American philosopher who was the most influential philosopher of mind of the late 20th century — developing the language of thought hypothesis, the modularity of mind thesis, and a vigorous defense of intentional realism against eliminativism.
Language of Thought: mental states are sentences in a language (Mentalese) — thinking is computing over mental representations with syntactic structure. Modularity of Mind: input systems (vision, language) are modular (encapsulated, domain-specific), while central cognition is non-modular. Intentional realism: propositional attitudes (beliefs, desires) are real causal states — eliminativism is false.
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