Abstract
In my contribution to the Proceedings of the First International Colloquium on Cognitive Science, held in Donostia (San Sebastián) in 1989, I advanced what I called ‘Aunty’s own argument for the language of thought’.1 The Aunty in question is Jerry Fodor’s. He represents her as a conservative figure who is more likely to favour connectionism than to accept that there are good reasons to adopt the language of thought hypothesis.2 As I envisaged her, she has some sympathy for the views of the later Wittgenstein but is fundamentally a neo-Fregean. I claimed that the neo-Fregean framework offers Aunty the resources to construct her own argument for the language of thought hypothesis, an argument that is relatively non-empirical in character.3
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Block, N. 1981: Psychologism and behaviorism. Philosophical Review, 90, 5–43.
Block, N. 1995: The mind as the software of the brain. In D.N. Osherson and E.E. Smith (eds), An Invitation to Cognitive Science, Volume 3: Thinking. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 377–425.
Brewer, B. 1995: Compulsion by reason. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volume 64, 237–53.
Brewer, B. 1996: Internalism and perceptual knowledge. European Journal of Philosophy, 4, 259–75.
Brewer, B. 1999: Perception and Reason. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Chomsky, N. 1965: Aspects of the Theory of Syntax. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Davies, M. 1987: Tacit knowledge and semantic theory. Can a five per cent difference matter? Mind, 96,441–62.
Davies, M. 1992: Aunty’s own argument for the language of thought. In J. Ezquerro and J.M. Larrazabal (eds), Cognition, Semantics and Philosophy: Proceedings of the First International Colloquium on Cognitive Science. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers 235–71
Davies, M. 1995: Two notions of implicit rules. In J.E. Tomberlin (ed.), Philosophical Perspectives 9: AI, Connectionism and Philosophical Psychology. Atascadero, CA: Ridgeview Publishing Company, 153–83.
Davies, M. 1998: Externalism, architecturalism, and epistemic warrant. In C. Wright, B.C. Smith and C. Macdonald (eds), Knowing Our Own Minds. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 321–61.
Davies, M. 2000a: Persons and their underpinnings. Philosophical Explorations, 3, 43–62.
Davies, M. 2000b: Externalism and armchair knowledge. In P. Boghossian and C. Peacocke (eds), New Essays on the A Priori. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 384–414.
Evans, G. 1981: Semantic theory and tacit knowledge. In S. Holtzman. and C. Leich (eds), Wittgenstein: To Follow a Rule. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 118–37. Reprinted in Collected Papers. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985.
Evans, G. 1982: The Varieties of Reference. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Fodor, J. 1985: Fodor’s guide to mental representation. Mind, 94, 55–97. Reprinted in A Theory of Content and Other Essays. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1990.
Fodor, J. 1987: Psychosemantics. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Jackson, F.C. 1987: Conditionals. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.
Lewis, D. 1997: Naming the colours. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 75, 323–42.
Peacocke, C. 1983: Sense and Content. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Peacocke, C. 1990: Content and norms in a natural world. In E. Villanueva (ed.), Information, Semantics and Epistemology. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 57–76.
Peacocke, C. 1992: A Study of Concepts. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Polanyi, M. 1967: The Tacit Dimension. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Ramsey, W., Stich, S. and Garon, J. 1990: Connectionism, eliminativism and the future of folk psychology. In J.E. Tomberlin (ed.), Philosophical Perspectives 4: Action Theory and Philosophy of Mind. Atascadero, CA: Ridgeview Publishing Company, 499–533.
Rey, G. 1995: A not ‘merely empirical’ argument for a language of thought. In J.E. Tomberlin (ed.), Philosophical Perspectives 9: AI, Connectionism and Philosophical Psychology. Atascadero, CA: Ridgeview Publishing Company, 201–22.
Wright, C. 1985: Facts and certainty. Proceedings of the British Academy, 71, 429–72.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2004 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this paper
Cite this paper
Davies, M. (2004). Aunty’s Argument and Armchair Knowledge. In: Larrazabal, J.M., Miranda, L.A.P. (eds) Language, Knowledge, and Representation. Philosophical Studies Series, vol 99. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-2783-3_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-2783-3_2
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-015-7073-2
Online ISBN: 978-1-4020-2783-3
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive