Greg Bowering, April 1998
In his essay, Fodor defends the intellectualist accounts of mental ability, namely that such accounts are justified in appealing to the concept of tacit knowledge in explaining how mental processes work. The account is a psychological theory whereby the performance of a mental operation involves an agent in the brain first finding the necessary procedure and then following its rules. In other words, the agent must first consider how to do something. It is explained why such a theory is inadequate unless such agents are refined to either perform specific elementary functions (for which no procedure is required) or to delegate to simpler and more specific subordinate agents. Optimally, such a theory should appeal to no unanalysed agent, but will only require programs composed of elementary operations.
Introspectively however, we do not necessarily first consider how to do something. To use Fodor’s examples: when tying one’s shoelaces, we soon learn to perform the task without first thinking about how to do it. Not only is this the case for habituated tasks, but also for such things as typing the word "Afghanistan", which I can type for the first time ever, and without any prior consideration. Therefore the intellectualist account is wrong.
Fodor answers this by pointing out that many parts of mental activity are not open to introspective analysis. He cites aspects of our visual perceptive system as an example: If we cannot introspectively know about visual perceptive processing, it is reasonable to suppose that perhaps the same applies for the unconscious consideration of shoe-tying procedure.
Fodor explains the distinctions between the different ways we can know how to do something. One important distinction is that although we may know how to perform some task, we are not necessarily able to introspectively see, nor be able to adequately explain how we perform it. For example, although our minds know how to perceive depth in vision, we cannot ipso facto explain how we do this. Even if we are able to explain how we do something, such information appears secondary and separate to what is actually put to work in our minds.
Fodor makes the important point that the intellectualist account applies to mental competences (such as tying shoes, or typing on a keyboard) but not to mental traits (such as intelligence, wit, or accuracy). This distinction between competences and traits allows the account to avoid an objection raised by Ryle: that in the consider-then-execute sequence, the consideration is itself a mental operation and therefore it must first be considered how to consider, and so on, to infinite regress.
The intellectualist account avoids this because the proposed procedural knowledge is ultimately composed of non-procedural elementary operations which require no consideration.
The intellectualist appeals to the concept of tacit knowledge to stand for the procedural rules that describe the performance of competences. The mental agent is said to posses tacit knowledge of these rules.
In support of this appeal, Fodor concludes by explaining how we can use the inductive principle of like effects to like causes to describe the tacit knowledge embodied by an organism. He explains that the program for an optimal computer simulation of an organism can be identified with the tacit knowledge of that organism. Furthermore, he describes how we can obtain an English translation of the program, and claims such a translation will be a true, precise and complete description of the organism’s behavioural nature.
Bibliography
Fodor, J.A. (1968). The appeal to tacit knowledge in psychological explanations. In Fodor, J.A. (1981). Representations. Brighton: Harvester Press.