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Fodor’s Challenge to the Classical Computational Theory of Mind
Author(s) -
LUDWIG KIRK,
SCHNEIDER SUSAN
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
mind and language
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.905
H-Index - 68
eISSN - 1468-0017
pISSN - 0268-1064
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-0017.2007.00332.x
Subject(s) - argument (complex analysis) , epistemology , computational theory of mind , globality , context (archaeology) , philosophy of mind , cognition , cognitive science , mental representation , philosophy , psychology , metaphysics , paleontology , biochemistry , chemistry , neuroscience , economics , market economy , globalization , biology
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.