The Holism Argument against ‘Modern Philosophy of Mind’

Abstract

According to Jerry Fodor, a characteristic assumption of modern philosophy of mind is that the content of a person's concepts is individuated on the basis of the roles the concepts have. Fodor has instead argued that conceptual content merely depends on extension. The most influential argument for this atomism of conceptual content claims that since there is no analytic-synthetic distinction, a conceptual role theorist must accept that there is no principled distinction between content and not-content determining conceptual roles. But accepting this, the argument holds, forces the conceptual role theorist to accept global meaning holism, a consequence Fodor thinks is intolerable. I argue that Tyler Burge's social externalism represents an objection to the holism argument: social externalism can be understood as a conceptual role theory in the relevant sense. According to social externalism, there is no principled distinction between content and not-content determining conceptual roles in the sense relevant for the argument. Social externalism does not, however, imply global meaning holism.