Abstract Jerry Fodor has claimed to have a solution to the traditional problem of what comes first, thought or language. Compositionality, he says, will give us the answer, for at least one must be compositional, and if only one of them is, that is the one that has underived semantic content. He argues that natural languages are not compositional, and therefore that the content of language is derived from the content of thought. I will argue that the idea that language is not compositional conflicts with his productivity and systematicity arguments for the existence of a language of thought. I will also show that Fodor’s solution to the problem fails, as his main argument is circular. Finally, I suggest that Fodor’s argument against the compositionality of language is not decisive, and that we can still attribute at least some degree of compositionality to language.

中文翻译：

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组成性能否解决思想或语言问题？

摘要杰里·福多（Jerry Fodor）声称可以解决传统的思想或语言问题。他说，组合性将为我们提供答案，因为至少有一个必须是组合性的，如果只有其中之一，那就是具有语义内容的基础。他认为自然语言不是组成性的，因此语言的内容源自思想的内容。我将争辩说，语言不是构成的观点与他关于思想语言存在的生产力和系统性论证相冲突。我还将展示Fodor解决该问题的方法失败，因为他的主要论点是循环的。最后，我建议福多反对语言组成性的论断不是决定性的，