Online research in philosophy

In 'Fodor's Modal Argument' I claim that Fodor's latest defence of narrow content does not work. I claim that Fodor's modal argument is an unsuccessful resurrection of the Logical Connection Argument. Russow claims that my arguments fail because I confuse cause properties with causal powers, focus on events rather than properties, and overlook the fact that Fodor is trying only to explain narrow behavior. In this paper, I plead 'not guilty' to all of Fodor's charges. Narrow content still does not (...) exist. (shrink)

What we do, intentionally, depends upon the intentional contents of our thoughts. For about ten years Fodor has argued that intentional behavior causally depends upon the narrow intentional content of thoughts (not broad). His main reason is a causal powers argument—brains of individuals A and B may differ in broad content, but, if A and B are neurophysically identical, their thoughts cannot differ in causal power, despite differences in broad content. Recently Fodor (Fodor, 1991) presents a new 'modal' version of (...) this causal powers argument. I argue that Fodor's argument (in old or new dress) is a non sequitur. It neither establishes the existence of narrow content nor the need for a content other than broad content to explain intentional behavior. (shrink)

In this paper, I want to explore a line of thought that would create a new case for a strong form of content internalism. I will not argue that all representational content is narrow content. Rather, I will argue that the source of all representational content is a narrow content. This means that there would be no wide content in a world without narrow content. The argument I will pursue is fairly straightforward: 1) the only non-derivative kind of representation is (...) conscious representation; 2) conscious representation is narrow; therefore, 3) the only non-derivative kind of representation is narrow. If so, there would be no content without narrow content. (shrink)