Jerry Fodor - The Nature of Content

The Nature of Content

From the beginning of the 1980s, Fodor adhered to a causal notion of mental content and of meaning. This idea of content contrasts sharply with the inferential role semantics to which he subscribed earlier in his career. As of 2010 Fodor criticizes inferential role semantics (IRS) because its commitment to an extreme form of holism excludes the possibility of a true naturalization of the mental. But naturalization must include an explanation of content in atomistic and causal terms.

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