The only other option, for the Russellian, is to claim that it is not really
thoughts, but ratherthought-signs(sentences, or sentence-like objects)
which cause actions. And then the pattern of causation in the two cases can
be the same. For in the hallucination case it need not be in doubt that I do
entertain a thought-signof some sort. For example, I might entertain in
auditory imagination the English words, ‘Thatcat is dangerous’ (see
chapter 8). Or as Fodor has claimed in another context (1994), it may be
that it is signs of Mentalese which are the only intra-cranial components of
(widely individuated) thoughts. The Russellian merely claims that, in
context, these signs do not express any complete content. But the trouble
with this is that it pitches the explanation of my actions at the wrong level.
Even if, at some level of description, our actions are caused by sentence-
processings (as the computational model of the mind maintains, indeed;
see Fodor, 1980), wealsothink that they are caused, at a higher level of
description, by thoughts – psychological states with intentional content.
And it is this that Russellians cannot accommodate, if they take thisWnal
option.
(Although Fodor was once a champion of narrow content, in his 1994 he
proposes to use wide content plus ‘modes of presentation’ – in the shape of
sentences of Mentalese – to do the explanatory work he had previously
assigned to narrow content. But, despite the case in favour of a language of
thought – for which see chapter 8 below – this manoeuvre fails to preserve
the right sort of psychological explanation. Oedipus was not horriWed that
he had made love to Jocasta, but now he is horriWed that he has made love
to his mother. The explanation for why he puts out his eyes must surely
advert to the fact that he hasrealised thatJocasta is his mother, and thus
realised that he has committed incest – not just that he has come to have
some new sentences of Mentalese which refer to his mother tokened in his
brain.)
Thus far in this chapter we have defended the coherence of the notion of
narrow content, and have argued that the examples of singular thought
attempted in cases of hallucination present a powerful challenge to a
wide-content theorist. We now turn explicitly to questions concerning the
respective roles of wide and narrow content in psychological explanation
(both folk and scientiWc).
4.2 Same behaviour, same causes?Return to the Twin Earth examples. Someone might argue thus: since, by
hypothesis, the behaviours of Petereand Petertware exactly the same, we
should look for the same explanations of those behaviours too – that is, we
should ascribe to both Peters the very same behaviour-determining
thoughts. Thus suppose that each of the two Peters is confronted by a glass
Explanation and causation 145