In case anyone is interested in the response by Block and Kitcher to Fodor’s argument against evolutionary biology:
Block and Kitcher vs. Fodor and Piattelli-Palmarini
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In case anyone is interested in the response by Block and Kitcher to Fodor’s argument against evolutionary biology:
Comments are closed.
Great, thanks for the link. What historico-psychological explanation is there for Fodor’s quixotic multi-decade quest to show that what biologists do is either irrelevant or confused?
Does philosophy of mind break down between those who failed HS biology and those who didn’t? OK, sorry low blow just a joke I don’t think Putnam failed biology.
What is interesting about Fodor and Piattelli-Palmarini’s attempt to paint Neo-Dawinist theory as a is that, by attacking neo-darwinism as implicitly linking in an inappropriate intentionality (NOT intensionality FWIW), they wind up becoming allies with the same ID theorists who explicitly link divine intentionality to the history of evolution. Fun to watch the controversy, but could leave one feeling a bit dirty :-).
Have you seen this on blogging heads?
https://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/26848
Richard, I was just about to post that!
Also, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that I agree with Fodor, but not with Eric’s statement above. I don’t think Fodor thinks that what biologists do is irrelevant, although he might say that what they say they’re doing is confused (but he thinks this about all scientists).
Sorry Corey
Re: biology is irrelevant,see Language of Thought, Intro. Or more baldly “If you want to know about the mind, study the mind –not the brain, and certainly not the genes” (Fodor in Times Literary Supplement, 16 May 2003, 1–2).
Re: biology is confused, see this debate.
Does Fodor discuss the evolution of antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria in any detail? Seems like a good case study to determine how well his argument holds up.
Fodor brings up data that any Freshman biology major already knows (e.g., traits tend to be correlated), and points out something evolutionary biologists already know, that this makes selectionist explanations tricky. He then proceeds to kill the baby. It seems Block and Kitcher do a pretty good job of dismantling his argument, and expressing the biologist’s perspective.
Given his abysmal track record here, I’m pretty closed-minded toward Fodor when he says anything about biology. Why read Fodor when I can read Wimsatt or Bechtel? I guess if I were a philosopher I’d have the time to read all of them.