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"This is, I think, perfectly correct. The little man [in one's head], as we might say, has in his library pamphlets entitled 'Tying One's Shoes', 'Speaking Latin', and 'Typing 'Afghanistan"', but no pamphlet entitled 'Being Intelligent' or 'Speaking Latin Fluently' or 'Typing "Afghanistan" with Panache'."

— Fodor, Jerry (b. 1935)

Author

Fodor, Jerry (b. 1935)

Work Title

The Appeal to Tacit Knowledge in Psychological Explanation

Date

1968

Metaphor

"This is, I think, perfectly correct. The little man [in one's head], as we might say, has in his library pamphlets entitled 'Tying One's Shoes', 'Speaking Latin', and 'Typing 'Afghanistan"', but no pamphlet entitled 'Being Intelligent' or 'Speaking Latin Fluently' or 'Typing "Afghanistan" with Panache'."

Metaphor in Context

This is, I think, perfectly correct. The little man, as we might say, has in his library pamphlets entitled Tying One's Shoes, Speaking Latin, and Typing 'Afghanistan', but no pamphlet entitled Being Intelligent or Speaking Latin Fluently or Typing 'Afghanistan' with Panache. There are no titles corresponding to mental adverbials because the mental adverbials refer, not to acts the little man is required to execute, but rather to the manner or quality of his performance qua executive. To put it another way, the pamphlet the little man consults on how to speak Latin will be the same pamphlet he consults on how to speak Latin well. This had better be true on threat of a version of Ryle's regress: if instructions for speaking Latin are distinct from instructions for speaking Latin well, then these latter must, in turn, be distinct from instructions for speaking ((Latin well) well) and so on ad infinitum. Again: 'speaking Latin well' is not the name of an activity distinct from that of speaking Latin. We learn to speak Latin well by practicing speaking Latin tout court. The man who is speaking Latin and the man who is speaking Latin well are doing the same thing, though the second man is doing it better.
(pp. 635-6)