I was reading Paul Churchland's Plato Camera : How the Physical Brain Captures a Landscape of Abstract Universals, and came across his critique of Fodor's LOT.
Churchland's basis is based on evidence from neurosciences.
Here is summary from ChatGPT;
ChatGPT wrote:Paul Churchland, a philosopher of mind and cognitive science, offered a critical analysis of Jerry Fodor's theory of the "Language of Thought" (LOT). Fodor's theory proposes that the mind uses a language-like symbolic system, akin to a mental language, to represent and process information. Here is a summary of Churchland's main critiques:
Lack of empirical support: Churchland argued that Fodor's theory of the Language of Thought lacked sufficient empirical evidence to back up its claims. He maintained that the theory relied heavily on introspection and lacked substantial support from cognitive neuroscience or psychological experiments.
Unexplained content: Fodor's theory posits that mental representations have inherent meanings or content. However, Churchland criticized this notion, asking how the mind can have meaningful symbols without a clear account of how they acquire their content or how they relate to external reality.
Innate structure: Fodor proposed that the Language of Thought is innate, meaning that it is hard-wired into the mind and is a product of evolutionary development. Churchland challenged this idea, as it seemed to make a strong assumption about the nature of the mind without providing compelling evidence for its innateness.
Lack of explanatory power: Churchland contended that Fodor's theory did not offer sufficient explanatory power for understanding complex cognitive processes, such as learning, creativity, and problem-solving. He believed that the LOT framework was too limited to provide a comprehensive account of human cognition.
Alternative models: Churchland presented alternative models of cognition, such as connectionism (neural network-based approaches), which he believed offered more promising accounts of how the mind processes information and learns from experience. He argued that these models could better accommodate the flexibility and adaptability observed in human cognition.
Overall, Churchland's critique of Fodor's Language of Thought theory centered on the lack of empirical support, unexplained content, assumptions of innateness, and limited explanatory power. He advocated for more empirically grounded and flexible models of cognition that could better account for the complexities of human thinking and behavior.