gabuddabout wrote: >If you have a philosophy of mind that is inherently not interested in >beliefs, semantic content of beliefs, and intrinsic intentionality, >then it amounts to a reductio of the program. Fodor largely believes >that such approaches are variously incoherent and also a >prioristic--perhaps resting on some outmoded (eventually!) >criteriological view inspired by Witters. having a mindless philosophy of mind is very popular. >Also, Searle is not arguing that the intentional notions are found at >the bottom level where consciousness etc. is causally reduced. The >point is to have a story that doesn't eliminate what we want to >explain, i.e., things like ontological subjectivity which, as a matter >of fact, must be assumed if traffic signals, say, are to be meaningful >for conscious drivers. >For Fodor, it is mostly taken for granted that intentionality doesn't >go as deep as fundamental physics. In this respect he shares Searle's >point that one can have causal reducibility without ontological >reducibility. Some special sciences are at levels above the fundamental >physics without being inherently dualist. Take discovering DNA for >example. if intentionality doesn't go 'all the way down' to physics; then, it must emerge somewhere 'on the way up' --- or so it seems to me. intentionality may have its precursors, the instincts of animals and the phototropism of plants; but, we need to overcome the linguistic habit of saying 'X is nothing more than what X emerges from'. Joe -- Nothing Unreal is Self-Aware @^@~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~@^@ http://what-am-i.net @^@~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~@^@ ========================================== Need Something? Check here: http://ludwig.squarespace.com/wittrslinks/