Are we wrong about representation?

In his recent book, The Elm and The Expert (1994), Jerry Fodor opens with a rather puzzling remark: “It may be that I have gotten myself into a philosophical situation about which all that can helpfully be said is that I ought not to have gotten myself into it” (p.1). Fodor is referring to what is a paradoxical and deep problem in his theory concerning the relations between representational content, computation and explanation of the mind — it seems that the three may not be compatible at all, at least in the way Fodor wants them to. Fodor, of course, does not plan to give up that easily, and the rest of his book is devoted to trying to get himself out of this dilemma. Mark H. Bickhard and Loren Terveen, however, have quite a different take on the matter. In their recent book, Foundational Issues in Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science (1995), they respond with an emphatic yes: Fodor is indeed in a philosophical “pickle” that he shouldn’t have gotten himself into. The bad news is that Fodor is not alone; in fact, if Bickhard and Terveen are correct, all of cognitive science and artificial intelligence (AI) is at a foundational impasse which stems from a deep problem, of which Fodor’s worry is just one symptom. This problem concerns the fundamental nature of representation.