight. Nonmonetary job characteristics often manifest themselves in big paychecks. If you have seen Thank You For Smoking you know the kind of flexible morals are required for a tobacco lobbyist. I remember reading in National Geographic that oil pipeline maintenance workers in Alaska make upward of $200,000 a Summer (read: four months of work) for even the lowest position. But you need to have balls of steel and a penchant for -60º F weather and tolerate the fact that liquor is strictly forbidden and no one sells alcohol within 1000 miles anyways. Think about that for a Summer job.

After Mental

Fodor's Hume Variations, chapter 6 part A

So we have made it to the third post. I have skipped chapters one, three, four, and five and jump ahead. Way ahead. In fact, chapter six is titled 'Conclusion'. So yeah, we're wrapping it up with Fodor pretty quickly. There will be one more post, part B of chapter six, and then I will have typed enough so that we can begin discussing.

Chapter six is Fodor defending the theses that we are both born with a few innate ideas and the rest of our ideas are copies from impressions. The basic idea of language - not specific words or even a certain language, but the fact of speech - is an example of an innate idea. Why is it innate? Because, according to Chomsky, Pinker and others, there is a special part of the brain dedicated to providing language in order to form concepts. In other words, language precedes concepts! Notice that basic mental states, discussed in the previous post, is relegated to a category called non-conceptual content. Information-in-itself is nonconceptual as well, but information (i.e., language) must be attained before concepts can be attached to them.

This, of course, runs against the grain of nearly every philosopher in history. Ryle, Stroud, Kant, the Pragmatist tradition, Wittgenstein. But, as Hume said, we must proportion our belief to the evidence and when a scientific truth is contrary to a philosophical scruple, the scruple must be abandoned - no matter how much we might wish the opposite. The simple fact is that the last fifty years of cognitive science has been slowly migrating away from external-to-the-internal theory. Fodor is giving philosophy a good updating. Now on to the chapter.

Fodor proposes Propositional Attitudism: if 'x' thinks then 'x' has productive, compositional thought; he also proposes Propositional Attitude Realism: the mind interacts with the world by mental events being causally efficacious on the world and other ideas; and, finally, he proposes Dispositional Causation: the mind interacts with the world by havin a disposition to act or think in a way 'x' (or in circumstances 's') when one has a belief 'y'.

Chapter six also has many contraries that Fodor takes time to rebut. We won't get to all of them here. The one contrary that is worth mentioning is the argument against Dispositional Causation.

P(1): If one's action or thought is predisposed by having a belief and one's belief is predisposed by one's action or thought, then dispositions explain occurrences of events only by virtue of other dispositions. P & Q -> R
P(2): However, dispositions cannot explain dispositions that explain occurences of events, only causes can do that.
C: Therefore, Dispositional Causation cannot explain event occurances.

Fodor responds against the second premise: Dispositions explained by other dispositions can explain occurrences of events if events are explained in terms of hypothetical. e (event caused) -> (M1 -> M2) (mental states)

Fodor lists a rebuttal to his response against premise two: Events are not hypothetical but real occurances. e -> M1 -> M2!

That is where I leave you for now. Fodor is becoming very convincing. However, Fodor cannot (or, at least, does not) answer his final rebuttal. Unsatisfying, isn't it? Join me next Friday for the exciting conclusion!

After Nonconcepts

Chapter 2b on Nonconceptual Content

In the second half of chapter 2, Jerry Fodor responds to arguments for nonconceptual contents (read: a way of representing the world without meeting conditions for concept, a normative condition for intentional mental states including structure, compositionality, internal consistency, determinateness, abstract, categorization and belief. Nonconceptual content as a mental state, of course, opposes the Theory of Ideas that Fodor so dearly loves. The reason for this being - if nonconceptual content is within the bounds of thought, then thought is governed by the immaterial as well as the material.

Fodor lists three cases for nonconceptual content. The second, on phenomenal experience, is/was my personal objection.

Belief Independence Argument:

P(1): Concepts are belief-based.
P(2): Informational states are independent from belief.
C: Therefore, informational states are nonconceptual.

Fodor responds: Informational states do not constitute thought. So while informational states are nonconceptual, thought is not constituted by nonconceptual content. Fodor thus appeases the proof against him and eats his cake as well. Fodor lists a dot-psychology test from the 1970's as strong evidence. We will not get into that here.

Enrichment Argument:

P(1): Our phenomenal experience has more content than is/can be determinately identified.
C: Therefore, our phenomenal experience has nonconceptual content.

Fodor responds: Quite simply, nonconceptual content can be determinately identified demonstratively.

Continuity Argument:

P(1): Adult humans and non-linguistic animals share the same content.
P(2): Adult humans have beliefs but animals do not.
C: Therefore, adult humans and animals share content that does not require beliefs.

For this final argument Fodor has no response. Well, I lied, Fodor has no immediate response. In fact, the rest of the book is a response to this argument and for that you will have to wait until next time.

After Concepts

Fodor's Hume Variations, Chapter 2a

Readers of current analytic philosophy will be familiar with Jerry Fodor and his cogently-argued book, Hume Variations. Though I disagree with Fodor's brand of materialism, I believe the Rutgers professor delivers near-death blows to metaphysics. In the upcoming I will be working with each chapter of Fodor. Breaking down his arguments and, possibly, expounding upon each of them. Hopefully any readers will find this interesting enough to discuss. My advance apologies to a certain professor of mine for stealing some of his notes. When I will plagiarize him, I plagiarize him out of respect and time.

The goal of this will be discussion and argumentation between any readers. Today I'm going to begin most un-interestingly with the first part of Chapter 2. (I am skipping Chapter 1, let us say, to suffice, that Fodor finds both Cartesian and Pragmatist ideas faulty. But that the school of David Hume and the Theory of Ideas, ultimately, bears fruit; Wittgenstein's language arguments, ultimately, gone astray. You can find Fodor's argument for the Theory of Ideas and his analysis of Wittgenstein's private language argument, which Fodor still checks back with from time to time, in the comment section of this post).

In the first part of Chapter 2, Fodor launches an attack on British Empiricism, namely, Hume's copy theory. For reference sake, you can find Hume's copy theory in Enquiries Concerning Human Understanding.

P(1): If Ideas (read: concepts) are copies of Impressions, then Ideas and Impressions have the same kind of structure. P = > Q
P(2): Ideas and Impressions do not have the same kind of structure. ~ P
C: Therefore, Ideas are not copies of Impressions. ~ Q

Obviously this destroys 18th century British Empiricism. Fodor supports the controversial second premise with ten reasons:

a) Perceptions are passive. We cannot will the perception, we can will the concept.
b) Impressions do not have structural rapport from the world to lend to concept structures.
c) To say opposite of Premise 2 would commit a grave categorical mistake: concepts have canonical decomposition.
d) Impressions are iconic, concepts are discursive.
e) Impressions are sometimes segmented but remain simple as concept. A concept of a watch is simple, but the impression is complex - a watch has many parts.
f) Segmentation of Impressions are under-determined. An impression of virtue from a particular scenario gives conception of virtue that can apply to any given situation. If Hume was right, our impression of virtue from a particular scenario would only be conceptually applied to that particular scene. (i.e., A "virtuous" situation of a guy giving a starving man a sandwich would dictate that we would only call guys giving sandwiches away as virtuous. There is no strong method to apply universal concepts.)
g) Gestalt psychology. Need I say more?
h) Impressions are of the world, not the world.
i) Phenomena is abstract; noumena is particular.
j) Concepts have content, some Impressions have "pre-conceptual" content.

Sounds good to me; this is what two hundred post-Humean years have offered. At this point, Fodor is seemingly contradicting his own position. If he is for the Theory of Ideas why the fuck does he demolish it? Fodor explains that while copy theory is necessary to Hume's epistemology, cognitive psychology may dispense with it how it wilt.

Fodor makes a final move, making a case (albeit, a shorter one) for Hume.

P(1): If concepts are not copies of impressions, then concepts are innate. ~ P => Q
P(2): Concepts are not innate. ~ Q
C: Therefore, concepts are copies of impressions. .`. P

So now we have contradicted ourselves here. One argument leads us against Hume, another for him. I might raise issue with Premise 2 of the second argument, seeing how it is shown inductively. Hume probably would not like the position he has found himself in, nor how history has treated him. In a letter to his publisher a year before his death, Hume wrote candidly, "But it will happen to me as to many other writers: Though I have reached considerable age, I shall not live to see any justice done to me." I do not think, even if he were still alive, he could have seen it.

Regardless, we can detect the moves Fodor is making, especially because argument two's second premise is so weak. I believe we are going to see Hume in the future.