The Elm and the Expert: Mentalese and Its Semantics (Jean Nicod Lectures)

By Jerry A. Fodor

Book Overview

Written in a highly readable, irreverent style, The Elm and the Expert provides a lively discussion of semantic issues about mental representation, with special attention to issues raised by Frege's problem, Twin cases, and the putative indeterminacy of reference.

Bound to be widely read and much discussed, The Elm and the Expert, written in Jerry Fodor's usual highly readable, irreverent style, provides a lively discussion of semantic issues about mental representation, with special attention to issues raised by Frege's problem, Twin cases, and the putative indeterminacy of reference. The book extends and revises a view of the relation between mind and meaning that the author has been developing since his 1975 book, The Language of Thought.

There is a general consensus among philosophers that a referential semantics for mental representation cannot support a robust account of intentional explanation. Fodor has himself espoused this view in previous publications, and it is widespread (if tacit) throughout the cognitive science community. This book is largely a reconsideration of the arguments that are supposed to ground this consensus. Fodor concludes that these considerations are far less decisive than has been supposed. He offers a theory sketch in which psychological explanation is intentional, psychological processes are computational, and the semantic properties of mental representations are referential. Connections with the problem of "naturalizing" intentionality are also explored.

The four lectures in The Elm and the Expert were originally delivered in Paris in the spring of 1993 to inaugurate the Jean Nicod Lecture series. The Jean Nicod Lectures are delivered annually by a leading philosopher of mind or philosophically oriented cognitive scientist. The 1993 lectures marked the centenary of the birth of the French philosopher and logician Jean Nicod (1893-1931). The lectures are sponsored by the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) as part of its effort to develop the interdisciplinary field of cognitive science in France.

Jean Nicod series

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0262560933
• ISBN13: 9780262560931
• Release Date: August 1995
• Publisher: MIT Press
• Length: 144 Pages
• Weight: 0.48 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.3" x 8.0"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

It's great if you're into that kind of thing...

Fodor's task in EAE is to try and harmonize the following three beliefs: (1) Psychological laws exist and they necessarily include reference to entities like beliefs, desires, and the like; (2) The semantic content of such entities is determined by the causal relations that exist between intentional states and whatever object in the external world reliably causes them; and (3) Mental processes are computational processes; i.e., our minds are just very complicated symbol manipulators. The problem that arises for whoever holds all three of these views is that, apparently, (3) requires that intentional states be fixed by their *internal* relations, and (2) requires that intentional states (or at least their content anyway) be individuated by *external* relations. Oops. So, Fodor tries to find a way in which mental content can be externally fixed and reliably computationally implemented. He claims that the coinstantiation of broad content with its computational implementers is both reliable and explicable, but metaphysically contingent. The book is divided into four lectures. In the first lecture, Fodor outlines the above problem and his proposal. In the second lecture, Fodor argues that it is plausible to believe that a mechanism exists which keeps broad mental content stuck to its computational implementers. He further claims that one who holds a broad view of content ought to treat Putnam and Frege cases as accidents. In fact, he claims that both broad and narrow views of content must maintain that Frege cases, though common, are unsystematic and exceptional in terms of how people normally behave. Put differently, both internalist and externalist views of content must allow that people tend to recognize the relevant identities in cases that are relevant to their behavior (e.g., Smith wants to go to Chicago, Chicago is where air tedium flies to...). Fodor devotes the third lecture to treating cases in which it is not true that concepts that carry the same information are always coextensive. Most specifically, he deals with Quine's question of why "rabbit: means "rabbit" and not "undetached proper parts of a rabbit." In the final lecture, Fodor applies his theory to epistemology Here (and only here) does the reader get a sense of why Fodor is trying to make these theories work. Basically, he thinks that eliminativism is obviously false and a serious dualism is miraculous- but Fodor doesn't believe in miracles. So, a naturalized theory of mental representation is the only way out. (On a side note, he *does* believe that minds are "hopeful monsters"- see chapters 14 and 15 of his "In Critical Condition" and also his chapter in James K. Beilby, ed., "Naturalism Defeated?") Given my purposes in this review I won't provide arguments against Fodor's view. However, I don't buy (2) and (3) above, and thus don't need to answer the same kinds of problems Fodor does. Overall, the read-worthiness of the book is directly proportional to the d