Paul Prae 6th of September, 2011 PHIL 3550 with Jagnow First Report: An Explication of Jerry Fodors Argument

for the Saving of Folk Psychology from his Chapter Titled The Persistence of Attitudes. The argument: Fodor makes the claim that commonsense belief/desire psychology (or folk psychology) is worth saving. i.e. Folk psychology does in fact exist and is a science that is useful for understanding how the mind operates. In order to give my explication a clear context, I will first discuss the purpose of the argument in accordance with the rest of the chapter. Before he begins his discussion of this argument, Fodor mentions to the reader that folk psychology has recently been a target of other papers and discussions. It is assumed that these critics do not desire to save folk psychology. Fodor specifies why these critics have an issue with folk psychology, and how they argue against it, during the presentation of his argument. It is obvious that Fodor does need to establish the validity of folk psychology as a special science, a science that is just as worthy of application as biology, geology, or traditional psychology. This becomes clear when, later in the chapter, Fodor presents his representational theory of the mind. Folk psychology is essential for establishing certain components of this theory, such as the stipulations for propositional attitudes. I will not be able to discuss these concepts any further given the limitations of this paper. Realize that, in order to accept Fodors representational theory of the mind, you must accept the argument I am explicating in this paper as valid. For further clarification of the content of this argument, I would like to quickly define folk psychology. Folk Psychology is used here to describe the ways in which the common person interprets their perception of reality in order to establish attitudes. These attitudes are known as beliefs, intentions, desires, hopes, fears, and similar. These attitudes can then in turn create or change existing attitudes as well as initiate behavior. Fodor offers three separate arguments that harmonize towards a congruent end; each adding increasing support for the value of folk psychology. The first of these acknowledges the high probability that folk psychology is an accurate predictor of human behavior and, seemingly, the human thought process. Fodor does recognize that folk psychology can lead to incorrect predictions which then may have negative, and sometimes severe, consequences. It is important to Fodors argument to note that the times when folk psychology is

ineffective are caused by reality not acting as expected (This is a main point of criticism by other philosophers. Fodor counters these arguments by establishing a parallel between other accepted sciences by saying that they require similar assumptions within their domains). Despite these outlying moments of failure, folk psychology is so commonly used and accepted that it is practiced unnoticed by people. People use it in ordinary conversation persistently and constantly rely on its consistency. It is especially used when multiple people coordinate the attending of an event together. An event typically involves a time and a place. The actual attending of people at events is established first through some form of communication, such as speech or text. The words that a person may say or write represent that persons intentions to attend that event. Another person attending the same event may then hold a belief that another person will also be attending the event. The intention and the belief stated here are both, respectively, realized and true when the actual event occurs and the people do attend the event. The initial attitudes of these people then result in a predictable reality. Fodor concludes that folk psychology is just as useful as any other special science. Fodors next argument, for the benefit of saving folk psychology, is that folk psychology has depth. Fodor begins this discussion by clarifying to the reader that folk psychology does not mean that a person refers to a list of heuristics to understand and act upon the world. Folk psychology is much more dynamic than that. Analyzing a situation using folk psychology involves describing a persons attitudes and the process these attitudes go through to create new states of mind and possibly new states of the real world. Assuming that folk psychology is at play, it would then mean that a persons mind innately or automatically stays within a particular framework that acts in a certain way. This framework is a quasi deductive reasoning or inference engine that evolves current states of attitudes into new states of attitudes. This engine, as a series of interacting mental states, is the crux of folk psychology. The power of attitudes to cause change in the mind (where the causes are implicitly understood) and out in the real world (where the causes are observed) is combined with folk psychologys similarity to the most powerful etiological generalizations to create an expansive but predictable complex system. Fodors final argument, which also acts as the conclusion for the umbrella argument for the saving of folk psychology, states that we have no alternative to explaining human behavior and the process of its causes without folk psychology. This indispensability leaves the reader with no choice but to accept folk psychology as valuable to anyone who wishes to study the mind in the complex world in which it exists. Fodor specifically addresses that, without folk

psychology, there will be no science to generalize over human behaviour using counter-factual evidence. He provides an argument for the necessity of folk psychology by using reductio ad absurdum. This argument begins by stating two types of events. One involves the behavior of communicating an attitude to something outside the self. The second type of event is the fulfillment of this attitude as an action (Though attitudes are not explicitly mentioned, it is hard to describe these events without concepts that seem similar to folk psychology. This, then, may further prove Fodors point). The argument then shows that the second type of event follows from the first type of event. Now, Fodor claims, in order for folk psychology to not play a necessary part in this process, these two events must be able to be broken down into a more atomic form that will no longer be fit for explanation by psychology. Fodor concludes that this is not the case. These events are psychological. The only way that these events could not be psychological is if they were somehow made up of interacting physical components that could be explained using physics. Fodor recognizes that there are aspects of folk psychology, namely behavior, that just cannot be explained using physics. Fodor closes this final argument, and therefor the argument for saving folk psychology, by repeating again that we cannot ignore the existence of folk psychology because, by its nature, we are not able to. The rest of the chapter proves to make great use of this theory of folk psychology. It does seem to me that it is in fact useful for understanding human behavior and the mind as well. I agree that it is worth saving.