fodor - the elm and the expert - appendix b meaning and his

8/10/2019 Fodor - The Elm and the Expert - Appendix B Meaning and His

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According to the currently received philosophical view ,thought experiments about Twins show that the actualcausal history of a mental state contributes essentially to

determining its content . My thoughts are about water , but

my Twin 's thoughts are about XYZ. This is the consequenceof corresponding differences in our biographies ; my causal

history connects me to H2O , his connects him to the otherstuff . Similar considerations are supposed to show that mythi Bking about Aristotle depends on a (no doubt tortuous )causal chain that links me to him .

If all of this is right , it' s an embarrassment (not for externalism

per se of course , but ) for informational approach esto the metaphysics of content . According to informationalsemantics , content depends on nomic relations among properties

; to a zeroth approximation ,'water ' means water in

my mouth because being water and being disposed o cause my'water ' tokenings are nomically connected properties ofwater .

Presumablysuch nomic connections could be in

place even if none of my 'water ' tokens have ever actuallyhad water as its cause . Presumably , indeed , they could be in

place even if there had never been any'water ' tokens , or

any water . Where nomic relations are the issue , actual history

drops out and what counts is only the counterfactuals .

Appendix B

Meaning and History


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Such considerations have sometimes lead even goodfriends of informational semantics to contemplate 'mixed 'metaphysical theories according to which content is ahybrid of both dispositional and historical factors . (See forexample , Fodor 1991b ) This , however , is unaesthetic , and itlooses one of the nicest features of informational semantics ,its ability to provide for what I called in lecture 4 the autonomy

and productivity of content . Bother Twins In fact , however , the evidence for historical determinants

of the metaphysics of content is extremely equivocal . So ,anyhow , I

'm about to argue .Consider the case of Donald Davidson ' s 'Swampman

' ."Suppose lightning strikes a dead tree in a swamp ; I am

standing nearby . My body is reduced to its elements , whileentirely by coincidence (and out of different molecules ) thetree is turned into my physical replica . The Swampman . . .seems to recognize my friends and appears to return theirgreetings in English . It moves into my house and seems towrite articles on radical interpretation . No one can tell thedifference . . ." Still , as Davidson remarks , there 's adifference

there to tell . According to the historical view of content,

Swampman- at least at the moment of his creation ,

and , presumably , for some indeterminate time thereafter -has no intentional states at all . No beliefs , no desires , no

knowledge of anything , no views on radical interpretation .This is because he lacks , by assumption , the history ofcausal connections to the world on which intentional content

depends .Davidson is

prepared cheerfullyto

acceptthese consequences

of his semantical views . "My replica can ' t recognizemy friends ; it can

' t recognize anything since it never cog-nized anything in the first place . It can

' t know my friends'

names (though of course it seems o ), it can' t remember my

Appendix B 116


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house . . . . Indeed , I don ' t see how my replica can be said tomean anything by the sounds it makes , nor to have anythoughts

" (1987 pp . 443- 444 ). One might , like Davidson ,treat these consequences of the historical account of contentas bullets that one 's intuitions must learn to bite But I think

they should be viewed rather as serious embarrassments orDavidson 's causal history kind of externalist semantics . Ofcourse , not having had one , Swampman doesn

' t rememberhis twelfth birthday party ; 'remember ' is factive , and youcan ' t remember what didn ' t happen . But it seems very oddto say that Swampman doesn

' t know what time or day ofthe week it is , since (to put it in a way that of course begsthe question ) if you ask him what time or day it is, he is perfectly

able to tell you .If it's not his believing that it' s Wednesday that explains

why the Swampman says 'It' s Wednesday when you askhim , what on earth does ? By this or any test that a psychologist

could devise , indeed , by this or any test that God coulddevise , the evidence that Swampman thinks and desires ,sees and hears , hopes , itches and lusts , is not different inkind or inferior in quantity from the evidence that you and Iand Davidson do . To

putthe

pointanother

way:

Perhapsit's true , as it were , by definition that beliefs , desires , lustsand the like are constituted by their histories ; in which caseof course , Swampman doesn

' t have them . But , so what ? It' s.intuitively plausible that he has states that are their exactahistorical counterparts and that these tates are ntentional .

Scissor cuts paper , Swampman eats Twins . The intuitive

supportfor a historical

componentin content seems not so

unequivocal after all .I think the unbiased intuition is that Swampman thinks

all sorts of things that Davidson does : that it' s Wednesday ,and that radical interpretation is possible , and that water is

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wet , for example . I think this is because although he lacksDavidson ' s causal history , 5wampman shares Davidson ' sdispositions , and it' s the counterfactuals hat count for content

, just as informational theories. claim . True , no 'water '

token of 5wampman's has ever been caused by water . But

5wampman means water by'water' for all that . The reason

he does is that it' s water that would cause his 'water ' tokensin the worlds that are closest to the one that 5wampmanactually lives in . Roughly , a thought means what wouldcause t to be tokened in nearby possible worlds .

A way to see he intuitive plausibility of this suggestion isto compound the thought experiments : imagine that5wampman

'has a Twin . Life is full of co incidences ; suppose

that , just at the very moment that Davidson got replaced by5wampman here , a bit of Twin -Earth got transmuted into5wampman2 . I think the uninstructed intuition is that when

5wampman2 thinks or utters'water ' , he is thinking or talking

about XYZ . I hope you share this intuition since it' s the onethat the counterfactual story I

've been telling you predicts But , clearly , if 52

' s words and thoughts are about XYZ ,that' s not because he is causally connected to the stuff since ,

by assumption, he isn ' t . Rather it ' s because it' s XYZ that

would cause his 'water ' tokens in all the worlds that arenearest to Twin -Earth , there being, again by assumption , no

H2O on any of them . 5imilarly , 52 has thoughts (not aboutAristotle but ) about Aristotle2 . This is because , in all theworlds nearest to him , the interactions which would causehis 'Aristotle ' tokens would trace back , via the ambient language

conununity ,to

Aristotle2.

Correspondingly , what makes 'Aristotle ' mean Aristotlein my mouth is a nomic relation between certain ofAristotle ' s properties ; viz ., between his property of beingAristotle and his property of being (tenselessly disposed o

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Meaning

cause 'Aristotle ' tokens n me . The cultural tradition that connectsme to Aristotle provides the mechanism that mediates

this relation , much as experts provide the mechanism thatmediates the relation between being an elm and being a cause

of elm thoughts n me much as theories and telescopes mediatethe relation between being a star and being a cause of star

thoughts in me. The significance of cultural traditions ,

experts, theories ,

telescopesand other such

mediatingmechanisms

is that they sustain the counterfactuals upon whichthe metaphysics of content depends . It is , however , their

availability to sustain these counterfactuals , and not the actual

history o their operation , that the metaphysics of contentcares about .

I suspect , in fact , that it is only demonstrative thoughtswhose content is determined

bytheir actual

etiology.

Everywhere else , Twins included , it ' s the counterfactualsthat count .

and History 119

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