J. A. Fodor is a philosopher who plumbs the soul's depths. With Grice, 'J. A.
Fodor basically creates the field of "philosophical psychology,"' a colleague
and collaborator says. H. P. Grice and J. A. Fodor are two of the world’s
foremost philosophical psychologists. Fodor brings the workings of computer
technology to bear on ancient Graeco-Roman questions about the structure of
human, shall we say, 'cognition.' Fodor's home is in the Upper West Side, in
Manhattan (Implicature: he loved Italian opera!). A faculty member of Rutgers
University, Fodor is the State of New Jersey professor of philosophy there.
Fodor's oeuvre, dovetailing with logic, semiotics, psychology, anthropology,
computer science, and so-called artificial intelligence is widely credited with
having helped seed the emerging discipline of cognitive science, if not
'philosohpical psychology' (vide Grice, "Method in philosophical psychology:
from the banal to the bizarre." “Fodor basically creates, with Grice, the field
of philosophical psychology,” E. Lepore, of Rutgers and a frequent
collaborator, says. “If the study of the soul has been dominant in the last
years of philosophy, it is really a function of Grice's and Fodor’s influence.”
Both known for his buoyant, puckish, at times pugnacious style, Grice and Fodor
lectured much. Fodor is the author of more than a dozen essays, several
intended for what Grice would call the 'layman' (Vide Grice, "The learned and
the vulgar."). Among the best known of these is “The Modularity of the Soul."
In "The Modularity of the Soul," Fodor argues that the 'soul,' rather than
being a unitary system as was often supposed, comprises a set of inborn,
compartmentalised, purpose-built sub-systems: a faculty for language, another
for musical ability, still another for mathematics, and so on. These faculties
-- there is a Kantian ring to 'faculty' that both Fodor and Grice adore --
Fodor explains, operate by means of abstract algorithms, much as computers do
(Grice abhors computers, though -- vide Haugeland). In setting forth this
model, Fodor marries developments from the midcentury alleged "revolution"
ushered in by A. N. Chomsky to the computer science of the mathematician and
cryptanalyst Alan M. Turing. Perhaps best known of Fodor’s essays intended for
the general reader is “The Modularity of the Soul.” While the brain, a physical
entity, is pretty amenable to study, the 'soul' or to use Grice's term of art,
'personal identity' — an abstract, elusive quarry — is far less so. Questions
about the soul's architecture have occupied philosophers at intervals since
classical antiquity. Plato and Aristotle -- never mind Kantotle -- had much to
say on the subject (Aristotle, and this is Grice's source of inspiration,
compares 'soul' to 'number': it requires a 'gradual' approach). So, more than
two millenniums later, did philosophers like the 17th-century rationalist René
Descartes and the 17th-century empiricist John Locke (Interestingly, while
Grice wrote on "Descartes" in his WoW (Way of Words) he merely delivered the
John Locke lectures -- with a charming proemium, though!) (Grice's "Personal
Identity" is rightly qualified as Lockeian in nature by J. Perry in his
introduction to the compilation reprinting Grice's seminal analysis of the
notion). Such questions — in particular whether cognitive abilities are innate
or must be learned — are taken up again by behavioral psychologists, notably B.
F. Skinner, whose oeuvre, by Fodor’s lights, is a reprehensible thing indeed
(Oddly, A. N. Chomsky found Grice too behaviourist to his taste -- but the
Grice Chomsky is concerned with is the bit reprinted by Searle in "The
philosophy of language," Oxford readings in philosophy -- For a defence of
Grice as an 'intentionalist' rather than a behaviourist, vide Suppes, in P. G.
R. I. C. E., ed. by Grandy and Warner). An ardent empiricist, Skinner
maintains that the human child is born with its 'soul' a blank slate ("tabula
rasa"). As it matures, a spate of mental abilities — language, reason,
problem-solving and much else — is learned through external experience (Turing
has been a source for Grice's functionalism in "Method in philosophical
psychology."). Chomsky, a philosopher (who quotes "H. P. Grice" as "A. P.
Grice" in "Aspects of a theory of syntax") and ardent rationalist at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, aims to demonstrate that language is NOT
learned behaviour, as Skinner believes. Instead, Chomsky aims to show, 'lingo'
is the product of a dedicated faculty of the soul that is inborn — in today’s
parlance, "hard-wired" in. A. N. Chomsky's work, scholars now seem to agree,
vanquishes Skinner-type of behaviourism, especially as far as the study of
'lingo' is concerned (Oddly, Grice never understood why, of all people, his two
mentors had to be Chomsky and Quine -- "whom I never saw agree on ANYTHING!").
Fodor, an equally ardent rationalist, like Grice, who taught for years at
M.I.T. -- hence the early influence of Grice's "Logic and Conversation" Harvard
lectures -- expands Chomsky’s ideas about linguistic innateness to include
aspects of the soul beyond language (Vide D. E. Cooper for a conceptual
analysis of 'innateness' as sometimes misused by Chomsky). Drawing on the work
of A. M. Turing, who develops mathematical models of computation, Fodor
proposes a model of the 'soul' that entails separate faculties — Fodor, a bit
out of nowhere, calls them “modules” — each governing a separate function.
“Faculty psychology,” Fodor notes, “is impressed by such prima facie
differences as between, say, sensation and perception, volition and cognition,
learning and remembering, or language and thought.” This seems like a reasoned
catalogue of Grice's oeuvre: vide Grice, "The Causal Theory of Perception,"
"Intention and Uncertainty," "The Conception of Value." As Lepore points out:
“It’s a very old Kantotelian idea, but for some reason it got lost in the
history of philosophy. And it got resuscitated by folks like Grice and Fodor."
Of all people. (Grice loved the implicatures of 'of all people'). The idea of
'faculty' had fallen into disfavour partly as a result, of all things, of
phrenology, the pseudoscience that sought to divine people’s prowess in given
areas — and by extension their characters — by feeling the bumps on their heads
to find the prominent spots. But if one pared away the bumps and their
touchy-feely characterological connotations, Fodor argues, phrenology’s
underlying premise — that the 'soul' consists of discrete, dedicated faculties
— is worth revisiting. One problem that such a model appears to solve has long
bedeviled psychologists: the question of why one part of or side to the 'soul'
seems disinclined to talk to another (Although Grice thought the 'executive'
side to his soul often disagreed with the 'legislative' side to it. Granted,
Grice is only toying with Davidson on Davidson's too simplistic idea of
'deciding' and 'intending'). “There are different aspects of the 'soul' —
reasoning, language, perception, thought — and they do not communicate very
well, and that is a bit of a shock,” Lepore says (Interestingly, Lepore can
also be spelt (or spelled) "Le Pore"). Consider, e.g. a familiar optical
illusion (that Witters adored) in which lines of equal length are flanked by
inward- or outward-facing arrowheads: Even contemplating it now — though you
have known for years that it is an illusion — you cannot help seeing the lines
as different in length. “That is an example of the perceptual part of or side
to the soul not communicating with the reasoning part of or side to the soul,”
Lepore explains. A model of the organization the soul in which the faculties
are in essence walled off from one another accounts for this, Fodor argues.
“Faculty psychology is getting to be respectable after centuries of hanging
around with phrenologists and other dubious types,” Fodor notes in “The
Modularity of Mind.” (He is using 'type' NOT in Russell's 'sense' -- "My
neighbour's three-year-old child understands Russell's theory of types," to use
Grice's example). (Grice speaks of the 'faculty of reason,' but only because he
is a Kantotelian -- vide J. F. Bennett, "In the tradition of Kantotle). Fodor
likes to qualify. Fodor argues that some functions of the 'soul,' including
language and perception, are modular. Other functions of the soul, like belief,
decision-making and logical inference, operate more, shall we say, broadly. But
Fodor’s words resonate: “A proposed inventory of psychological faculties,”
Fodor notes, “is tantamount to a theory of the structure of the soul.” (This is
almost an etymological point, and why Grice prefers 'soul' (Greek psykhe, Latin
'anima,' to Anglo-Saxon 'mind').
The son of A. Fodor, a research bacteriologist, and Kay Rubens, Jerome Alan
Fodor was born in Manhattan and reared (of all places) in Queens. (Grice loved
the implicatures of 'of all places'). After graduating from Forest Hills High,
Fodor receives a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from Columbia, where he
studies with the philosopher Sidney Morgenbesser -- of 'double negative' fame.
Fodor later earns a Ph.D. in philosophy from Princeton, where he is a disciple
of the philosopher and mathematician Hilary Putnam (of all people). (Actually,
Grice uses 'of all people' of Putnam. "I tended to be very formal, until
Putnam, of all people, reprimanded me by implicating that I was TOO formal.")
Fodor taught at M.I.T. Fodor was at the City University of New York Graduate
Center, before joining Rutgers.Throughout his Rutgers years, Fodor maintains
his residence on the Upper West Side of Manhattan for its proximity to the
Metropolitan Opera, an abiding passion. (The Metropolitan Opera was originally
on Broadway!) (And before that, in Wharton's days, it was the Academy of
Music!). Fodor’s first marriage, to Iris Goldstein, a professor of applied
psychology at New York University, ends in divorce. Besides his spouse, Janet
Dean Fodor, a professor of linguistics at CUNY, Fodor's survivors include a
son, Anthony Fodor, from his first marriage; a daughter, Katherine Fodor, from
his second marriage; and three grandchildren. Fodor's other essays include “The
Structure of Language," co-written with Jerrold J. Katz; “The Language of
Thought;" "Concepts: Where Cognitive Science Goes Wrong," and “The Soul Does
Not Work That Way." Fodor is a regular contributor to The London Review of
Books and The London-based Times Literary Supplement. Fodor's laurels include
Fulbright and Guggenheim fellowships. Like much in philosophy, a field whose
marrow is argument, Fodor’s oeuvre is not without controversy. No essay of
Fodor's engenders more of it than the provocatively titled volume “What Darwin
Gets Wrong," co-written with Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini, a University of
Arizona cognitive scientist, originally from somewhere in Italy. (Grice loved
the implicatures of 'somewhere in...'). In it, Fodor and Piattelli-Palmarini
take on one of evolutionary biology’s (figurative) sacred cows: the concept of
"natural selection." Fodor and Piattelli-Palmarini argue that the alleged
process of 'natural selection,' with its slow incremental changes, may have
little bearing on the development of cognition, or, for that matter, other
features of Homo sapiens, aka Man. “We think that what is needed,” Fodor and
Piattelli-Palmarini note, “is to cut the tree at its roots: to show that
Darwin’s theory of natural selection is, figuratively, fatally flawed.” Fodor
and Piattelli-Palmarini continue, in one of the most damning indictments two
rationalists can make: "We claim that Skinner’s account of learning and
Darwin’s account of evolution are identical in all but name.” The joint essay
looses an uproar among scientists -- and even some Griceian philosophers (Grice
was an evolutionist at heart: "sense data don't nurture us; things do." -- vide
his concepts of 'evolutionary' pirotology in "Method in philosophical
psychology."). The review of the Fodor/Piattelli-Palmarini essay -- in
"Science" appears under the headline “Two Critics Without a Clue.”
“Fodor and Chomsky have a modus operandi which is ‘Bury your opponents as early
as possible,’ ” Lepore says, speaking of Fodor. “And when Fodor goes up against
the scientific community, I do not think Fodor is ready for that." (Or the
scientific community, for that matter). "Fodor basically tells these guys that
natural selection is bogus." (Vide "Guys and Dolls"). "The arguments are
interesting." "But Fodor does not win a lot of converts, if I may use innuendo."
In the end, despite all the oeuvre by Fodor and his colleagues, the 'soul'
remains, figuratively, a slippery thing. Fodor brings the point forcibly home
in “The Soul Does Not Work That Way.” “We’ve got lots to do,” Fodor notes. "In
fact, what our cognitive science has done so far is mostly to throw some light
on how much dark there is.” An implicature of 'obscurus per obscurius,' if you
mustn't! ALTERNATIVE ACCESSION: FODOR, whose studies seek to map the soul's
depths.
Cheers,
Speranza
REFERENCES: Grice, H. P. Method in philosophical psychology. Repr. in "The
Conception of Value." Clarendon.
