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JOSEPH MARGOLIS
Temple University
244
8See however, Chisholm (1967), Castaneda (1967) (comp.), also Korner (1966) and
Sellers, (1963), especially pp. 38-40.
91 have explored this more systematically in Margolis (forthcoming).
'4Items 8-12 mentioned include: that "the agent finds himself in a certain situation
(S)"; that "the agent believes that a certain set of behavioral options (B,, B2, ...
B,) are available to him in S"; that "the probable consequence of performing each
of B , through B are predicted [the agent computes a set of appropriate hypotheticals] ";
and that "a preference ordering is assigned to the consequences" (Fodor 1975, p.
28).
5See Margolis (1978a), ch. 8.
one has merely to maintain that molar agents are cognitively competent
at an unconscious level. Whatever their success, therefore, we can,
by attending to Freud's, Chomsky's, and Fodor's endeavors, see how
easily one may agree with Dennett's criticism of the post-Wittgenstein-
ial form of psychological explanation without at all concluding that
every pertinent effort to explain molar behavior in terms of molecular
components must be a version of strategy (2).
Fodor actually criticizes an earlier view of Dennett's in which,
it appeared, molecular informational processing (storing and retrieving
information and the like) was construed on the basis of a cognitive
model (internal events interpreted as commands to effector systems,
for instance); if so, Fodor argues, Dennett must face a regress or
else drop the homuncular anthropomorphizing of molecular proc-
esses.16 For his part, Dennett (1978) holds that the only way to "save
Fodor's enterprise from incoherence" is to add "constraints to the
notion of an internal representation system that emphasize rather
than eliminate the distinction between personal level attributions of
beliefs and desires and sub-personal level attributions of content to
intersystemic transactions. If [he says] there is any future for internal
systems of representation it will not be for languages of thought that
'represents our beliefs to us', except in the most strained sense."
Fodor's argument requires some range of common elements of language
at the molar and (apparently) molecular levels. In effect, this means,
as has been argued, that the molar agent (unconsciously) has access
to information processed and stored in its own sub-systemic compo-
nents. It does not preclude other informational features of its repre-
sentational and computational apparatus from being inaccessible at
the molar level. The details of Fodor's account may well be quite
mistaken; but Fodor never loses sight of the fact that the molar agent
(unless reduced or eliminated) must have access to its own sub-sys-
tem-otherwise, psychological explanation would have no point at
all. Hence, Dennett's program makes no sense unless he can show
how the conscious and cognitive capacities of molar agents can be
analyzed, without remainder, into the systematically linked capacities
of molecular homunculi.
Here, the complexity of undertakings in accord with strategy (2)
begins to dawn. The point of the proviso, "without remainder," is
to be flexible but clear about what is minimally required. Generally
speaking, the intended analysis must either paraphrase or replace
ascriptions made at the molar level.'7 What it must not do is admit
'6Fodor (1975), p. 73-75. Cf. Dennett (1969), p. 87, cited in Fodor (1975).
'7The sense of these alternatives accords pretty closely with that favored, say,
in Quine (1960) and in Sellars (1963).
both molar and molecular agents in such a way that the molar can
be identified with the molecular, or that they can, between them,
enter into cognitively qualified relations. The pivotal difficulty of
Dennett's program is that, in exploring the instructive possibilities
of a computer simulation of intelligence, Dennett fails to grasp the
full force of the fact that, as things now stand, the pertinence of
the simulation is itself assigned by a human interpreter. Thus, in
AI contexts, it is quite fair (and benign enough) to deny consciousness
and cognitive capacity to machines and to treat the ascription of
informational content to the physical workings of machines heuristical-
ly. That, after all, is precisely the point of admitting simulation. But
Dennett offers no argument to show that, at the homuncular level,
ifmolar human agents are to be analyzed without remainder, ascriptions
of real psychological states, conscious and cognitively qualified, can
be avoided. This is what we cannot be sure of in Dennett's introduction
of idiot homunculi. If they are merely stupid, his reductive program
fails, because their behavior will be explained by means of the same
psychological model (normally reserved for molar agents) that he
wishes to eliminate (otherwise: the regress that Fodor anticipates must
obtain); and if they are less than stupid, utterly lacking in intentionally
qualified states, then his reductive program will fail again, because
neither he nor we know of any way to reduce the intentional to
the non-intentional.
On Dennett's view, Fodor's system is "neo-cognitivist," since (for
Fodor) "any representation or system of representations requires at
least one user of the system who is external to the system." Thus,
since such a system requires "undischarged homunculi" (users of
the system in the sense given), "any psychology with undischarged
homunculi is doomed to circularity or infinite regress" (Dennett 1978,
p. 101). If so, then it appears that Dennett's own account must be
construed as non-cognitivist. But since the required reduction is
lacking, the apparent option is entirely idle. We are somehow to
suppose that not only can "fancy homunculi" be replaced by more
stupid ones, but also that, in the process of replacing them, we can
invoke the purely heuristic ascriptions of AI contexts. Here is the
missing premiss. Dennett's contention is not merely that computers
can simulate human intelligence; it is that the model of human
intelligence is itself, in principle, a dispensable (however convenient)
simulation model in terms of which to understand the real functioning
of the human organism. Dennett cites, favorably, a witticism of Michael
Arbib's-that "what the frog's eye tells the frog's brain is not what
the frog's eye tells the frog" (Dennett 1978, p. 101). He finds that
Fodor dismisses the distinction because the relationship between the
frog's eye and the frog's brain cannot be explained (Fodor believes)
except in terms of the frog's molar cognition. Perhaps so. But, though
he insists on the distinction, Dennett somehow supposes that, in
exploring the first relationship (or relationships of the first kind),
we should find that if we collected a sufficient set of them, we should
in effect have exhausted all that could possibly have been meant
by the second.
The essential lesson, then, is clear: promising models of psycholo-
gical explanation can invoke molecular processes only if those proc-
esses are admitted, in posited theories, to be the sub-systems of (real)
molar systems; that is, their functions are the sub-functions of the
systems of which they are the sub-systems. This means that there
cannot be an analysis, without remainder, of molar systems in terms
of molecular homunculi; there cannot, unless molar systems themselves
can be reductively analyzed in non-intentional terms. The would-be
replacement or paraphrase, in terms of strategy (2), preserves inten-
tional or informational ascriptions. Because it does, it must fail, since
its own assigned ascriptions presuppose what is ascribed at the level
of real molar activity. Hence, the molecular analysis that Dennett
favors must, to be successful, be combined with the replacement
of intentional realism-the ascription of real mental states to molar
systems.
The point is of the greatest importance. If molar psychological
systems were like macroscopic physical objects, then molecular
explanations would resemble (in the relevant respect) micro-theoretical
explanations of physical phenomena. The trouble is that molar systems
must, provisionally at least, be ascribed intentional states and capaci-
ties. Hence, the intentional idiom, introduced at the molar level, must
be preserved at all molecular (sub-molar) levels of explanation in
order merely to be relevant. Since the molecular level preserves
intentional ascriptions, sub-personal and sub-molar components cannot
but be described in a way that remains conceptually dependent on
whatever intentional ascriptions are made at the molar level itself.
(This is true even if one introduces machines that are heuristically
described in intentional terms.) Dennett does not see that, given the
reflexive conditions under which we attribute mental states to our-
selves, we cannot regard our own intentional nature as merely
heuristically dependent on certain favored descriptions; we are bound
to treat such ascriptions realistically, unless an effective reductive
program can be defended. Hence, Dennett remarks, quite charac-
teristically: "Intentional objects are not any kind of objects at all.
This characteristic is the dependence of Intentional objects on particu-
lar descriptions ... to change the description is to change the object.
REFERENCES