Fodor's Causal Argument and Unwarranted Supervenience Assumption; Examining Egan's Argument

Document Type : Research Paper

Author

Assistant Professor, University of Religions and Denominations, Qom, Iran

Abstract

In this essay, I examine Fodor's argument in favor of psychological individualism and Egan's response. According to Fodor's causal argument, every scientific theory individualizes states or identities according to their causal powers. Therefore, Common sense intentional psychology should individualize the states according to the narrow content. Fodor offers two counter-examples to the above argument. According to the second counter-example (2), the anti-individualist claims that since the behavior of twins is distinct in type, their mental states must also be distinct in type, and according to the causal powers of the distinct mental states of type, they are not identical. Fodor gives two responses to the second counter-example. According to (2a), Fodor wants to prove that we should not consider the behavior of twins as different. As a result, the mental states of twins are not distinct. In response to (2a), Egan claims that Fodor's argument is based on the assumption that behavioral types supervene on brain types. According to (2b), Fodor makes two similar arguments by likening "anti-individualist psychology" to "H and T particle theory." One is to distinguish a type of Oscar's mental state from his twin; The second is to distinguish between H-particles and T-particles. In response to (2b), Egan claims that Fodor presupposes an unwarranted supervenience assumption in both arguments without providing an argument for it. Finally, I conclude that if Fodor has no good argument for the doctrine of the supervenience, then he has no reason to distinguish between extensive contents and other relative properties.

Keywords

References

Burge, T. (1979). Individualism and the Mental. Midwest Studies in Philosophy. 4 (1) 73-121.
Burge, T. (1989). Individuation and Causation in Psychology. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly. 70 (4) 303–322. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-4975.1979.tb00374.x.
Egan, F. (1991). Must Psychology Be Individualistic? The Philosophical Review. 100 (2) 179-203. https://doi.org/10.2307/2185299.
Fodor, J. (1987). Psychosemantics: The Problem of Meaning in the Philosophy of Mind. MIT Press.
Fodor, J. (1991). A Modal Argument for Narrow Content. Journal of Philosophy. 88 (1) 5-26.
Kallestrup. J. (2011). Semantic Externalism (New Problems of Philosophy). Routledge.
Kim, J. (1987). Concepts of Supervenience. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research. 37 (146) 153-176. https://doi.org/10.2307/2107423.
Kim, J. (2010). Philosophy of Mind. Routledge.
Mahdavi, A. (2018). Examination of Fodor’s Across-Context Test in Favour of Individualism. Advances in Cognitive Science. 20 (1) 56-73. (in Persian)
Mahdavi, A. (2021-2022). The examination of the Fodor's Human argument for individualism. Philosophy of Science. 11 (2) 241-262. (in Persian)
Owens, Joseph. (1993). Content, Causation and Psychophysical Supervenience. Philosophy of Science. 60 (2) 242-261. https://doi.org/10.1086/289731.
Putnam, H. (1975). The Meaning of ‘Meaning’ in Language, Mind and Knowledge (Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Volumes VII, edited by G. Keith, University of Minnesota Press.
Rudder Baker, L. (1994). Content and Context. Philosophical Perspectives. 8 (3) 17-32. https://doi.org/10.2307/2214161.
Saidel, E. (1994). Content and Causal Powers. Philosophy of Science. 61 (4) 658-665. https://doi.org/10.1086/289828.
Van Gulick, R. (1989). Metaphysical Arguments for Internalism and Why They Don't Work. in Representation, pp. 151-159 Edited by S. Silvers, Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Wilson, R. (1992). Individualism, Causal Powers, and Explanation. Philosophical Studies. 68 (2) 103-139. https://doi.org/10.1007/bf00354473.
Send comment about this article
CAPTCHA Image
Journal of Philosophical Investigations
Volume 19, Issue 50 - Serial Number 20
Articles
Vol. 19, Issue 50, Spring 2025
March 2025
Pages 119-134

Files

Share

How to cite

Statistics