Jerry A. Fodor’s Followers (87)

Jerry A. Fodor

Born

in New York City, New York, The United States

April 22, 1935

Died

November 29, 2017

Website

http://ruccs.rutgers.edu/faculty/Fodor/cv.html

Genre

Philosophy, Nonfiction, Science

Influences

Hilary Putnam, Sydney Morgenbesser, Jerome Bruner, Franz Joseph Gall, ...more

edit data

Jerry Alan Fodor is an American philosopher and cognitive scientist. He is the State of New Jersey Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University and is also the author of many works in the fields of philosophy of mind and cognitive science, in which he has laid the groundwork for the modularity of mind and the language of thought hypotheses, among other ideas. Fodor is of Jewish descent.

Fodor argues that mental states, such as beliefs and desires, are relations between individuals and mental representations. He maintains that these representations can only be correctly explained in terms of a language of thought (LOT) in the mind. Further, this language of thought itself is an actually existing thing that is codified in the brain and not ju Jerry Alan Fodor is an American philosopher and cognitive scientist. He is the State of New Jersey Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University and is also the author of many works in the fields of philosophy of mind and cognitive science, in which he has laid the groundwork for the modularity of mind and the language of thought hypotheses, among other ideas. Fodor is of Jewish descent.

Fodor argues that mental states, such as beliefs and desires, are relations between individuals and mental representations. He maintains that these representations can only be correctly explained in terms of a language of thought (LOT) in the mind. Further, this language of thought itself is an actually existing thing that is codified in the brain and not just a useful explanatory tool. Fodor adheres to a species of functionalism, maintaining that thinking and other mental processes consist primarily of computations operating on the syntax of the representations that make up the language of thought.

For Fodor, significant parts of the mind, such as perceptual and linguistic processes, are structured in terms of modules, or "organs", which are defined by their causal and functional roles. These modules are relatively independent of each other and of the "central processing" part of the mind, which has a more global and less "domain specific" character. Fodor suggests that the character of these modules permits the possibility of causal relations with external objects. This, in turn, makes it possible for mental states to have contents that are about things in the world. The central processing part, on the other hand, takes care of the logical relations between the various contents and inputs and outputs.

Although Fodor originally rejected the idea that mental states must have a causal, externally determined aspect, he has in recent years devoted much of his writing and study to the philosophy of language because of this problem of the meaning and reference of mental contents. His contributions in this area include the so-called asymmetric causal theory of reference and his many arguments against semantic holism. Fodor strongly opposes reductive accounts of the mind. He argues that mental states are multiply realizable and that there is a hierarchy of explanatory levels in science such that the generalizations and laws of a higher-level theory of psychology or linguistics, for example, cannot be captured by the low-level explanations of the behavior of neurons and synapses. ...more

Combine Editions
Jerry A. Fodor’s books

Average rating: 3.68 · 1,010 ratings · 95 reviews · 26 distinct works • Similar authors

	The Modularity of Mind: An Essay on Faculty Psychology 3.88 avg rating — 248 ratings — published 1982 — 7 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	What Darwin Got Wrong by Jerry A. Fodor, Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini 3.12 avg rating — 176 ratings — published 2010 — 15 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Mind Doesn't Work That Way: The Scope and Limits of Computational Psychology 3.77 avg rating — 137 ratings — published 2000 — 12 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Language of Thought (The Language and Thought Series) 3.76 avg rating — 106 ratings — published 1975 — 11 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	LOT 2: The Language of Thought Revisited 3.80 avg rating — 70 ratings — published 2008 — 10 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Psychosemantics: The Problem of Meaning in the Philosophy of Mind 3.70 avg rating — 53 ratings — published 1987 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Concepts: Where Cognitive Science Went Wrong (Oxford Cognitive Science Series) 3.68 avg rating — 47 ratings — published 1998 — 10 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Elm and the Expert: Mentalese and Its Semantics 3.85 avg rating — 39 ratings — published 1994 — 6 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	RePresentations: Philosophical Essays on the Foundations of Cognitive Science (Bradford Books) 4.18 avg rating — 22 ratings — published 1981 — 5 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Minds Without Meanings: An Essay on the Content of Concepts by Jerry A. Fodor, Zenon W Pylyshyn 3.50 avg rating — 24 ratings — published 2014 — 5 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

More books by Jerry A. Fodor…

Quotes by Jerry A. Fodor (?)

“Self-pity can make one weep, as can onions.”
― Jerry A. Fodor

11 likes

“The sun will rise tomorrow morning; I know that perfectly well. But figuring out how I could know it is, as Hume pointed out, a bit of a puzzle.”
― Jerry A. Fodor

tags: epistemology, hume, knowledge, philosophy

4 likes

“Only a philosopher would consider taking Oedipus as a model for a normal, unproblematic relation between an action and the maxim of the act.”
― Jerry A. Fodor, The Elm and the Expert: Mentalese and Its Semantics

tags: action, oedipus, philosophers

3 likes

See all Jerry A. Fodor's quotes »

Jerry A. Fodor’s Followers (87)

Jerry A. Fodor

Combine EditionsJerry A. Fodor’s books

Combine Editions
Jerry A. Fodor’s books