Analysis 57 (1):60-66 (1997)
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Abstract |
The Language of Thought Hypothesis is often taken to have the fatal flaw that it generates an explanatory regress. The language of thought is invoked to explain certain features of natural language (e.g., that it is learned, understood, and is meaningful), but, according to the regress argument, the language of thought itself has these same features and hence no explanatory progress has been made. We argue that such arguments rely on the tacit assumption that the entire motivation for the language of thought consists in explaining the explanandum that allegedly generates the regress. But this tacit assumption is simply false. The Language of Thought Hypothesis is a cogent view and one with considerable explanatory advantages.
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Keywords | Regress argument Language of thought Metaphysics Mind mental representation Wittgenstein Crane, T Fodor, J propositional attitude |
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DOI | 10.1111/1467-8284.00051 |
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References found in this work BETA
Psychosemantics: The Problem of Meaning in the Philosophy of Mind.Jerry A. Fodor - 1987 - MIT Press.
Neurophilosophy: Toward A Unified Science of the Mind-Brain.Patricia Smith Churchland - 1986 - MIT Press.
Review of P Sychosemantics: The Problem of Meaning In the Philosophy of Mind.Jay L. Garfield - 1991 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 51 (1):235-240.
View all 10 references / Add more references
Citations of this work BETA
The Ontology of Concepts: Abstract Objects or Mental Representations?Eric Margolis & Stephen Laurence - 2007 - Noûs 41 (4):561-593.
And So On. Two Theories of Regress Arguments in Philosophy.Jan Willem Wieland - 2012 - Dissertation,
The Language of Thought and Natural Language Understanding.Jonathan Knowles - 1998 - Analysis 58 (4):264-272.
Where the Regress Argument Still Goes Wrong: Reply to Knowles.Stephen Laurence & Eric Margolis - 1999 - Analysis 59 (4):321-327.
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