Connectionism and meaning Book

Absolutely classic Jerry Fodor, through and through. It's argumentative, funny, and clear. Fodor's not as angry as the title makes him out to be but he has a few axes to grind (to name a few: inferential role semantics, theory-theory, and definitional theories of concepts i.e. true believers in the analytic-synthetic distinction).

What's particularly remarkable is Fodor's breadth. Not only is he coming to the issues as a first-rate philosopher, but he's in touch with the experimental and theoretical work in the cognitive sciences (here, particularly psychology and linguistics) too. He takes care to point out where they're going wrong. It's striking that he does so, often, using their own methods (he responds to lexical semanticists like Jackendoff and Pinker by dealing with the linguistics at hand, for example).

You get, despite how opinionated he is, a clear sense of the tensions between the various positions that Fodor holds. He's quick to point out where people are likely to stop having truck with him and where his arguments work better as a piece and where they start to pull apart. It's this sort of care (sometimes a little between the lines, given his compulsive light-heartedness) that makes this philosophy at its very best.

Say what you want about the positions in the book - some are, I'll admit, totally off the rails (which is, as I say, classic Jerry Fodor - at least he isn't saying 'doorknob' is an innate idea anymore) - Fodor's work is brilliant in every sense of the word. Even when it's wrong. Maybe especially then.