This link has been bookmarked by 17 people . It was first bookmarked on 16 Feb 2008, by Tyson Spraul.
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10 Apr 12
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language consists of a system of representations that is physically realized in the brain of thinkers and has a combinatorial syntax (and semantics) such that operations on representations are causally sensitive only to the syntactic properties of representations
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t thought and thinking take place in a mental language.
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tokening of a representation that has a syntactic (constituent) structure with an appropriate semantic
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syntactic operations defined over such representations.
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like productivity and systematicity of thought and thinking.
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though
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o explain
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rguments for LOTH derive their strength
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n formulating LOTH, philosophers have in mind primarily the variety of thoughts known as ‘propositional attitudes’
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thoughts described by such sentence forms as ‘S believes that P’, ‘S hopes that P’, ‘S desires that P
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A’ stand for such attitude verbs as ‘believe’, ‘desire’, ‘hope’, ‘intend’, ‘think’, etc., then the propositional attitude statements all have the form: S As that P.
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three theses (A
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Representational Theory of Mind (RTM)
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For each propositional attitude A
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unique and distinct (i.e. dedicated)[1] psychological relation
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Mental representation
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presentations of the system have a combinatorial syntax and semantics: structurally complex (molecular) representations are systematically built up out of structurally simple (atomic) constituents, and the semantic content of a molecular representation is a function of the semantic content of its atomic constituents together with its syntactic/formal structure,
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are causally sensitive to the syntactic/formal structure of representations defined by this combinatorial syntax.
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operations on representations
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Functionalist Materialism
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hat makes a certain mental sentence an (occurrent) belief might be that it is characteristically the output of perceptual systems and input to an inferential system that interacts decision-theoretically with desires to produce further sentences or action command
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e may think of belief sentences as those that are accessible only to certain sorts of computational operations appropriate for beliefs, but not to others
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Language of Thought Hypothesis is so-called because of
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token mental representations are like sentences in a language in that they have a syntactically and semantically regimented constituent structur
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According to folk psychology (ordinary commonsense psychology that we rely on daily in our dealings with others)
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s because those states have the propositional content they do that they have the causal powers they do
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thinking is at least the tokenings of states that are (a) intentional (i.e. have representational/propositional content
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(b) causally connected. But, surely, thinking is more
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could be a causally connected series of intentional states that makes no sense at all
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Thinking, therefore, is causally proceeding from states to states that makes semantic sense: the transitions among states must preserve some of their semantic properties to count as thinking.
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thoughts that are causally connected are in some fashion semantically (rationally, epistemically) connected too.
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Call this general phenomenon, then, the semantic coherence of causally connected thought processes. LOTH is offered as a solution to this puzzle: how is thinking, conceived this way, physically possible?
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atomic symbols (non-logical primitives):
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f molecular symbols (phrasal complexes or sentence
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hen Fodor first formulated LOTH with significant elaboration in his (1975), he introduced his major argument for it along with its initial formulation in the first chapte
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perception as the fixation of perceptual belief
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three types of cognitive phenome
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decision making as a form of representing and evaluating the consequences of possible actions
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, concept learning as hypothesis formation and confirmation,
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Dennett in his review of Fodor's (1975) has raised the following obje
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see no reason to believe that the relation between belief-talk and psychological talk will be any more direct.
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o draw a distinction between rules on the basis of which Mentalese data-structures are manipulated, a
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Deny premise(i)
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Accept the conclusion.
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Deny premise (ii) or (iv). Some connectionists reject (ii) or (iv),[27] holding that there are no lawlike cognitive regularities such as systematicity (etc.) to be explained, or that such regularities do not require a (B)-like architecture for their explanation. Those who question (ii) often question the empirical evidence for systematicity (etc.) and tend to ignore the challenge put forward by F&P. Those who question (iv) also often question (ii), or they argue that there can be very different sort of explanations for systematicity and the like (e.g. evolutionary explanations, see Braddon-Mitchell and Fitzpatrick 1990), or they question the very notion of explanation involved (e.g. Matthews 1994). There are indeed quite a number of different kinds of arguments in the literature against these premises.[28] For a sampling, see Aydede (1995) and McLaughlin (1993b), who partitions the debate similarly.
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Deny premise (vi)
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Chalmers
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Gelder
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16 Jan 12
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But what is absolutely essential for LOTH, and what Fodor insists on, is the claim that there is no adequate way in which a purely image-like system can capture what is involved in making judgments, i.e., in judging propositions to be true.
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This seems to require a discursive syntactic approach at the sentential level. The general problem here is the inadequacy of pictures or image-like representations to express propositions. I can judge that the blue box is on top of the red one without judging that the red box is under the blue one. I can judge that Mary kisses John without judging that John kisses Mary, and so on for indefinitely many such cases. It is hard to see how images or pictures can do that without using any syntactic structure or discursive elements, to say nothing of judging, e.g., conditionals, disjunctive or negative propositions, quantifications, negative existentials, etc.[9]
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30 Nov 11
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operations on representations are causally sensitive only to the syntactic properties of representations.
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Thinking thus consists in syntactic operations defined over such representations.
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According to LOTH, thought and thinking are done in a mental language, i.e., in a symbolic system physically realized in the brain of the relevant organisms.
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29 Dec 10
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29 Jul 10
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15 Nov 08
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The Language of Thought Hypothesis
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16 Feb 08
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30 Nov 07
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01 Jul 05
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The Language of Thought Hypothesis The Language of Thought Hypothesis (LOTH) postulates that thought and thinking take place in a mental language. This language consists of a system of representations that is physically realized in the brain of thinkers and has a combinatorial syntax (and semantics) such that operations on representations are causally sensitive only to the syntactic properties of representations. According to LOTH, thought is, roughly, the tokening of a representation that has a syntactic (constituent) structure with an appropriate semantics. Thinking thus consists in syntactic operations defined over such representations. Most of the arguments for LOTH derive their strength from their ability to explain certain empirical phenomena like productivity and systematicity of thought and thinking. * 1. What is the Language of Thought Hypothesis? * 2. Status of LOTH * 3. Scope of LOTH * 4. Nativism and LOTH * 5. Naturalism and LOTH o 5.1 The Problem of Thinking o 5.2 Syntactic Engine Driving a Semantic Engine: Computation o 5.3 Intentionality and LOTH * 6. Arguments for LOTH o 6.1 Argument from Contemporary Cognitive Psychology o 6.2 Argument from the Productivity of Thought o 6.3 Argument from the Systematicity and Compositionality of Thought o 6.4 Argument from the Systematicity of Thinking * 7. Objections to LOTH o 7.1 Regress Arguments against LOTH o 7.2 Propositional Attitudes without Explicit Representations o 7.3 Explicit Representations without Propositional Attitudes * 8. The Connectionism/Classicism Debate * Bibliography * Other Internet Resources * Related Entries
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