Novel Sensations: Modernist Fiction and the Problem of Qualia, by Jon Day, Stories and the Brain: The Neuroscience of Narrative, by Paul B. Armstrong
Joshua Gang
Twentieth Century Literature September 1, 2023 DOI: 10.1215/0041462x-10814852 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Commentary Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Key points | Recounts that Carnap held every sentence of psychology can be formulated in physical language, part of his physicalist program to unify the sciences, and that Fodor's 1974 "Special Sciences" argued against this reductionist thesis, with other philosophers also rejecting reductionism. |
Abstract
“Every sentence of psychology,” Rudolf Carnap (1959: 165) wrote in “Psychology in Physical Language” (1932), “may be formulated in physical language. . . . This is a sub-thesis of the general thesis of physicalism to the effect that physical language is a universal language, that is, a language into which every sentence may be translated.” This reductive physicalism was fundamental to Carnap’s early efforts to unify the sciences. And in “Special Sciences (Or: The Disunity of Science as a Working Hypothesis)” (1974), Jerry Fodor did his best to shut it down. Of course Fodor isn’t the only philosopher to reject reductionism.