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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 use of the label 'individualism' for methodological individualism is misleading.

    ?Set your confidence on the premises below to see your aggregate.

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
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    • 1.Methodological individualism does not prohibit relational individuation of mental states — it only requires that any individuating property, relational or otherwise, must affect causal powers.
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    • 2.The relations that affect causal powers could include relations to other speakers, not just to the physical world.
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    • 3.A doctrine that permits individuation via relations to other speakers is not 'individualistic' in the ordinary sense.
      ?

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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Fodor explicitly defines individualism as supervenience on intrinsic physical properties, excluding all relational properties by stipulation.
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    • 2.Burge's twin-earth cases show mental content can differ while intrinsic physical properties are identical, directly violating Fodor's stated criterion.
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    • 3.A label that excludes the very relational individuation Objection 1 permits is systematically misleading about the doctrine's actual scope.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.The term 'methodological individualism' in social science (Weber, Hayek) concerns explanatory reduction to individual agents, not supervenience on intrinsic properties.
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    • 2.Fodor's appropriation of the term conflates two distinct doctrines: explanatory reductionism and narrow content internalism.
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    • 3.Deploying a term with established meaning in a conflicting technical sense generates confusion that undermines precise philosophical debate.
      ?

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