Fodor's Challenge to the Classical Computational Theory of Mind

doi:10.1111/j.1468-0017.2007.00332.x

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Wiley InterScience

Mind & Language

Volume 23 Issue 1, Pages 123 - 143

Published Online: 14 Jan 2008

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Fodor's Challenge to the Classical Computational Theory of Mind

KIRK LUDWIG ^a SUSAN SCHNEIDER ^b

^a Philosophy Department
University of Florida
^b Philosophy Department
Institute for Research in Cognitive Science
Center for Cognitive Neuroscience
University of Pennsylvania

Correspondence to Kirk Ludwig, Philosophy Department, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611-8545, USA; Susan Schneider, Philosophy Department, University of Pennsylvania, 423 Logan Hall, 249 S. 36th Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104-6304, USA.
Email: kludwig@phil.ufl.edu; sls@sas.upenn.edu

We wish to thank Jerry Fodor for helpful written comments on a related paper and for many interesting discussions on this issue. Thanks also go to Dominic Murphy for his comments in a symposium on an earlier version of this paper at the 2005 Eastern Division Meetings of the American Philosophical Association, the audience at the 2005 Society for Exact Philosophy meeting at University of California at San Diego in May 2006, and to two anonymous referees for Mind & Language. The name order of the authors is alphabetical.

ABSTRACT

Abstract: In The Mind Doesn't Work that Way, Jerry Fodor argues that mental representations have context sensitive features relevant to cognition, and that, therefore, the Classical Computational Theory of Mind (CTM) is mistaken. We call this the Globality Argument. This is an in principle argument against CTM. We argue that it is self-defeating. We consider an alternative argument constructed from materials in the discussion, which avoids the pitfalls of the official argument. We argue that it is also unsound and that, while it is an empirical issue whether context sensitive features of mental representations are relevant to cognition, it is empirically implausible.

Received: 06 November 2007; Accepted: 11 January 2008;

DIGITAL OBJECT IDENTIFIER (DOI)

10.1111/j.1468-0017.2007.00332.x About DOI