FODOR ON CAUSES OF MENTALESE SYMBOLS

• Authors: Tevfik Aytekin , Erdinc Sayan
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

Jerry Fodor’s causal theory of content is a well-known naturalistic attempt purporting to show that Brentano was wrong in supposing that physical states cannot possess meaning and reference. Fodor’s theory contains two crucial elements: one is a notion of “asymmetric dependence between nomic relations,” and the other is an assumption about the nature of the “causally operative properties” involved in the causation of mental tokens. Having dealt elsewhere with the problems Fodor’s notion of asymmetric dependence poses, we show in this paper a difficulty with the other element of his theory concerning what kinds of properties are the causally operative ones in the tokening of a semantic symbol in the brain of a perceiver. After presenting this difficulty, we examine three possible responses that Fodorian might make to our criticism.

Keywords

EN

FODOR JERRY; CAUSAL THEORY; CONTENT; SEMANTICS; CAUSAL LAW; OPERATIVE CAUSES; TOKEN

• Publisher: Institute of Philosophy of the Slovak Academy of Sciences and Institute of Philosophy of Academy of Sciences of Czech Republic
• Journal: Organon F. medzinárodný časopis pre analytickú filozofiu
• Year: 2012
• Volume: 19
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 3 – 15

Contributors

author

Tevfik Aytekin

• Department of Computer Engineering, Bahcesehir University, 34353 Istanbul, Turkey

author

Erdinc Sayan