LOT 2: The Language of Thought Revisited

by Jerry A. Fodor

Jerry Fodor presents a new development of his famous Language of Thought hypothesis, which has since the 1970s been at the centre of interdisciplinary debate about how the mind works. Fodor defends and extends the groundbreaking idea that thinking is couched in a symbolic system realized in the brain. This idea is central to the representational theory of mind which Fodor has established as a key reference point in modern philosophy, psychology, and cognitive science. The foundation stone of our present cognitive science is Turing's suggestion that cognitive processes are not associations but computations; and computation requires a language of thought.

So the latest on the Language of Thought hypothesis, from its progenitor, promises to be a landmark in the study of the mind. LOT 2 offers a more cogent presentation and a fuller explication of Fodor's distinctive account of the mind, with various intriguing new features. The central role of compositionality in the representational theory of mind is most of what we know about concepts follows from the compositionality of thoughts. Fodor shows the necessity of a referentialist account of the content of intentional states, and of an atomistic account of the individuation of concepts. Not least among the new developments is Fodor's identification and persecution of pragmatism as the leading source of error in the study of the mind today.

LOT 2 sees Fodor advance undaunted towards the ultimate goal of a theory of the cognitive mind, and in particular a theory of the intentionality of cognition. No one who works on the mind can ignore Fodor's views, expressed in the coruscating and provocative style which has delighted and disconcerted countless readers over the years.

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

240 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2008

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 4 out of 5]

Jerry Fodor's book is relevant for people interested in philosophy and linguistics. One of Fodor's interesting speculations is that a language of thought exists that precedes any actual language. This language is sometimes called Mentalese, and another way to conceive of it is as Universal Grammar (UG), the initial biological state of a human being prior to the acquisition of a particular language. This Mentalese takes primitive concepts and merges or arranges them through some kind of syntactic computation. This theory begs the question as to how concepts are acquired in the first place, since without concepts internal to the mind/brain how could concepts be arranged and subsequently be paired with lexical items ('words,' more or less)? Fodor's proposal is that humans perceive objects and events as stereotypical or prototypical instances of a certain class, and in some complex (neurological?) fashion classifies these objects as concepts. Once these concepts begin to be acquired, others could also be acquired at greater levels of abstraction (e.g. GOVERNMENT, HAPPINESS, etc.). Some account like this must be true, or else what is the alternative? I would recommend the book, if only for Fodor's conversational writing style and clear expression of thought.

[Matej · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think there are a number of faults with this book - what appear to me to be crucial points of argument (e.g. the issue of normativity of reference) are often skimmed over without much elaboration. But one thing is certain - Fodor is having a lot of fun writing this book, and I as a reader was having fun too. Whether right or wrong, this is a thoroughly enjoyable piece of philosophical writing.

[Slow Reader · Rating 5 out of 5]

Scintillating, funny, thought provoking --a Cartesian-Chomskyian-Turingian anti-pragmatist perspective that takes multiple shots at Davidson, McDowell, Sellars, Skinner, Wittgenstein, Quine, Ryle, Brandom etc in the name of naturalizing intentional psychology, more or less, under a computational theory of mind (one that is reductionist--NOT the eliminative connectionist stuff we see with Friston et al). One major thesis is "the semantics of thought is prior to the semantics of language" p. 198, another is "Mental processes are computations defined over the constituent structure of mental representations" p. 106, and yet another is "[...] (at least some) mental representations are language-like" all in the name of arguing, inter alia, for a Pylyshyn-like holism in which the posession conditions for concepts *must compose*--contra sorting, or any other epistemic benchmark, which cannot be constitutive of concept possession because they depend on norms and norms aren't compositional. Some things are Uber-persuasive, others seem rushed (it's a short book!).

The dialogical device is really effective and picking up the pace when things get bogged down...

Snark: Is this the end of your "review"?

Reviewer: I suppose so, what more should I say?

Snark: You could at least give some assessment of how it stands in relation to other texts in the field.

Reviewer: I'm drowsy, it's after midnight, and I'm not sure that would really add anything of value.

Snark: I for one hope you get back to it first thing tomorrow morning.

Reviewer: Don't hold your breath.

[Kevin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jerry Fodor's damn smart, at times smart enough to make his theories apply across languages as opposed to his basic arguments within English. Can an imprecise structure like English inform the basic practices of thought? I was skeptical. Fodor demands his cake and eats it, and remains aligned with Chomsky. What does Ray Jackendoff think? An ingenious pairing with Zenon Pylyshyn at Rutgers.

[Gareth Williams · Rating 1 out of 5]

Playful, but sadly for my starting point, incomprehensible.

[Anu Migom Panging · Rating 5 out of 5]

"And so forth. I’d be very surprised if there aren’t many other things that most philosophers and cognitive scientists believe but that a serious, naturalizable, computational version of RTM would refute.

Snark. If only we had one.
Author. If only we had one."

[damian k · Rating 4 out of 5]

obrona nieskonceptualizowanych reprezentacji zarabia dodatkowe serduszko <3

[endofunctress ☭ · Rating 4 out of 5]

THIS is how you write a book on Philosophy. Jerry Fodor, king of don't care + didn't ask + ratio.

[Özgür · Rating 1 out of 5]

Gibberish. Fodor could've chosen a different path of career. I'd suggest him the comedy.