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Q: epistemic boundedness ( Answered 5 out of 5 stars,   0 Comments )
Question  
Subject: epistemic boundedness
Category: Reference, Education and News > Homework Help
Asked by: mitts-ga
List Price: $10.00
Posted: 29 Nov 2003 14:40 PST
Expires: 29 Dec 2003 14:40 PST
Question ID: 281732
A man called Jerry Fodor coined the term "epistemic boundedness". 
What is the name of the book or piece of writing where this idea is
first presented?
Answer  
Subject: Re: epistemic boundedness
Answered By: pinkfreud-ga on 29 Nov 2003 16:25 PST
Rated:5 out of 5 stars
 
The term "epistemic boundedness" was first used by Jerry Fodor in "The
Modularity of Mind," a highly influential book which was published in
1983 by MIT Press.

"Here, for instance, is Fodor on why science cannot explain the
central Cartesian core of the mind:

A recent issue of Scientific American (September, 1979) was devoted to
the brain. Its table of contents is quite as interesting as the papers
it contains. There are, as you might expect, articles that cover the
neuropsychology of language and of the perceptual mechanisms. But
there is nothing on the neuropsychology of thought--presumably because
nothing is known about the neuropsychology of thought. I am suggesting
that there is a good reason why nothing is known about it--namely,
that there is nothing to know about it. (The Modularity of Mind, MIT
Press, 1983, p. 119.)

[Colin] McGinn relies on Fodor to provide the entering wedge of his
argument: what Fodor calls epistemic boundedness and McGinn calls
cognitive closure."

Tufts University: Review of McGinn, The Problem of Consciousness
http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/papers/mcginn.htm

"An example of a non-cosmological enduring mystery is Colin McGinn's
adoption (1991, 1993) of the modularity of mind thesis (Chomsky, 1984,
and Fodor, 1983) to argue that the problem of consciousness will
remain intractably mysterious due to the 'epistemic boundedness' of
the human brain structure."

Chowan College: Uncovering Secrets
http://www.chowan.edu/acadp/Religion/pubs/uncovering-secrets.htm

"It is clear, however, that there are big jumps in Fodor's (1983)
reasoning: there is a jump from observing that functions like vision
have become specialized in the course of evolution, to claiming that
the visual system is an encapsulated "input module." There is an
additional jump from the assertion of modular organization in the mind
to the assertion of 'epistemic boundedness': constraints on what can
be represented.

[ . . . ]

Fodor, J. (1983). The modularity of mind: An essay on faculty psychology.
Cambridge, Mass.: MIT."

Lehigh University: Types of Constraints on Development
http://www.lehigh.edu/~mhb0/Constraints.pdf

"The Modularity of Mind" is still in print, and can be purchased in a
trade paperback edition:

Amazon: The Modularity of Mind
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0262560259/

Google search strategy:

Google Web Search: "epistemic boundedness" + "fodor"
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=%22epistemic+boundedness%22+fodor

I hope this information is helpful. If anything is unclear, or if a
link does not function, please request clarification; I'll be glad to
offer further assistance before you rate my answer.

Best regards,
pinkfreud
mitts-ga rated this answer:5 out of 5 stars

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