Fodor J. In Critical Condition. Polemical Essays in Cognitive Science and the Philosophy of Mind

The MIT Press, 1998. — 219 p.Doing philosophy, according to Jerry Fodor, is like piloting: The trick is to find an object of known position and locate yourself with respect to it. In this book, Fodor contrasts his views about the mind with those of a number of well-known philosophers and cognitive scientists, including John McDowell, Christopher Peacocke, Paul Churchland, Daniel Dennett, Paul Smolensky, and Richard Dawkins. Several of these essays are published here for the first time. The rest originated as book reviews in the "Times Literary Supplement," the "London Review of Books," or in journals of philosophy or psychology. The topics examined include cognitive architecture, the nature of concepts, and the status of Darwinism in psychology. Fodor constructs a version of the Representational Theory of Mind that blends Intentional Realism, Computational Reductionism, Nativism, and Semantic Atomism.Metaphysics. Concepts. Cognitive Architecture. Philosophical Darvinism.