Blackwell Reference Online

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Jerry Fodor is widely regarded as the most significant philosopher of mind in recent times. With Noam Chomsky at MIT in the 1960s he mounted a decisive attack on the behaviorism that then dominated psychology and most philosophy of mind, and has tried to present in its place a naturalistic and realist account of mental processes that renders them amenable to serious scientific study. Indeed, he is one of the few philosophers who has combined philosophical and empirical psychological research, publishing work in both domains, developing at least two theories that have become highly influential in both of them: the computational/representational theory of thought processes (see the section “CRTT: Computation”) and the modularity theory of perception (“Modularity and the Limits of CRTT”). These theories are, however, best appreciated against the backdrop of a number of other themes in Fodor's work, which provide the best overview of his work, as follows: (1) Intentional Realism; (2) Nomic Explanation; (3) The Problems of Mind; (4) CRTT: Computation; (5) CRTT: Representation; (6) Solipsism and Narrow Content; (7) Nativism; (8) Modularity and the Limits of CRTT. Fodor's primary concern is to defend the familiar “belief/desire,” or “propositional attitude” psychology with which the folk routinely explain each other's behavior; for example, someone's heading south is explained by their ... log in or subscribe to read full text