Lexicon of Arguments

Philosophical and Scientific Issues in Dispute
 
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Fodor IV 14
Intentionality/Holism/Fodor/Lepore: For example: "if someone asks you for a color, you will first think of red."
Such generalizations work because there are thoughts about colors and thoughts about red. (De dicto!).
Problem: if the intentionality holism is true and, of course, we have many different belief contents because of our different biographies, then it might turn out that none of your thoughts has the property T* with respect to mine.
It would follow that only one of us could have thoughts about colors or thoughts about red.
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IV 15
Another problem: change of opinion and change of belief attitudes could not be explained.
If the property T* is holistic, then there can be no robust intentional generalizations that can be shared by more than one individual at a time. Many philosophers also believe this:
Consequence: there are no intentional laws: Quine, Dennett, Davidson, the Churchlands, Stich.
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Fodor IV 16
Intentality/Science/Holism/Fodor/Lepore: if the meaning holism is true, it looks bad at first sight for psychology, cognitive sciences, economics, linguistics, etc.
But you can read the matter differently:
If the "constitutive principles" of the intentional theory are holistic (perhaps normative or holistic because normative) in a manner in which, for example, bio-sciences, or physics are not, then perhaps intentional explanations are immune to any reductionism that threatens them through physics and biology.
If one tries to defend the everyday psychology of belief that it articulates less, but not fundamentally different from unproblematic empirical sciences such as meteorology or geology, it might turn out that they are empirically completely false.
It may be that our belief psychology is empirically completely false and is not compatible with the rest of our sciences. (Quine and the Churchlands think that something like this is practically in progress).

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