The Standard Argument 133

The Standard Argument 133
That is what is called in the trade a ‘what-else’ argument. I have nothing
against what-else arguments in philosophy; still less in cognitive science.
Rational persuasion often invokes considerations that are convincing but
not demonstrative, and what else but a what-else argument could a
convincing but non-demonstrative argument be? On the other hand, it is
in the nature of what-else arguments that ‘Q if not P’ trumps ‘What else,
if not P?’; and, in the present case, I think there is a prima facie plausible
ontological candidate for Q; that is, an explanation which makes the d/D
effect the consequence of a metaphysical truth about how concepts are
constituted, rather than an empirical truth about how concepts are
acquired. In fact, I know of two such candidates, one of which might even
work.
First Try at a Metaphysical Solution to the d/D Problem
If you assume a causal/historical (as opposed to a dispositional/
counterfactual) construal of the locking relation, it might well turn out
that there is a metaphysical connection between acquiring DOORKNOB
and causally interacting with doorknobs. (Cf. the familiar story according
to which it’s because I have causally interacted with water and my Twin
hasn’t that I can think water-thoughts and he can’t.) Actually, I don’t much
like causal/historical accounts of locking (see Fodor 1994: App. B), but we
needn’t argue about that here. For, even if causally interacting with
doorknobs is metaphysically necessary for DOORKNOB-acquisition, it
couldn’t conceivably be metaphysically sufficient; just causally interacting
with doorknobs doesn’t guarantee you any concepts at all. That being so,
explaining the doorknob/DOORKNOB effect requires postulating some
(contingent, psychological) mechanism that reliably leads from having Fexperiences
to acquiring the concept of being F. It understates the case to
say that no alternative to hypothesis testing suggests itself. So I don’t think
that a causal/historical account of the locking relation can explain why
there is a d/D effect without invoking the very premiss which, according
to SA, it can’t have: viz. that primitive concepts are learned inductively.
Note the similarity of this objection to the one that rejected a
Darwinian solution of the d/D problem: just as you can’t satisfy the
conditions for having the concept F just in virtue of having interacted with
Fs, so too you can’t satisfy the conditions for having the concept F just in
virtue of your grandmother’s having interacted with Fs. In both cases,
concept acquisition requires something to have gone on in your head in
consequence of the interactions. Given the ubiquity of the d/D phenomenon,
the natural candidate for what’s gone on in your head is inductive
learning.