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.