The Mind Doesn't Work That Way: The Scope and Limits of Computational Psychology

by Jerry A. Fodor

In this engaging book, Jerry Fodor argues against the widely held view that mental processes are largely computations, that the architecture of cognition is massively modular, and that the explanation of our innate mental structure is basically Darwinian. Although Fodor has praised the computational theory of mind as the best theory of cognition that we have got, he considers it to be only a fragment of the truth. In fact, he claims, cognitive scientists do not really know much yet about how the mind works (the book's title refers to Steve Pinker's How the Mind Works).

Fodor's primary aim is to explore the relationship among computational and modular theories of mind, nativism, and evolutionary psychology. Along the way, he explains how Chomsky's version of nativism differs from that of the widely received New Synthesis approach. He concludes that although we have no grounds to suppose that most of the mind is modular, we have no idea how nonmodular cognition could work. Thus, according to Fodor, cognitive science has hardly gotten started.

Genres: Philosophy, Psychology, Science, Neuroscience, Nonfiction, Linguistics

144 pages, Paperback

First published July 24, 2000

About the author

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.

Reviews

[Billie Pritchett · Rating 5 out of 5]

Okay, here's the quick-and-dirty to Jerry Fodor's The Mind Doesn't Work That Way. Fodor argues that this dominant view in psychology, that the mind is set up as a bunch of little subsystems, like little boxes or modules, is a false picture of the mind because basically it's not clear how any of these modules would share information with one another or revise themselves on the basis of new information. Let me try to make this clear.

Imagine you've got your mind set up along the lines that a lot of people believe it is these days in cognitive science. You got your little box for language, your box for interpreting music and rhythm, your box for understanding human and animal behavior, etc. Now, if the brain were just this series of boxes geared toward specific tasks, it's not clear (a) how information gets sorted into these boxes, (b) how the boxes communicate with one another, and (c) how your beliefs change.

Here's an illustration. Think about Newton who one day asked the question, Why do objects fall down instead of up? Before Newton, the best theory going was Aristotle's, which said that objects just like to be close to the ground. Or if that seems a little too odd to you, imagine your uneducated ancestor saying, "Because that's just what they do." It's because Newton was curious about something that seemed so simple and obvious that a host of other questions and ideas came up, and then we eventually get the law of gravity, which not only explains why objects fall down, but why planets orbit and tides move, to name a few examples.

Consider that computational picture is correct, that we just have a bunch of little boxes in our minds, and Newton's mind was so different. Then how in the heck did Newton infer the law of gravity? What allowed for that change of thought, or that line of reasoning? The best answer is that there are capacities that we human beings have that just can't be compartmentalized as little subsystems, that must operate across subsystems and allow for revision of belief, otherwise we couldn't do this kind of science or rational inquiry.

And that's the book in a nutshell.

[Omer · Rating 5 out of 5]

פודור הוא הפילוסוף עם הכתיבה הכי טובה שאני מכיר אולי חוץ מלואיס. חוץ מזה הוא גם משכנע. אבל ממליץ לקרוא את המאמר של לודוויג ושניידר שמבקר את הטיעון מתוך התכונות הגלובליות נגד CToM מ2008.

[Jake · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't really like Philosophy of Mind because its claims are largely inane. But I do like it when someone takes a grounded serious stock of current models of cognition and tells exactly what they can and can't plausibly do. Fodor does that here.

[Csaba · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most important books about cognitive science, especially in this current era of machine learning madness. It reminds us about the limits of our current understanding and urges us to be humble.

[Anu Migom Panging · Rating 4 out of 5]

At this weird place where I don't know whether I like Fodor because I find his ideas insightful or I like him because of the way he writes. Interesting read nonetheless.

[Yates Buckley · Rating 5 out of 5]

An important book in that the author raises some significant objections to basic assumptions we make in studying the processes and mechanics of thinking. These assumptions lead to even more significant contradictions in the public understanding of “intelligence” as being something tranferable and objective.

An important book to keep in mind while trying to crack the scientific methods to match investigating cognition.

[Ushan · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is supposed to be a refutation of Steven Pinker's How the Mind Works. The prose is heavy, but if I understood it correctly, Fodor argues that the mind cannot be a Turing machine because the mind performs abduction and a Turing machine cannot do it. Sorry, but it can: search for " Abductive Constraint Logic Programming"!