Mente e linguaggio

by Jerry A. Fodor, Francesco Ferretti (Editor)

Organizzati secondo un criterio cronologico e concettuale, i contributi di Jerry A. Fodor presentati in questa raccolta affrontano alcune delle questioni più scottanti della filosofia della mente e della scienza cognitiva contemporanee.

Genres: Philosophy, Linguistics, Nonfiction, Language, Psychology

260 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1975

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

[Stefan Ghita · Rating 4 out of 5]

Una serie di Saggi che consentono di mettere a fuoco il pensiero di Fodor (vero simp di Noam). Visto che non vorrei cadere in tecnicismi idioti (tipo la questione dell'assimetria casuale per giustificare il realismo intenzionale e dare una risposta sensata al problema di Brentano. Btw per quanto riguarda l'intenzionalità sto dalla parte di Dennett, Jerry è troppo artificioso).
Ah una cosa ai filosofi del linguaggio:
-USATE quel ca**o di Rasoio:

Se pensate che le "intensioni sono opere del demonio" (O.V.Quine) allora facciamo che tra senso/riferimento, intensione/estensione, contenuto stretto/largo che, sono concetti che denotano la stessa cosa (circa eh, perché ovviante non esiste sinonimia perfetta... ecc...ecc...ecc), scegliamo solo una coppia da usare. Grazie

[Bhzaman664gmail.Com · Rating 4 out of 5]

i want to read now

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

He's right. About quite a bit.