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!