A Theory of Content and Other Essays

Rating:
Summary: Very poor
Review: As usual, Fodor has a lot to write on philosophy of mind, but not much to say. This book should be entitled "My theories have no content- but please read my essays." Very weak.

Rating:
Summary: Essential papers
Review: I haven't time just now to tell you the role Fodor's theory of content plays in The Grand Fodorian Scheme. But rest assured, it's important. The end-point of Fodor 1965-1980 was a truly complicated theory of mind with a crucial missing piece: a theory of content. When you believe that "the dog is barking", what is it about the stuff inside your head that makes that stuff a belief of this nature. Two papers on this subject are here.

Of particular interest to me are two papers on modularity. One is a precis of his book, Modularity of Mind, which is useful in it brief outline of the main arugments of that book. The other, "Why Should the Mind Be Modular?" gives arguments for his empirical claims regarding the features of cognitive modules. It also has a prescient discussion that bears on contemporary Evolutionary Psychology and its use of the modularity concept.

This is a good book to have.