Jerry Fodor: Non-reductionist but Physicalist - Essay

Fodor in The language of Thoughts while discusses some aspects of the theory of mental processes, introduces two kinds of reductionisms: behavioural reductionism and physiological reductionism. Either of these two, as he claims, departs psychology from studying its subject matter that is mental phenomena. However, he expresses that he is a physicalist.

Functionalism and Behaviourism - Essay

As a response and alternative to Cartesian dualism, behaviourism was the widely accepted interpretation of human mind activities for most of the twentieth-century. Ryle as an analytical behaviourism philosopher argued that mental terms represent the style of behaviours or dispositions, not the internal states (Ryle, 2009, pp. 1-13). In contrary, Fodor questioned if Ryle’s theory can address all human behaviours as there are many mental terms that their dispositional versions require some other mental terms. He appended that, even though, all mental conditions can be analysed to their dispositional forms, it only defines mental terms while, on the other hand, psychology looks for causal analysis of mental activities. Fodor accused Ryle of confusing between conceptual and causal theories about the mind.