cover image The Mind Doesn't Work That Way: The Scope and Limits of Computational Psychology

The Mind Doesn't Work That Way: The Scope and Limits of Computational Psychology

Jerry A. Fodor. MIT Press (MA), $25 (138pp) ISBN 978-0-262-06212-1

How does the mind really work? We don't yet know, but in his previous writings, prolific Rutgers philosopher Fodor (Modularity of Mind; The Elm and the Expert) helped provide cognitive science with what he calls a Computational Theory of Mind (CTM). (The theory in brief: the mind works like a certain kind of computer, with built-in modes of operation; some of these modes are involved in language, as predicted by Noam Chomsky.) Fodor still supports such a theory of mind, but other scientists, he thinks, have misused the model: popular writers and influential thinkers like Steven Pinker (How the Mind Works) have hooked up CTM to sociobiology to give an inaccurate picture of thoughts and feelings--one that, Fodor argues, relies on wrong generalizations, unreliable assumptions and an unsupportable confidence that we already have the whole picture. This picture is called the New Synthesis, and Fodor writes to refute it. He also wishes to show, by contrast, what remains useful about computational models of biologically based mental processes. One of Fodor's arguments distinguishes between local and global cognition. Local cognition--like understanding the word ""cat""--can be explained by CTM, studied by linguists and traced to particular parts of the brain. Global cognition--like deciding to acquire a cat--generally can't and may never be explained. The New Synthesis, Fodor says, has confused the two, and he sets out to untangle them. His prose is informal, exact and aimed at fairly serious nonspecialists: those who don't know who Chomsky or Alan Turing are, or what a syntactic structure is, aren't the audience for this book. Those who do know, you may read Fodor's case in one sitting, and with intense interest-- whether or not they find his logic persuasive. (Sept.)