Varieties of the Generality Constraint

Since its introduction by Evans (1982), the generality constraint (GC) has been invoked by various philosophers for different purposes. Our purpose here is, first, to clarify what precisely the GC states by way of an interpretive framework, the GC Schema, and second, to demonstrate in terms of this framework some problems that arise if one invokes the GC (or systematicity) without clearly specifying an appropriate interpretation. By utilizing the GC Schema these sorts of problems can be avoided, and we thus propose it as a tool to facilitate argumentation that appeals to the GC. Since its introduction by Evans (1982), the generality constraint (GC) has been invoked by various philosophers for different purposes. Evans first formulated the principle to serve as a sort of constraint on theories of human thought, and it is put to the same use by Peacoke (1992). More recently, Carruthers (2004, 2009) and Camp (2004, 2009) have invoked the GC not as a constraint on theories of human thought, but rather as a criterion for a creature to have conceptual thought. Another use of it is found in Heck (2007), who invokes the GC to argue that conceptual states (e.g. beliefs) and nonconceptual states (e.g. perceptions) have different kinds of content. Moreover, the general idea expressed by the GC is also expressed by what is known as “systematicity,” and Fodor (and others) argue that the systematicity of (human) language and thought supports the conclusion that they both are truth-conditionally compositional. Fodor has also invoked systematicity to argue in support of “classical” architectures of the mind. 1 That systematicity and the GC are (at least in some forms) equivalent is noted, for example, by Johnson (2004, p. 111): “Systematicity (sometimes under the name “generality” or “recombinability”) has ... been discussed frequently in the philosophy of mind” and he cites Evans (1982) Peacocke (1992) and Travis (1994) as examples of such discussion.