Daniel Dennett has defended a view along these lines.[^5] And the
view just outlined gives voice to a theme of the property dualists
as well. Karl Popper and Joseph Margolis both cite the normative
nature of mental and linguistic activity a…Although fair to some functionalists, the preceding is not entirely fair to Fodor. On his view the aim of psychology is to find the best functional characterization of ourselves, and what that is remains an empirical question. As well, his …[^]: An earlier draft of this paper was presented at the University of Ottawa, and to the Brain, Mind, and Person colloquium at SUNY/Oswego. My thanks for the suggestions and criticisms that have informed the present version.
[^1]: See Pau…
Jerry Fodor
philosopher · 3 mentions across 1 reading
In this course
Jerry Fodor is a foundational figure in cognitive science and philosophy of mind whose functionalist framework attempts to reconcile mental phenomena with computational/mechanical processes—making him crucial for understanding how AI and psychology converge. The course readings engage Fodor to negotiate between eliminativist materialism (which would reduce mind entirely to physical mechanisms) and property dualism (which preserves the irreducibility of mental states), using his account of functional characterization as a middle path that neither fully dissolves mind into mechanism nor treats it as purely non-physical. His work is invoked to ask whether mental properties might be substrate-independent yet genuinely emergent, a question that directly bears on whether artificial systems could genuinely instantiate intelligence or consciousness rather than merely simulate it.
Mentioned in 1 reading
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