This paper scrutinizes two research programs that advocate respectively for the existence of a universal moral grammar and a predisposition to moralize behaviours with certain contents. It focuses on how the arguments commonly used to ground each program fare at relevant contemporary research in cognitive science and how well they meet constructivist arguments proposed by Jesse Prinz and Kim Sterelny, among others. We argue that there is little evidence that our moral judgements follow the model of principles and parameters. At (...) the same time, ‘ease of learning’ suggests that the human brain is somehow prepared to learn moral rules.Cet article analyse deux programmes de recherche qui soutiennent, respectivement, l’existence d’une grammaire morale universelle et d’une prédisposition à assigner des valeurs morales à des comportements liés à certains contenus. Nous proposons d’évaluer les arguments utilisés par chaque programme en regard de la recherche contemporaine en sciences cognitives, et aussi de vérifier s’ils répondent aux objections constructivistes proposées entre autres par Jesse Prinz et Kim Sterelny. Nous montrons qu’il n’y a pas de preuves suffisantes comme quoi nos jugements moraux suivent le modèle des principes et des paramètres. La «facilité d’apprentissage» suggère, néanmoins, que le cerveau humain est en quelque sorte préparé à apprendre les règles morales. (shrink)

The cognitive mind-brain is haunted by the ghost of consciousness. Cognitive science must face this ghost, since consciousness is perhaps the most important mental phenomenon: it forms a seemingly united, multimodal phenomenological world around the subject who experiences this world from a certain point of view. Many current approaches to consciousness fail to illuminate the nature of this “experienced world”. Some philosophers want to eliminate consciousness from science for good, others build theories in which the concept of consciousness is distorted (...) beyond recognition. I argue that elimination and Daniel Dennett's “multiple drafts” model do not offer genuine explanations for consciousness. However, certain empirically-based approaches to consciousness succeed in exorcising its ghostly reputation and, at the same time, in preserving the experienced world of consciousness as an important explanandum. (shrink)

Fodor argues that our minds must have epistemic limitations because there must be endogenous constraints on the class of concepts we can acquire. However, his argument for the existence of these endogenous constraints is falsified by the phenomenon of the deferential acquisition of concepts. If we allow for the acquisition of concepts through deferring to experts and scientific instruments, then our conceptual capacity will be without endogenous constraints, and there will be no reason to think that our minds are epistemically (...) bounded. (shrink)

How can abductive reasoning be physical, feasible, and reliable? This is Fodor’s riddle of abduction, and its apparent intractability is the cause of Fodor’s recent pessimism regarding the prospects for cognitive science. I argue that this riddle can be solved if we augment the computational theory of mind to allow for non-computational mental processes, such as those posited by classical associationists and contemporary connectionists. The resulting hybrid theory appeals to computational mechanisms to explain the semantic coherence of inference and associative (...) mechanisms to explain the efficient retrieval of relevant information from memory. The interaction of these mechanisms explains how abduction can be physical, feasible, and reliable. (shrink)

Peter Hanks and Scott Soames both defend pragmatic solutions to the problem of the unity of the proposition. According to them, what ties together Tim and baldness in the singular proposition expressed by ‘Tim is bald’ is an act of the speaker : the act of predicating baldness of Tim. But Soames construes that act as force neutral and noncommittal while, for Hanks, it is inherently assertive and committal. Hanks answers the Frege–Geach challenge by arguing that, in complex sentences, the (...) force inherent in the content of an embedded sentence is cancelled. Indrek Reiland has recently objected to Hanks’s proposal that it faces a dilemma: either force cancellation dissolves the unity of the proposition secured by the cancelled act of assertion, or Hanks’s proposal reduces to Soames’s. In this paper, I respond to Reiland by offering an analysis of force cancellation which gets rid of the alleged dilemma. The proposal is based on a set of distinctions from speech act theory : between two senses of ’force’, two types of act, and two types of context. The role of simulation in force cancellation is emphasized, and connections drawn to broader issues such as the evolution of complex language. (shrink)

It is often claimed that, because of semantic underdetermination, one can determine the content of an utterance only by appealing to pragmatic considerations concerning what the speaker means, what his intentions are. This supports ‘inferentialism' : the view that, in contrast to perceptual content, communicational content is accessed indirectly, via an inference. As against this view, I argue that primary pragmatic processes (the pragmatic processes that are involved in the determination of truth-conditional content) need not involve an inference from premisses (...) concerning what the speaker can possibly intend by his utterance. Indeed, they need not involve any inference at all : communication, I argue, is as direct as perception. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that that polysemy is a two-sided phenomenon. It can be reduced neither to pragmatic modulation nor to ambiguity, for it is a mixture of both. The senses of a polysemous expression result from pragmatic modulation but they are stored in memory, as the senses of an ambiguous expression are. The difference with straightforward ambiguity is that the modulation relations between the senses are transparent to the language users: the senses are felt as related – they (...) form a family of senses. In other words, whereas two homonymous expressions are different expressions, with the same phonological realization but distinct meanings, a polyseme is a single expression, i.e. a semantic as well as a phonological unit. It has one meaning, which should not be confused with the separate senses which it contributes in context. Different ways of thinking of that unitary meaning will be discussed, and consequences drawn for the debate between more or less radical versions of Contextualism. (shrink)

The goal of forming a science of intentional behavior requires a more richly detailed account of symbolic systems than is assumed by the authors. Cultural systems are not simply the equivalent in the ideational domain of culture of the purported Baldwin Effect in the genetic domain. © 2014 Cambridge University Press.

Dynamic systems theory offers conceptual andmathematical tools for describing the performance ofneural systems at very different levels oforganization. Three aspects of the dynamic paradigmare discussed, namely neural rhythms, neural andmental development, and macroscopic brain theories andmodels.

This article draws out an epistemological tension implicit in Cosmides and Tooby's conception of evolutionary psychology. Cosmides and Tooby think of the mind as a collection of functionally individuated, domain-specific modules. Although they do not explicitly deny the existence of domain-general processes, it will be shown that their methodology commits them to the assumption that only domain-specific cognitive processes are capable of producing useful outputs. The resultant view limits the scope of biologically possible cognitive accomplishments and these limitations, it will (...) be argued, are such as to deny us epistemic capacities that evolutionary psychology presupposes in its pursuit of an objective, comprehensive account of human nature. (shrink)

Hauser argues that his pocket calculator (Cal) has certain arithmetical abilities: it seems Cal calculates. That calculating is thinking seems equally untendentious. Yet these two claims together provide premises for a seemingly valid syllogism whose conclusion - Cal thinks - most would deny. He considers several ways to avoid this conclusion, and finds them mostly wanting. Either we ourselves can't be said to think or calculate if our calculation-like performances are judged by the standards proposed to rule out Cal; or (...) the standards- e.g., autonomy and self-consciousness- make it impossible to verify whether anything or anyone (save oneself) meets them. While appeals to the intentionality of thought or the unity of minds provide more credible lines of resistance, available accounts of intentionality and mental unity are insufficiently clear and warranted to provide very substantial arguments against Cal's title to be called a thinking thing. Indeed, considerations favoring granting that title are more formidable than is generally appreciated. Rapaport's comments suggest that, on a strong view of thinking, mere calculating is not thinking (and pocket calculators don't think), but on a weak, but unexciting, sense of thinking, pocket calculators do think. He closes with some observations on the implications of this conclusion. (shrink)

When do children acquire a propositional attitude folk psychology or theory of mind? The orthodox answer to this central question of developmental ToM research had long been that around age 4 children begin to apply “belief” and other propositional attitude concepts. This orthodoxy has recently come under serious attack, though, from two sides: Scoffers complain that it over-estimates children’s early competence and claim that a proper understanding of propositional attitudes emerges only much later. Boosters criticize the orthodoxy for underestimating early (...) competence and claim that even infants ascribe beliefs. In this paper, the orthodoxy is defended on empirical grounds against these two kinds of attacks. On the basis of new evidence, not only can the two attacks safely be countered, but the orthodox claim can actually be strengthened, corroborated and refined: what emerges around age 4 is an explicit, unified, flexibly conceptual capacity to ascribe propositional attitudes. This unified conceptual capacity contrasts with the less sophisticated, less unified implicit forms of tracking simpler mental states present in ontogeny long before. This refined version of the orthodoxy can thus most plausibly be spelled out in some form of 2-systems-account of theory of mind. (shrink)

Fodor has argued that observation is theory neutral, since the perceptual systems are modular, that is, they are domain‐specific, encapsulated, mandatory, fast, hard‐wired in the organism, and have a fixed neural architecture. Churchland attacks the theoretical neutrality of observation on the grounds that (a) the abundant top‐down pathways in the brain suggest the cognitive penetration of perception and (b) perceptual learning can change in the wiring of the perceptual systems. In this paper I introduce a distinction between sensation, perception, and (...) observation and I argue that although Churchland is right that observation involves top‐down processes, there is also a substantial amount of information in perception which is theory‐neutral. I argue that perceptual learning does not threaten the cognitive impenetrability of perception, and that the neuropsychological research does not provide evidence in favor of the top‐down character of perception. Finally, I discuss the possibility of an off‐line cognitive penetrability of perception. (shrink)

The Macpherson :24–62, 2012) argued that the perceptual experience of colors is cognitively penetrable. Macpherson also thinks that perception has nonconceptual content because this would provide a good explanation for several phenomena concerning perceptual experience. To have both, Macpherson must defend the thesis that the CP of perception is compatible with perception having NCC. Since the classical notion of CP of perception does not allow perception to have NCC, Macpherson proposes CP-lite. CP-lite makes room for an experience to have content (...) determined by concepts because the perceptual processes that produce the experience are affected by concepts rendering the experience, CP, while the same type of experience could have been had without any conceptual influences, in which case it would be CI. Macpherson then proceeds to show that CP-lite is compatible with some of the definitions of NCC. To do so, she argues that even when an experience is CP owing to the fact that it is produced by means of the mechanism posited by CP-lite, that is, through the interaction between bottom–up pure perception and top–down perceptual imagery, its content is NCC because it has the basic properties that characterize NCC. Based on this, Macpherson proceeds to criticize and undermine the definitions of NCC that are incompatible with CP-lite. In this paper, I argue that the possibility of CP-lite rests on the erroneous assumption that a state with conceptual content and a state with NCC can have the same phenomenology or content, and that the compatibility of CP-lite with NCC presupposes a view of NCC that does not conform to the usual construal of NCC. (shrink)

Perceptual systems respond to proximal stimuli by forming mental representations of distal stimuli. A central goal for the philosophy of perception is to characterize the representations delivered by perceptual systems. It may be that all perceptual representations are in some way proprietarily perceptual and differ from the representational format of thought (Dretske 1981; Carey 2009; Burge 2010; Block ms.). Or it may instead be that perception and cognition always trade in the same code (Prinz 2002; Pylyshyn 2003). This paper rejects (...) both approaches in favor of perceptual pluralism, the thesis that perception delivers a multiplicity of representational formats, some proprietary and some shared with cognition. The argument for perceptual pluralism marshals a wide array of empirical evidence in favor of iconic (i.e., image-like, analog) representations in perception as well as discursive (i.e., language-like, digital) perceptual object representations. (shrink)

The question of whether perception is encapsulated from cognition has been a major topic in the study of perception in the past decade. One locus of debate concerns the role of attention. Some theorists argue that attention is a vehicle for widespread violations of encapsulation; others argue that certain forms of cognitively driven attention are compatible with encapsulation, especially if attention only modulates inputs. This paper argues for an extreme thesis: no effect of attention, whether on the inputs to perception (...) or on perceptual processing itself, constitutes a violation of the encapsulation of perception. (shrink)

How do minds emerge from developing brains? According to the representational features of cortex are built from the dynamic interaction between neural growth mechanisms and environmentally derived neural activity. Contrary to popular selectionist models that emphasize regressive mechanisms, the neurobiological evidence suggests that this growth is a progressive increase in the representational properties of cortex. The interaction between the environment and neural growth results in a flexible type of learning: minimizes the need for prespecification in accordance with recent neurobiological evidence (...) that the developing cerebral cortex is largely free of domain-specific structure. Instead, the representational properties of cortex are built by the nature of the problem domain confronting it. This uniquely powerful and general learning strategy undermines the central assumption of classical learnability theory, that the learning properties of a system can be deduced from a fixed computational architecture. Neural constructivism suggests that the evolutionary emergence of neocortex in mammals is a progression toward more flexible representational structures, in contrast to the popular view of cortical evolution as an increase in innate, specialized circuits. Human cortical postnatal development is also more extensive and protracted than generally supposed, suggesting that cortex has evolved so as to maximize the capacity of environmental structure to shape its structure and function through constructive learning. (shrink)

In most social species, position in the male social hierarchy and reproductive success are positively correlated; in humans, however, this relationship is less clear, with studies of traditional societies yielding mixed results. In the most economically advanced human populations, the adaptiveness of status vanishes altogether; social status and fertility are uncorrelated. These findings have been interpreted to suggest that evolutionary principles may not be appropriate for the explanation of human behavior, especially in modern environments. The present study tests the adaptiveness (...) of social status with actual mating and reproductive data in a representative sample of males from an industrial society. Reproductive success, even when assessed by a more reliable measure ofactualmale fertility than the one commonly used, fails to correlate with social status. In striking contrast, however, status is found to be highly correlated withpotentialfertility, as estimated from copulation frequency. Status thus accounts for as much as 62% of the variance in thisproximatecomponent of fitness. This pattern is remarkably similar to what is found in many traditional societies and would result in a substantial positive relationship between cultural and reproductive success in industrial populations were it not for the novel conditions imposed by contraception and monogamy. Various underlying mechanisms are suggested for these findings, illustrating the value of current behavioral and reproductive data in the study of adaptation. It is concluded that evolutionary explanations of human behavior remain entirely relevant in modern societies. (shrink)

In this paper I put forward a representationalist theory of conscious experience based on Robert Stalnaker's version of two-dimensional modal semantics. According to this theory the phenomenal character of an experience correlates with a content equivalent to what Stalnaker calls the diagonal proposition. I show that the theory is closely related both to functionalist theories of consciousness and to higher-order representational theories. It is also more compatible with an anti-Cartesian view of the mind than standard representationalist theories.

Dans son compte-rendu de mon livre, Les Animaux Pensent-ils?, Machery objecte que l'évolution n'étant ni hiérarchique ni linéaire, il n'et pas justifié de proposer une analyse hiérarchique des représentations. Je réponds à cette objection, en montrant qu'on peut en effet distinguer des types de représentation par leurs propriétés sémantiques et computationnelles. On peut reconnaître le caractère anagénétique du développement de la cognition sans pour autant légitimer une conception hiérarchique et continuiste de l'évolution des espèces.

In this paper, I consider the objection, raised by Radu Bogdan, that a teleological theory of content is unable to ascribe content to a general-purpose, doxastic system. I begin by giving some attention to the notion of general-purpose representation, and suggest that this notion can best be understood as what I term "interest-independent" representation. I then outline Bogdan's objection in what I take to be its simplest form. I attempt to counter the objection by explaining how a teleologist might ascribe (...) content in a particular case - the case of a perceptual judgement whose content is learned. I reject the idea that the teleologist can appeal to the way in which the subject has used the judgement, or its constituent concepts, in the past, on the grounds that it is possible for the subject to produce judgements and concepts that never help her to satisfy any of her interests. Instead, my account depends on the idea that the process of learning is regulated by a mechanism whose function is to produce a harmony between the information carried by perceptual judgements and the way in which they are used in inference. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to look at what a parallel deflationist program might be in the theory of knowledge and examine its prospect. In what follows I will simplify matters slightly by focussing on empirical knowledge rather than knowledge in general, though most of what I have to say ought to be applicable, mutatis mutandis, to knowledge in general. Moreover,note that it is not my aim to offer a full defense of a particular deflationist theory of knowledge, which (...) would go well beyond the scope of this paper, but only to defend the utility of taking the deflationist program as regards the theory of knowledge seriously by showing that there is a plausible deflationist position available that is worthy of further scrutiny. (shrink)