The Fodorian fallacy

Analysis 62 (4):285-89 (2002)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

In recent years Fodor has repeatedly argued that nothing epistemic can be essential to, or constitutive of, any concept. This holds in virtue of a constraint which Fodor dubs the Compositionality Constraint. I show that Fodor's argument is fallacious because it rests on an ambiguity.

Other Versions

No versions found

Similar books and articles

Compositionality and context.Peter Pagin - 2005 - In Gerhard Preyer & Georg Peter (eds.), Contextualism in philosophy: knowledge, meaning, and truth. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 303-348.
Fodor on concepts and Frege puzzles.Murat Aydede - 1998 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 79 (4):289-294.
Do inferential roles compose?Mark McCullagh - 2003 - Dialectica 57 (4):431-38.
The 'compositional rigidity' of recognitionality.Darragh Byrne - 2004 - Philosophical Papers 33 (2):147-169.

Analytics

Added to PP
2009-01-28

Downloads
596 (#45,249)

6 months
73 (#83,503)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Francois Recanati
Institut Jean Nicod

Citations of this work

Learnability and compositionality.Douglas Patterson - 2005 - Mind and Language 20 (3):326–352.
Coping with informational atomism - one of Jerry Fodor’s legacies.Pierre Jacob - 2020 - Rivista Internazionale di Filosofia e Psicologia 11 (1):19-41.
The notion of a recognitional concept and other confusions.Malte Dahlgrün - 2010 - Philosophical Studies 150 (1):139 - 160.
Perceptual warrant and internal access.John Zeimbekis - 2022 - Philosophical Studies 180 (1):191-206.

View all 6 citations / Add more citations

References found in this work

Concepts: Where Cognitive Science Went Wrong.Jerry A. Fodor - 1998 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press.
Science and Values.Harold I. Brown & Larry Laudan - 1986 - Philosophical Review 95 (3):439.
Language, Thought and Compositionality.Jerry Fodor - 2001 - Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 48:227-242.

Add more references