10.  Are you entirely convinced by Putnam’s “species chauvinism” or “multiple realizability” objection to the (Type-)Identity Theory?

    11.  Does Putnam’s computational Functionalism have any further advantages over the Identity Theory, that have not yet been touted?  Does it have any drawbacks from which the Identity Theory is free?

    12.  Do Block’s counterexamples work against “Functionalism” (= “Analytical Functionalism,” = the Commonsense Causal Theory)?  N.b., we didn’t discuss this in class.

    13.  Do Block’s counterexamples work against (“Psycho-”)Functionalism?

    14.  Address Block’s problem of “universal psychology” on p. 224.

    15.  Address Block’s “problem of the inputs and the outputs.”

    16.  Has Fodor solved Brentano’s Problem (by showing how it is possible for a purely physical entity to have intentional states)?

    17.  Evaluate Dennett’s critique of the “brain writing” or Representational theory of thinking.  How far does it apply to Fodor’s version of the theory?

    18.  Make some progress on the problem of “tacit” belief.  Is a tacit belief just a disposition, or what?  Is Dennett too hard, or not hard enough, on the “extrapolator-deducer” hypothesis (p. 505)?

    19.  Explore some analogies and disanalogies between thought and overt speech.  There’s a lot more to be said about this; try to make a list of disanalogies in particular. Do the disanalogies impair or destroy Fodor’s Sellarsian theory?

    20.  Assess any one of Fodor’s positive arguments for the language-of-thought.

    21.  Look at and discuss  the prototheory of aboutness that Dennett sketches on pp. 346-48 of “True Believers.”

    22.  Discuss Dennett’s exceedingly convolute view of the propositional attitudes, as variously expressed in the readings.  Can you clarify the nature of his “instrumentalism” regarding beliefs and desires?  Can you give a more convincing argument for it than he does?  Or would you argue against it?

    23.  Stalk the Tinfoil Man for a while.  How might Dennett (or Ryle) either (a) reject the example or (b) modify his view so as to accommodate our feeling that the Man has no mental life?

    24.  Discuss Dennett’s remarks on “patterns” and the Martian example. What should we take to be the true moral of the example? Can you spell out the sense in which the Laplacean Martians are “missing something objective and important”?

    25.  Comment on “methodological solipsism,” addressing one or more of the issues raised in class or any other issue that occurs to you. E.g., is a “naturalistic,” nonsolipsistic psychology as unattainable as Stich insists?  Must a solipsistically oriented psychologist abandon the use of “that”-clauses?  Is Stich right in contending that Fodor has failed to see the drastic consequences of his own view?

    26.  If you’ve read it, discuss either Burge’s or Loar’s view.

    27.  Investigate one or more of the possibilities for a purely solipsistic psychological vocabulary.  Might psychologists realistically hope for a “machine language” that they could use to describe brain events in purely “syntactic” terms?  How about just using ordinary attitude locutions but understanding them as shorthand for narrow/autonomous descriptions of the relevant states?  (That is, we might let psychologists use “that”-clauses relative to a fixed choice of interpretation scheme but use that scheme only to make clear which narrow/autonomous states they are talking about.)
    Or what about Fodor’s idea of “narrow content”?
    Is there any further possibility?