Robustness without asymmetry: A flaw in Fodor's theory of content

Autor: Pat A. Manfredi, Donna M. Summerfield
Rok vydání: 1992
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Zdroj: Philosophical Studies. 66:261-283
ISSN: 1573-0883
0031-8116
DOI: 10.1007/bf00646409
Popis: INTRODUCTION: THE SO-CALLED "DISJUNCTION PROBLEM" In "A Theory of Content, II, ''1 Jerry Fodor offers an account of content designed to avoid the "disjunction problem ''2 and to provide conditions for content that are both sufficient and naturalistic. The burden of this paper will be to show that Fodor fails to deliver the goods. Before immersing ourselves in the intricacies of and possible deficiencies in Fodor's theory, however, it is important to notice something vitally important, something that is often overlooked in discussions of "the disjunction problem": there is no "the disjunction problem." Stated less combatively, the point is that the so-called "disjunction problem" is not really a single problem at all, but a label for a cluster of more or less closely related problems that should not be assumed without argument to require a unitary solution. The unargued assumption that there must be one solution to these various problems may make the task more difficult than it needs to be and may prevent us from recognizing a solution to one problem as a solution at all, since we expect it to solve the entire cluster at once. Fodor recently has pointed out, quite rightly, that the so-called disjunction problem is not merely the form taken by the problem of error in information based semantic theories [Fodor 1990b]. Even if we solved the problem of error for such theories, for example, by "idealizing away from sources of error" [Fodor 1990b, p. 8] as teleological theories do, that would not explain what Fodor has still more recently labeled the "robustness" of meaning
Databáze: OpenAIRE
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