Recent evidence from cognitive neuroscience suggests that certain cognitive processes employ perceptual representations. Inspired by this evidence, a few researchers have proposed that cognition is inherently perceptual. They have developed an innovative theoretical approach that rests on the notion of perceptual simulation and marshaled several general arguments supporting the centrality of perceptual representations to concepts. In this article, I identify a number of weaknesses in these arguments and defend a multiple semantic code approach that posits both perceptual and non-perceptual representations.

Plausibly, how much is at stake in some salient practical task can affect how generously people ascribe knowledge of task-relevant facts. There is a metaphysical puzzle about this phenomenon, and an empirical puzzle. Metaphysically: there are competing theories about when and how practical stakes affect whether it is correct to ascribe knowledge. Which of these theories is the right one? Empirically: experimental philosophy has struggled to find a stakes-effect on people’s knowledge ascriptions. Is the alleged phenomenon just a philosopher’s fantasy? (...) I propose a new psychological account of when and why people’s knowledge ascriptions are sensitive to stakes. My hypothesis is motivated by empirical research on how people’s judgements are sensitive to their social context. Specifically, people’s evaluations are sensitive to their ‘psychological distance’ from the scenarios they are considering. When using ‘fixed-evidence probes’, experimental philosophy has found that what’s at stake for a fictional character in a made-up scenario has little or no effect on how participants ascribe knowledge to them. My hypothesis predicts this finding: the scenarios are too ‘psychologically distant’ to participants. Our empirical puzzle is resolved: the stakes-effect often present in the wild won’t be present in vignette studies. (This illustrates a widespread problem with X-phi vignette studies: if people might judge differently in other social contexts, we can’t generalize from the results of these experiments. That is, vignette studies are of doubtful ‘external validity’.) The hypothesis also resolves our metaphysical puzzle. It predicts that people do not ascribe knowledge in a way deemed correct by any of the standard philosophical views, namely classical invariantism, interest-relative invariantism, and contextualism. Our knowledge ascriptions shift around in the way that’s most useful for social beings like us, and this pattern in our judgements can only be endorsed by a genuinely relativist metaphysics for knowledge. (shrink)

The notion of schema has been given a major role by Recanati within his conception of primary pragmatic processes, conceived as a type of associative process. I intend to show that Recanati’s considerations on schemata may challenge the relevance theorist’s argument against associative explanations in pragmatics, and support an argument in favor of associative (versus inferential) explanations. More generally, associative relations can be shown to be schematic, that is, they have enough structure to license inferential effects without any appeal to (...) genuine inferential processes. Associative processes are thus able to explain a number of pragmatic and linguistic phenomena which have instead been thought to require specialized inferential processes. (shrink)

Are concepts stable entities, unchanged from context to context? Or rather are they context-dependent structures, created on the fly? We argue that this does not constitute a genuine dilemma. Our main thesis is that the more a pattern of features is general and shared, the more it qualifies as a concept. Contextualists have not shown that conceptual structures lack a stable, general core, acting as an attractor on idiosyncratic information. What they have done instead is to give a contribution to (...) the comprehension of how conceptual structure organized around such a stable core can produce contextually appropriate representations on demand. (shrink)

The role of conscious attention in language processing has been scarcely considered, despite the wide-spread assumption that verbal utterances manage to attract and manipulate the addressee’s attention. Here I claim that this assumption is to be understood not as a figure of speech but instead in terms of attentional processes proper. This hypothesis can explain a fact that has been noticed by supporters of Relevance Theory in pragmatics: the special role played by speaker-related information in utterance interpretation. I argue that (...) representation of the speaker in working memory reliably enhances the activation of speaker-related information and, consequently, the role it plays in determining the content of interpretations. (shrink)

Analogical cognition, extensively researched by Dedre Gentner and her colleagues over the past thirty five years, has been described as the core of human cognition, and it characterizes our use of many words. This research provides significant insight into the nature of word meaning, but it has been ignored by linguists and philosophers of language. I discuss some of the implications of the research for our account of word meaning. In particular, I argue that the research points to, and helps (...) account for, a key explanatory role that linguistic meaning must play. The research also shows how words contribute to thought as opposed to merely being a means of conveying thought. (shrink)

This paper provides evidence for a contrastive account of explanation that is motivated by pragmatic theories that recognize the contribution that context makes to the interpretation of a prompt for explanation. This study replicates the primary findings of previous work in explanation-based category learning, extending that work by illustrating the critical role of the context in this type of learning. Participants interacted with items from two categories either by describing the items or explaining their category membership. We manipulated the feature (...) overlap between the categories and examined both the explanations generated and acquired knowledge of the categories. Explanations for membership in a given category were influenced by the unprompted contrast category, indicating an important role for contrastive processing in the generation of explanations. The influence of the contrast category was similarly seen in the transfer performance of the participants. (shrink)

This review discusses recent work on foundational questions about concepts. The first of these questions is whether concepts are context-independent bodies of knowledge, or context-dependent constructs, created on the fly. The second question is whether concepts are abstract, amodal representations, or whether they are embedded within the sensory-motor system. I discuss these two questions in light of empirical data from psychology and neuroscience, as well as theoretical considerations, and examine their implications for theories of concepts.

Conceptual knowledge is acquired through recurrent experiences, by extracting statistical regularities at different levels of granularity. At a fine level, patterns of feature co-occurrence are categorized into objects. At a coarser level, patterns of concept co-occurrence are categorized into contexts. We present and test CONCAT, a connectionist model that simultaneously learns to categorize objects and contexts. The model contains two hierarchically organized CALM modules (Murre, Phaf, & Wolters, 1992). The first module, the Object Module, forms object representations based on co-occurrences (...) between features. These representations are used as input for the second module, the Context Module, which categorizes contexts based on object co-occurrences. Feedback connections from the Context Module to the Object Module send activation from the active context to those objects that frequently occur within this context. We demonstrate that context feedback contributes to the successful categorization of objects, especially when bottom-up feature information is degraded or ambiguous. (shrink)

The main focus of this paper is to develop an adaptive formal apparatus capable of capturing (certain types of) reasoning conducted within the framework of the so-called dynamic conceptual frames. I first explain one of the most recent theories of concepts developed by cognitivists, in which a crucial part is played by the notion of a dynamic frame. Next, I describe how a dynamic frame may be captured by a finite set of first-order formulas and how a formalized adaptive framework (...) for reasoning within a dynamic frame can be developed. (shrink)

Event integration – the conflation of multiple events into a unitary event – plays a vital role in language and cognition. However, the conditions under which event integration occurs in linguistic representation and the differences in how linguistic forms encode complex events remain unclear. This corpus study examines two types of Japanese complex predicates – compound verbs [V1-V2]V and complex predicates consisting of a deverbal compound noun and the light verb suru ‘do’ [[V1-V2]N suru]V – using an original “related-event approach”. (...) Findings indicate that [[V1-V2]N suru]V can be established based on coextensiveness alone, whereas [V1-V2]V typically requires direct or shared causality (“the inevitable co-occurrence constraint”). The related-event approach examines related events of linguistic concepts, such as causes and purposes of an event, identified through “complex sentences” from ultra-large-scale web corpora. This study demonstrates that such an approach is effective in clarifying causal relationships between verbs. Furthermore, this paper contributes to the “iconicity versus frequency” debate by showing that conceptually more accessible events (causality plus coextensiveness) tend to be represented in a simpler form than less accessible events (coextensiveness only), due to “efficiency”. The frequency of usage is a result of the nature of concepts rather than the driving force of coding asymmetries. (shrink)

Arguments for context-sensitivity are often based on judgments about the truth values of sentences: a sentence seems true in one context and false in another, so it is argued that the truth conditions of the sentence shift between these contexts. Such arguments rely on the assumption that our judgments reflect the actual truth values of sentences in context. Here, I present a non-semantic explanation of these judgments. In short, our judgments about the truth values of sentences are driven by heuristics (...) that are only fallible reflections of actual truth values. These heuristics can lead to different truth-value judgments in different contexts, even when the sentence at issue is not semantically context-sensitive. As a case study, I consider Sterken’s (Philos. Imprint, 15, 2015a) argument for the context-sensitivity of generic generalisations. I provide a non-semantic explanation of Sterken’s truth-value judgments, which builds on Leslie’s (Philos Perspect 21(1):375–403, 2007; Philos Rev 117(1):1–47, 2008) theory of default generalisation. (shrink)

This programmatic paper is an attempt to connect some worries in the philosophy of language with some traditional views in artificial intelligence. After a short introduction to the notion of context in philosophy (§1), starting from the inventor of mathematical logic, Gottlob Frege, I list three debates in the philosophy of language where the solution is strongly undecided: §2 treats the debate between holism and molecularism; §3 describes the debate on the boundaries between semantics and pragmatics; §4 hints at a (...) solution of the debate between explicit and implicit view of incomplete descriptions. These debates may be considered case studies on what is happening to the notion of context in philosophy in the first two decades of XXI century; they push us to look for a unifying framework in which to frame those worries: I propose to shift the attention towards a representation of the basic abilities required to navigate across contexts (§5). In the conclusion, I use some suggestions from computer sciences as a contribution towards a better definition of what is meant by “pragmatic competence”, strictly connected to the philosophical enterprise (§6). (shrink)

The study of cognitive development has been, and still is, faced with two fundamental problems. They are connected, and no satisfactory answer has been found to either. The first problem concerns a terminological distinction and the corresponding semantic contents - it is important to be clear about which characteristics make it possible to distinguish percepts from concepts proper. The second problem, which depends on such distinction, consists in determining when and how, in cognitive development, the turn from perceptual categories into (...) concepts occurs. This paper provides a clear and precise answer to both questions. (shrink)

El estudio del desarrollo cognitivo ha estado y todavía sigue estando enfrentado a dos problemas fundamentales, vinculados entre sí, y para los que no se ha encontrado una respuesta satisfactoria. El primero de estos problemas se refiere a una distinción terminológica y los correspondientes contenidos semánticos - qué rasgos o características permiten distinguir a los perceptos (esquemas perceptivos o categorías perceptivas) de los conceptos propiamente dichos. El segundo problema, que depende de esa distinción, consiste en determinar de qué modo y (...) en qué momento del desarrollo cognitivo se produce el paso o transformación de las categorías perceptivas en conceptos. Este trabajo proporciona una respuesta clara y precisa a esas dos cuestiones. (shrink)

La tesis aborda uno de los temas centrales en la filosofía de la mente y las ciencias cognitivas: los conceptos como unidades básicas de la cognición humana. La tesis central que se defiende es que el contenido de los conceptos es determinado parcialmente por las comunidades a las que pertenecen los sujetos cognitivos, en la medida en la que dichas comunidades guían y constriñen las interacciones entre el sistema cognitivo conceptual y el entorno del que forma conceptos. La novedad de (...) la tesis es doble. Por una parte, cuestiona las teorías dominantes sobre el contenido de los conceptos —las teorías descriptivistas y las teorías naturalistas—, no solamente a partir de desafíos filosóficos que muestran sus limitaciones, sino también a partir de evidencia empírica sobre el efecto de las interacciones sociales en el contenido de los conceptos y, por tanto, en la cognición. Por otra parte, proporciona evidencia empírica sobre infantes ferales (i.e. niños salvajes), cuyo sistema cognitivo conceptual no ha recibido la guía de ninguna comunidad humana en sus interacciones con el entorno. Dicha evidencia permite sugerir que una explicación puramente naturalizada del contenido, sin la presencia de las comunidades, no puede explicar el desarrollo cognitivo conceptual de dichos infantes. Así, la tesis logra proponer un papel no trivial de las comunidades en el debate sobre la determinación del contenido semántico de los conceptos. (shrink)

The ability to understand and communicate about the actions of others is a fundamental aspect of our daily activity. How can we talk about what others are doing? What qualities do different actions have such that they cause us to see them as being different or similar? What is the connection between what we see and the development of concepts and words or expressions for the things that we see? To what extent can two different people see and talk about (...) the same things? Is there a common basis for our perception, and is there then a common basis for the concepts we form and the way in which the concepts become lexicalized in language? The broad purpose of this thesis is to relate aspects of perception, categorization and language to action recognition and conceptualization. This is achieved by empirically demonstrating a prototype structure for action categories and by revealing the effect this structure has on language via the semantic organization of verbs for natural actions. The results also show that implicit access to categorical information can affect the perceptual processing of basic actions. These findings indicate that our understanding of human actions is guided by the activation of high level information in the form of dynamic action templates or prototypes. More specifically, the first two empirical studies investigate the relation between perception and the hierarchical structure of action categories, i.e., subordinate, basic, and superordinate level action categories. Subjects generated lists of verbs based on perceptual criteria. Analyses based on multidimensional scaling showed a significant correlation for the semantic organization of a subset of the verbs for English and Swedish speaking subjects. Two additional experiments were performed in order to further determine the extent to which action categories exhibit graded structure, which would indicate the existence of prototypes for action categories. The results from typicality ratings and category verification showed that typicality judgments reliably predict category verification times for instances of different actions. Finally, the results from a repetition priming paradigm suggest that high level information about the categorical differences between actions can be implicitly activated and facilitates the later visual processing of displays of biological motion. This facilitation occurs for upright displays, but appears to be lacking for displays that are shown upside down. These results show that the implicit activation of information about action categories can play a critical role in the perception of human actions. (shrink)

Mental recruitment of previous technological experience in conceptualizations of non-technological phenomena constitutes a specific kind of unintended cognitive effect of human technological activity. This paper discusses particular conceptual takes on a significant epistemic challenge faced by people in the Bronze Age eastern Mediterranean: that of understanding the factors and dynamics governing and allowing the most important celestial body to travel across the sky during the day. Textual sources, iconography and artefactual evidence in combination provide an outline of concrete conceptual solutions (...) to this challenge, which centre oncharioteering, i.e., the employment of light, horse-drawn vehicles for high-speed transport. These sources also inform on the actual, practical role played by this technological genre in the context of the eastern Mediterranean Bronze Age. The paper specifies a connection between the actual, mundane and social role of this form of vehicular technology in Bronze Age society, and the conceptualizations of an astronomical phenomenon to which it is recruited. This provides a specific case demonstrating how aspects of concrete, sensorimotor experience of technological activities, here the dynamics of vehicular transport, may ground associative conceptualization of empirically ill-specified phenomena. This, in turn, provides support for the general observation that the conceptual repertoires of individuals and collectives in particular historical contexts are influenced substantially by the experiential spectra associated with the specific ways of life into which they are born. (shrink)

In this paper we argue that an existing theory of concepts called dynamic frame theory, although not developed with that purpose in mind, allows for the precise formulation of a number of problems associated with induction from a single instance. A key role is played by the distinction we introduce between complete and incomplete dynamic frames, for incomplete frames seem to be very elegant candidates for the format of the background knowledge used in induction from a single instance. Furthermore, we (...) show how dynamic frame theory provides the terminology to discuss the justification and the fallibility of incomplete frames. In the Appendix, we give a formal account of incomplete frames and the way these lead to induction from a single instance. (shrink)