Fodor on Inscrutability

Abstract

Jerry Fodor (1994) proposes a solution to Quine's inscrutability-ofreference problem for certain naturalized semantic theories, thereby defending such theories from charges that they cannot discriminate meanings finely enough. His proposal, combining elements of informational and inferential-role semantics, is to eliminate non-standard interpretations by testing predicate compatibility relations. I argue that Fodor's proposal, understood as primarily aimed at Mentalese, withstands Ray's (1997) and Gates's (1996) objections but nonetheless fails because of unwarranted assumptions about ontological homogeneity of target language predicates, and problems with Fodor's reliance on predicate conjunction to resolve ambiguity. Naturalized semantics thus remains without an answer to the inscrutability objection.Quine's (1960) famous reflections on inscrutability of reference challenge the notion that a naturalized semantic theory can assign determinate meanings to expressions of natural language or their associated concepts. Jerry Fodor, one of the leading proponents of naturalized semantics (e.g., Fodor, 1990), has recently proposed a solution to the inscrutability-of-reference problem (Fodor, 1994). Although Fodor presents his proposal as a defense of his favorite naturalized semantic theory, informational semantics, his proposal can be considered independently of the specifics of informational semantics. I construe it here as an attempt to show that predicate reference in entire-language radical translation is not inscrutable relative to all of the potential behavioral facts and word-world correlations after all, contrary to Quine's inference from his gavagai example.In this paper, I first review the inscrutability problem Fodor confronts and present his proposed solution. I then consider recent critiques of Fodor's proposal by Ray (1997) and Gates (1996). Contrary to some authors (e.g., Loewer, 1997) who assert that these critiques refute Fodor's proposal, I argue that neither critique succeeds. I then present some new objections to Fodor's proposal, arguing that it leaves the inscrutability problem for naturalized semantics unresolved.

Is Indeterminacy of Biological Function an Objection to the Harmful Dysfunction Analysis? Reply to Tim Thornton

“…So, to me, one does not require the additional machinery of Wittgenstein's critique of meaning to refute Millikan's project. Moreover, while Thornton emphasizes certain differences between Fodor and Millikan, Fodor's various theories of content similarly collapse before the elegant Quinian indeterminacy critique of content turned around by Searle to be an antireductionist argument, and Fodor's explicit attempts to address the problem don't work (Wakefield 2003). And, in keeping with this failure, Millikan and Fodor both admit that they don't have anything to say about consciousness (Wakefield 2018).…”

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“…M e propongo realizar una aproximación a la variante fisicalista de la mente que representa Jerry Fodor, coincidiendo con Wakefield (2003) en que su propuesta teórica debe ser vista como un intento de esclarecer, dicho en sentido amplio, la inescrutabilidad en la semántica naturalizada a partir de un esfuerzo estrictamente no analítico. Tal intento queda bastante bien expuesto por Fodor & Pylyshyn (2014), a propósito del problema de larga data que supone asociar actitudes proposicionales y causación mental: "This is a metaphysical minefield and has been at least since Plato, and it is one in which we don't intend to wander.…”