The Trouble with Homunculus Theories

Bibliographic Data

ID10703196
AuthorsJoseph Margolis (Temple College, corresponding author)
Year1980
Volume47
Issue2
Pages244-259
Publication date1980-06-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenuePhilosophy of Science (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0031-8248 • E-ISSN: 1539-767X
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1086/288931
OpenAlexW1980610159
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited17

The so-called post-Wittgensteinian Oxford philosophers are often criticized not only for failing to provide for the causal explanation of human behavior and psychological states, but also for failing to recognize that psychological explanations require appeal to sub-personal or molecular processes. Three strategies accommodating this criticism appear in so-called homunculus theories and include: (1) that the sub-systems be assigned intentional or informational content purely heuristically; (2) that the intentional or informational content of molar states be analyzed without remainder in terms of molecular processing; (3) that the entire or salient range of mental or informational molar states be accessible at the molecular level, or vice versa. Option (2) proves to be the most radical and is favored by Dennett. (1) relevantly requires a reduction of the intentional. (3) is illustrated in various ways by the views of Freud, Chomsky, Fodor. (2) is shown to depend on (1) or to be idle; and (3) embraces at least in part an appeal to molar-level explanation. The argument developed attempts to show the sense in which discourse about molar and molecular-level phenomena in the psychological context is fundamentally different from macroscopic and microtheoretical-level discourse about physical phenomena. The conclusion drawn is that neither a molar nor a sub-personal level theory is suitably explanatory in the psychological sense: a psychological theory is committed rather to a set of sub-personal components of such systems, that serve to explain molar phenomena

Appeal · Argument (complex analysis) · Content (measure theory) · Context (archaeology) · Eliminative materialism · Epistemology · Set (abstract data type) · Behavioral and Psychological Studies · Chemistry · Child and Animal Learning Development · Computer Science · History · Law · Mathematics · Philosophy · Philosophy and Theoretical Science · Psychology

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