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    Carmelics

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    Made withinDC&Austin
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    Home/Original/inverse
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    Inverse View

    It is not the case that Fodor's appropriation of the term conflates two distinct doctrines: explanatory reductionism and narrow content internalism.

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    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
    ?
    • 1.Narrow internalism logically entails explanatory reductionism: if content is intrinsic to brains, physical explanations suffice for mental phenomena.
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    • 2.Fodor explicitly distinguishes these doctrines himself in multiple texts, suggesting the conflation charge misreads his actual position.
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    • 3.The claim requires independent argument that these doctrines are genuinely separable, not merely verbally distinct formulations of one thesis.
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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
    ?
    • 1.Explanatory reductionism claims mental states reduce to physical processes; narrow internalism claims content depends only on intrinsic brain states.
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    • 2.One can accept narrow internalism while rejecting reductionism: content could be intrinsic yet remain explanatorily irreducible to physics.
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    • 3.Fodor uses 'internalism' ambiguously to mean both a metaphysical thesis about content-location and an explanatory thesis about reduction.
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