[Wittrs] Re: Meaning, Intent and Reference (Parsing Fodor?)

  • From: "jrstern" <jrstern@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Thu, 11 Feb 2010 01:52:14 -0000

--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "SWM" <SWMirsky@...> wrote:
>
> So what's the Fodor theory of meaning in a nutshell?

That would be telling!

And it would have to be a rather large nutshell.

The short version is that there must be a "language of thought",
Wittgenstein to the contrary, and that the formal (aka computational)
and semantic (aka conceptual) aspects of that language are a "dual
aspect all the way down".

I would not really want to endorse this as such, without some major
revisions.  Fodor does NOT want to reduce the semantic to the "formal"
(which I keep putting in quotes because Fodor says he does not really
know what it means either, and I think his choice of terms is very
misleading).  I *do* want to reduce the semantic, such as it is, to
the computational (which is not just "formal" in any common sense of
that term).  But the computational must still preserve much of the
"semantics" as it has long been known.  It's a challenge, it's been
a challenge since Descartes, or Epicurus, but hey we finally got
Democritus' atoms down a few years ago, so maybe we'll get this down
sometime, too.

BTW, I just opened up the issue of the journal Mind from July 2009,
and the first two papers are rather interesting to me, regarding
deflationary theories of truth and a "disjunction of semantics and
ontology", going back to Chomsky.  I think there has been a change
in the prevailing tenor of the articles published, and there may be
a new consensus developing about the roles of logic and semantics
in philosophy of mind.  Indeed, it may have been forming over the
last ten to twenty-five years, and is just now finally pulling ahead
of the (atavistic) competition.

In the last pages of Fodor's newest, LOT 2, he repeats what he has
long said, along the lines of that he seeks a causal, naturalized
theory of mind (but does not expect one by next Tuesday).

In both Fodor's goal and in the developing consensus, a LOT of the
conventional terms are "dissolved", as a Wittgensteinian might
appreciate.  There is a LOT of "meaning is use" in it, and I think
also a push towards the computational side that I keep trying to
work.  Give it another ten, twenty years and we may get a clear
picture where it is all going.  Maybe I'll get something drafted
and submitted by then!

Josh


=========================================
Need Something? Check here: http://ludwig.squarespace.com/wittrslinks/

Other related posts:

  1. Home
  2. wittrsamr
  3. Archive
  4. 02-2010