Jerry Fodor: biography and work of this American philosopher

Science is constantly advancing. Some scholars and authors, however, have more influence than others to make this happen and leave a legacy of knowledge that is hardly comparable. This is the case of Jerry Fodor, a renowned North American philosopher and psycholinguist, who died in 2017.

In this article we will briefly review her biography and learn about her contributions in the field of cognitive science. We will talk about the contributions he made in different fields of study and we will explain what his most outstanding work consists of: "The modularity of mind" (1983).

Jerry Fodor: who was he?

Jerry Fodor was an American philosopher, as well as a psycholinguist, scientist, and university professor, eventually becoming a professor of philosophy. He was born on April 22, 1935 in New York, and died on November 29, 2017 also in New York, at the age of 82.

Fodor, in addition to being a philosopher and psycholinguist, was a great student of the human mind. He proposed an important theory in psychology: the theory of the modularity of the mind, which postulates that the mind is divided into compartments with specific functions, and that we will see later.

In addition, Jerry Fodor was one of the founders of functionalism, an important current in psychology, along with other authors such as: William James, James R. Angell, and John Dewey.

Trajectory

Jerry Fodor studied philosophy, and began developing his work in the 1960s. Some of his collaborators regard Fodor as the creator of the "philosophy of psychology," and his contributions and knowledge, as we will see later, were especially halfway between these two disciplines.

In the early 1960s, Fodor began working as a professor of philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), on the team of Noam chomsky, important North American linguist. He worked at MIT until 1986.

Thanks to his work, dedication and career, Jerry Fodor became Professor of Philosophy in New Jersey at Rutger University.

Functionalism

A noteworthy fact about Jerry Fodor was his relationship with functionalism; Fodor is considered one of the fathers of functionalism in psychology. This philosophical current postulates that mental life and behavior have the fundamental purpose of allowing us to adapt to the environment. In addition, it considers that mental processes are mediating functions between sensory inputs and motor outputs.

On the other hand, functionalism allowed the development of other theories and psychological currents.

Work and contributions

Jerry Fodor's work is extensive and has resulted in a large number of works; among them, it has more than a dozen books, many of them with a clearly informative tone. He also wrote some thirty publications for the London Review of Books, a well-known British literary and political magazine.

Fodor's work focused on various fields, fields and disciplines, such as the linguistics, psychology, semiotics, logic, artificial intelligence and computer science, among others.

Cognitive science

One of the most important data that we must know about this philosopher of the mind is that his contributions helped to create cognitive science, a relatively modern discipline that deals with the scientific study of the mind and its processes.

Specifically, Fodor made outstanding contributions in the field of philosophy and psychology; he focused especially on theories that postulate a modularity of mind. These theories, and which we will see later, propose that the mind is divided into certain functions, and that each of them is highly specialized; all of them, moreover, although they are independent, are related to each other.

On the other hand, Jerry Fodor also delved into the philosophy of language, a branch of the philosophy that studies language itself through its nature, meaning and relationship with it. thought.

Modularity theory of mind

To elaborate his work, Jerry Fodor followed a theoretical orientation focused on the information processing (IP) paradigm. Through his vision, and as we have already anticipated, he produced one of his most important works: "The Modularity of Mind", dated 1983.

This work shows the influence that Franz Joseph Gall, the German physiologist who founded the phrenology (pseudoscience that establishes a relationship between the shape of the skull and the features and features of personality).

Characteristics of the theory

The theory of the modularity of the mind proposes a division of the same in two types of systems: input systems (the so-called input analyzers, which are modular) and central systems.

The input systems pass the information to the central systems so that they can process it. According to Jerry Fodor's theory, only input systems can be empirically tested (because they are modular), as opposed to central systems (which are not).

But how does the human mind work according to Fodor? In his theory of the modularity of the mind, he believes that the mind is divided into various innate and compartmentalized subsystems. Each subsystem develops a specific function: for example, we can talk about language, mathematical ability, musical ability, etc.

Fodor adds in his theory that these mental functions and faculties work in a similar way to how computers do, through abstract algorithms.

Sciences and technology

Another interesting fact about this philosopher is his relationship with science and the use of technology. Thus, Jerry Fodor was guided a lot from technology and computer science to talk about the human mind and the brain. Fodor believed that the brain could be studied very well thanks to technology, but always up to a certain point, where the mind became abstract and imprecise.

Thus, Fodor, through his contributions, attempted to answer the oldest questions of cognition. human and the functioning of the mind, through the technology and computing of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

Recognition and death

Jerry Fodor obtained a series of recognitions throughout his academic and professional career. Some of them were: the Guggenheim Scholarship (in 1972), and a little later the Jean Nicod Prize (in 1993).

Fodor died in 2017 at the age of 82 in his hometown of New York as a result of his Parkinson's disease and a stroke. His legacy, however, is still alive and it is likely that he will remain so for many decades. The mark that he has left in the field of psychology and philosophy is undeniable.

Bibliographic references:

• Fodor, J. TO. (1983). The Modularity of Mind. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. [Trad. Spanish in Ed. Morata, 1986].

• Fox, M. (2017). Jerry A. Fodor, Philosopher Who Plumbed the Mind’s Depths, Dies at 82. The New York Times.

• García-Albea, J. AND. (2003). Fodor and the modularity of the mind (twenty years later). Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Anuario de Psicología, 34 (4): 505-571.