The current paper presents two experiments investigating the effect of presence versus absence of compulsory number marking in a native language on a speaker's ability to recall number information from photos. In Experiment 1, monolingual English and Japanese adults were shown a sequence of 110 photos after which they were asked questions about the photos. We found that the English participants showed a significantly higher accuracy rate for questions testing recall for number information when the correct answer was “2” (instead (...) of “1”) than Japanese participants. In Experiment 2, English and Japanese adults engaged in the same task as in Experiment 1 with an addition that explored reasons for the results found in Experiment 1. The results of Experiment 2 were in line with the results of Experiment 1, but also suggested that the results could not be attributed to differences in guessing patterns between the two groups or the type of linguistic constructions used in the test situations. The current study suggests that native language affects speakers' ability to recall number information from scenes and thus provides evidence for the Whorfian hypothesis. (shrink)

Philosophical Perspectives, Volume 35, Issue 1, Page 320-339, December 2021.

A core commitment of meta-ethical expressivism is that ordinary descriptive judgements are representational states, while normative judgements are non-representational directive states. Traditionally, this commitment has been understood as a psychological thesis about the nature of normative judgements, as the view that normative judgements consist in certain sorts of conative propositional attitudes. This paper’s aim is to challenge this reading and to show that changing our view on how this commitment is to be understood opens up space for attractive forms of (...) expressivism. The paper argues this by example: by presenting one of the possible expressivist views that can be developed on this reading and by arguing that this view has distinctive advantages over forms of expressivism that endorse the traditional interpretation of expressivism. (shrink)

According to the popular Grounded Cognition Model (GCM), the sensory and motor features of concepts, including word meanings, are stored directly within neural systems for perception and action. More precisely, the core claim is that these concrete conceptual features reuse some of the same modality-specific representations that serve to categorize experiences involving the relevant kinds of objects and events. Research in semantic typology, however, has shown that word meanings vary significantly across the roughly 6500 languages in the world. I argue (...) that this crosslinguistic semantic diversity has significant yet previously unrecognized theoretical consequences for the GCM. In particular, to accommodate the typological data, the GCM must assume that the concrete features of word meanings are not merely stored within sensory/motor brain systems, but are represented there in ways that are, to a nontrivial degree, language-specific. Moreover, it must assume that these conceptual representations are also activated during the nonlinguistic processing of the relevant kinds of objects and events (e.g., during visual perception and action planning); otherwise, they would not really be grounded, which is to say, embedded inside sensory/motor systems. Crucially, however, such activations would constitute what is traditionally called linguistic relativity—that is, the influence of language-specific semantic structures on other forms of cognition. The overarching aim of this paper is to elaborate this argument more fully and explore its repercussions. To that end, I discuss in greater detail the key aspects of the GCM, the evidence for crosslinguistic semantic diversity, pertinent work on linguistic relativity, the central claim that the GCM entails linguistic relativity, some initial supporting results, and some important limitations and future directions. (shrink)

According to the popular Grounded Cognition Model (GCM), the sensory and motor features of concepts, including word meanings, are stored directly within neural systems for perception and action. More precisely, the core claim is that these concrete conceptual features reuse some of the same modality-specific representations that serve to categorize experiences involving the relevant kinds of objects and events. Research in semantic typology, however, has shown that word meanings vary significantly across the roughly 6500 languages in the world. I argue (...) that this crosslinguistic semantic diversity has significant yet previously unrecognized theoretical consequences for the GCM. In particular, to accommodate the typological data, the GCM must assume that the concrete features of word meanings are not merely stored within sensory/motor brain systems, but are represented there in ways that are, to a nontrivial degree, language-specific. Moreover, it must assume that these conceptual representations are also activated during the nonlinguistic processing of the relevant kinds of objects and events (e.g., during visual perception and action planning); otherwise, they would not really be grounded, which is to say, embedded inside sensory/motor systems. Crucially, however, such activations would constitute what is traditionally called linguistic relativity—that is, the influence of language-specific semantic structures on other forms of cognition. The overarching aim of this paper is to elaborate this argument more fully and explore its repercussions. To that end, I discuss in greater detail the key aspects of the GCM, the evidence for crosslinguistic semantic diversity, pertinent work on linguistic relativity, the central claim that the GCM entails linguistic relativity, some initial supporting results, and some important limitations and future directions. (shrink)

According to the popular Grounded Cognition Model (GCM), the sensory and motor features of concepts, including word meanings, are stored directly within neural systems for perception and action. More precisely, the core claim is that these concrete conceptual features reuse some of the same modality-specific representations that serve to categorize experiences involving the relevant kinds of objects and events. Research in semantic typology, however, has shown that word meanings vary significantly across the roughly 6500 languages in the world. I argue (...) that this crosslinguistic semantic diversity has significant yet previously unrecognized theoretical consequences for the GCM. In particular, to accommodate the typological data, the GCM must assume that the concrete features of word meanings are not merely stored within sensory/motor brain systems, but are represented there in ways that are, to a nontrivial degree, language-specific. Moreover, it must assume that these conceptual representations are also activated during the nonlinguistic processing of the relevant kinds of objects and events (e.g., during visual perception and action planning); otherwise, they would not really be grounded, which is to say, embedded inside sensory/motor systems. Crucially, however, such activations would constitute what is traditionally called linguistic relativity—that is, the influence of language-specific semantic structures on other forms of cognition. The overarching aim of this paper is to elaborate this argument more fully and explore its repercussions. To that end, I discuss in greater detail the key aspects of the GCM, the evidence for crosslinguistic semantic diversity, pertinent work on linguistic relativity, the central claim that the GCM entails linguistic relativity, some initial supporting results, and some important limitations and future directions. (shrink)

The normativity of meaning—introduced by Kripke in 1982, and the subject of active debate since the early 1990s—has been exclusively understood in terms of duty-imposing norms. But there are norms of another type, well-known within the philosophy of law: authority-conferring norms. Philosophers thinking and writing about the normativity of meaning—normativists, anti-normativists, and even Kripke himself—seem to have failed to consider the possibility that semantic norms are authority-conferring. I argue that semantic norms should be understood as having an authority-conferring structure, and (...) show how this allows normativism about meaning to escape the two most popular arguments against it. (shrink)

Topics in Cognitive Science, Volume 14, Issue 3, Page 634-645, July 2022.

According to a traditional picture, perception and belief have starkly different epistemic roles. Beliefs have epistemic statuses as justified or unjustified, depending on how they are formed and maintained. In contrast, perceptions are “unjustified justifiers.” Core cognition is a set of mental systems that stand at the border of perception and belief, and has been extensively studied in developmental psychology. Core cognition's borderline states do not fit neatly into the traditional epistemic picture. What is the epistemic role of these states? (...) Focusing on the core object system, the author argues that core object representations have epistemic statuses like beliefs do, despite their many prototypically perceptual features. First, the author argues that it is a sufficient condition on a mental state's having an epistemic status as justified or unjustified that the state is based on reasons. Then the author argues that core object representations are based on reasons, through an examination of both experimental results and key markers of the basing relation. The scope of mental states that are subject to epistemic evaluation as justified or unjustified is not restricted to beliefs. (shrink)

Although much ink has been spilled on different aspects of legal concepts, the approach based on the developments of cognitive science is a still neglected area of study. The “mental” and cognitive aspect of these concepts, i.e., their features as mental constructs and cognitive tools, especially in the light of the developments of the cognitive sciences, is discussed quite rarely. The argument made by this paper is that legal concepts are best understood as mental representations. The piece explains what mental (...) representations are and why this view matters. The explanation of legal concepts, understood as mental representations is one of three levels of explanation within legal philosophy, but—as will be argued—it is the most fundamental level. This paper analyzes the consequences of such understanding of concepts used in the field of legal philosophy. Special emphasis is put on the current debate on the analogical or amodal nature of concepts. (shrink)

Ratio Juris, Volume 35, Issue 2, Page 223-239, June 2022.

I know that I could have been where you are right now and that you could have been where I am right now, but that neither of us could have been turnips or natural numbers. This knowledge of metaphysical modality stands in need of explanation. I will offer an account based on our knowledge of the natures, or essencess, of things. I will argue that essences need not be viewed as metaphysically bizarre entities; that we can conceptualise and refer to (...) essences; and that we can gain knowledge of them. We can know about which properties are, and which properties are not, essential to a given entity. This knowledge of essence offers a route to knowledge of the ways those entities must be or could be. (shrink)

Non-cognitive gadgets are fancy tools shaped to meet specific, local needs. Cecilia Heyes defines cognitive gadgets as dedicated psychological mechanisms created through social interactions and culturally, not genetically, inherited by humans. She has boldly proposed that many human cognitive mechanisms are gadgets. If true, these claims would have far-reaching implications for our scientific understanding of human social cognition. Here we assess Heyes’s cognitive gadget approach as it applies to mindreading. We do not think that the evidence supports Heyes’s thought-provoking thesis (...) that human children are taught to read minds the way they are taught to read words. We highlight a potential circularity lurking behind this analogy, and we explain why we are unpersuaded by Heyes’s anti-mentalistic proposal for handling data inconsistent with the gadget view, which others take to be evidence for mindreading in human infancy. We conclude that while human minds may well be filled with gadgets, mindreading is unlikely to be one of them. (shrink)

: Fodor was passionately unwilling to compromise. Of his several commitments, I focus here on informational atomism. Fodor staunchly rejected semantic holism for two conspiring reasons. He took it to threaten his commitment to the nomic character of psychological explanation. He also took it to pave the way towards relativism, which he found deeply offensive. In this paper, I reconstruct the strands of Fodor’s commitment to the computational version of the representational theory of mind that led him to informational atomism. (...) I take issue with three features of informational atomism. First, I argue that it deprives content from its expected causal role in psychological explanation. Secondly, I take issue with Fodor’s claim that only informational atomism can meet the requirements of the principle of compositionality. Finally, I argue that informational atomism yields a bloated or unwieldy category of nomic properties. Keywords: Informational Atomism; Representational Theory of Mind; Psychological Explanation; Principle of Compositionality; Jerry A. Fodor Fare i conti con l’atomismo informazionale: uno dei lasciti di Jerry Fodor Riassunto : Fodor è stato fortemente maldisposto al compromesso. Tra le molte cose di cui si è occupato, intendo qui concentrarmi sull’atomismo informazionale. Fodor ha coerentemente rifiutato l’olismo semantico per due ragioni convergenti. Lo vedeva come minaccia per il suo impegno verso il carattere nomico della spiegazione psicologica e come porta aperta verso il relativismo, cosa che considerava profondamente minacciosa. In questo lavoro, intendo riprendere le fila dell’impegno di Fodor verso la versione computazionale della teoria rappresentazionale della mente che lo ha portato all’atomismo informazionale, chiarendo tuttavia che non sono d’accordo con tre aspetti dell’atomismo informazionale. In primo luogo, mostrerò come questo sottragga al contenuto il suo ruolo causale nella spiegazione psicologica. In secondo luogo, non sono d’accordo con l’affermazione di Fodor per cui solo l’atomismo informazionale possa soddisfare i requisiti del principio di composizionalità. Illustrerò infine come l’atomismo informazionale ceda il passo a un insieme di proprietà nomiche ampio o difficile da gestire. Parole chiave: Atomismo informazionale; Teoria rappresentazionale della mente; Spiegazione psicologica; Principio di composizionalità; Jerry A. Fodor. (shrink)

Conceptual engineering is the method for assessing and improving our concepts. However, little has been written about how best to conceive of concepts for the purposes of conceptual engineering. In this paper, I aim to fill this foundational gap, proceeding in three main steps: First, I propose a methodological framework for evaluating the conduciveness of a given concept of concept for conceptual engineering. Then, I develop a typology that contrasts two competing concepts of concept that can be used in conceptual (...) engineering — namely, the philosophical and psychological ones. Finally, I evaluate these two concepts of concept using the proposed methodological framework and I show that, when it comes to making conceptual engineering an actionable method, the psychological concept of concept outclasses its philosophical counterpart on all counts. This provides a baseline from which the concept of concept can be further improved for the purposes of conceptual engineering. (shrink)

Ratio, Volume 34, Issue 4, Page 286-302, December 2021.

Conceptual engineering is the method for assessing and improving our representational devices. On its ‘broad‐spectrum’ version, it is expected to be appropriately applicable to any of our representation‐involving cognitive activities, with major consequences for our whole cognitive life. This paper is about the theoretical foundations of conceptual engineering thus characterised. With a view to ensuring the actionability of conceptual engineering as a broad‐spectrum method, it addresses the issue of how best to construe the subject matter of conceptual engineering and successively (...) defends the theses that conceptual engineering should be: (i) About concepts, (ii) psychologically theorised, (iii) as multiply realised functional kinds. Thereby, I claim to theoretically secure and justify the maximum scope, flexibility, and impact for the method of conceptual engineering on our representational devices in our whole cognitive life—in other words, a broad‐spectrum version of conceptual engineering. (shrink)

Mind &Language, Volume 34, Issue 5, Page 667-680, November 2019.

There is a large body of empirical work that has investigated the relationship between parents’ child-directed speech and their children’s Theory of Mind development. That such a relationship should exist is well motivated from both Theory Theory and Socio-Cultural perspectives. Despite this general convergence, we argue that theoretical differences between the two perspectives suggests nuanced differences in the expected outcomes of the empirical work. Further, the different ontological commitments of the two approaches have guided the design, coding, and analysis of (...) existing research and imply different future directions. We discuss five areas of extant research that can be extended and diversified most coherently by adopting a SC framework. (shrink)

When does it make sense to act randomly? A persuasive argument from Bayesian decision theory legitimizes randomization essentially only in tie-breaking situations. Rational behaviour in humans, non-human animals, and artificial agents, however, often seems indeterminate, even random. Moreover, rationales for randomized acts have been offered in a number of disciplines, including game theory, experimental design, and machine learning. A common way of accommodating some of these observations is by appeal to a decision-maker’s bounded computational resources. Making this suggestion both precise (...) and compelling is surprisingly difficult. Toward this end, I propose two fundamental rationales for randomization, drawing upon diverse ideas and results from the wider theory of computation. The first unifies common intuitions in favour of randomization from the aforementioned disciplines. The second introduces a deep connection between randomization and memory: access to a randomizing device is provably helpful for an agent burdened with a finite memory. Aside from fit with ordinary intuitions about rational action, the two rationales also make sense of empirical observations in the biological world. Indeed, random behaviour emerges more or less where it should, according to the proposal. (shrink)

In Pietroski ( 2018 ) a simple representation language called SMPL is introduced, construed as a hypothesis about core conceptual structure. The present work is a study of this system from a logical perspective. In addition to establishing a completeness result and a complexity characterization for reasoning in the system, we also pinpoint its expressive limits, in particular showing that the fourth corner in the square of opposition (“ Some_not ”) eludes expression. We then study a seemingly small extension, called (...) SMPL +, which allows for a minimal predicate-binding operator. Perhaps surprisingly, the resulting system is shown to encode precisely the concepts expressible in first-order logic. However, unlike the latter class, the class of SMPL + expressions admits a simple procedural (context-free) characterization. Our contribution brings together research strands in logic—including natural logic, modal logic, description logic, and hybrid logic—with recent advances in semantics and philosophy of language. (shrink)

Moore supposedly discovered that there are sentences of a certain form that, though they can be true, no rational human being can sincerely and truly utter any of them. MC and MO are particular instances:MC: “It is raining and I believe that it is not raining”MO: “It is raining and I don’t believe that it is raining”In this paper, I show that there are sentences of the same form as MC and MO that can be sincerely and truly uttered by (...) rational agents. We call sentences of the same form as MC and MO “Moorean Sentences”. In Part II, we go over a standard argument for why sentences of the same form as MC and MO cannot be sincerely and truly uttered, and we explain why this argument is unsound. In explaining why this argument is unsound, we rely on the context-sensitivity of belief-reports and show that the premises of the argument are not all true in the same context. We then employ a general theory of belief reports that incorporates guises to explain why our examples are sincerely utterable while Moore’s sentences are typically not sincerely utterable. The answer will turn on the suggestion that belief reports carry a hidden quantifier over guises, where the domain of quantification is determined by context. We conclude with general lessons about Moore’s Paradox and the supposed limits of first-person belief reports. (shrink)

How is word meaning established, and how do individuals acquire it? What ensures the uniform understanding of word meaning in a linguistic community? In this paper I draw from cultural attraction theory and use folk biology as an example domain and address these questions by treating meaning acquisition as an inferential process. I show that significant variation exists in how individuals understand the meaning of inclusive biological labels such as “plant” and “animal” due to variation in their salience in contemporary (...) ethnic minority groups in southwest China, and I present historical textual evidence that the meaning of inclusive terms is often unstable but can be sustained by such cultural institutions as religion and education, which provide situations in which the meaning of linguistic labels can be unambiguously inferred. (shrink)

This paper discusses the relevance of models for cognitive science that integrate mechanistic and computational aspects. Its main hypothesis is that a model of a cognitive system is satisfactory and explanatory to the extent that it bridges phenomena at multiple mechanistic levels, such that at least several of these mechanistic levels are shown to implement computational processes. The relevant parts of the computation must be mapped onto distinguishable entities and activities of the mechanism. The ideal is contrasted with two other (...) accounts of modeling in cognitive science. The first has been presented by David Marr in combination with a distinction of “levels of computation”. The second builds on a hierarchy of “mechanistic levels” in the sense of Carl Craver. It is argued that neither of the two accounts secures satisfactory explanations of cognitive systems. The mechanistic-computational ideal can be thought of as resulting from a fusion of Marr’s and Craver’s ideals. It is defended as adequate and plausible in light of scientific practice, and certain metaphysical background assumptions are discussed. (shrink)

This work investigates intuitions' nature, demonstrating how philosophers can best use them in epistemology. First, the author considers several paradigmatic thought experiments in epistemology that depict the appeal to intuition. He then argues that the nature of thought experiment-generated intuitions is not best explained by an a priori Platonism. Second, the book instead develops and argues for a thin conception of epistemic intuitions. The account maintains that intuition is neither a priori nor a posteriori but multi-dimensional. It is an intentional (...) but non-propositional mental state that is also non-conceptual and non-phenomenal in nature. Moreover, this state is individuated by its progenitor, namely, the relevant thought experiment. Third, the author provides an argument for the evidential status of intuitions based on the correct account of the nature of epistemic intuition. The suggestion is the fitting-ness approach: intuition alone has no epistemic status. Rather, intuition has evidentiary value as long as it fits well with other pieces into a whole, namely, the pertinent thought experiment. Finally, the book addresses the key challenges raised by supporters of anti-centrality, according to which philosophers do not regard intuition as central evidence in philosophy. To that end, the author responds to them, showing that they fail to affect the account of intuition developed in this book. This text appeals to students and researchers working in epistemology. (shrink)

Hybrid and pluralist accounts of concepts agree that the class of concepts includes a multiplicity of heterogeneous representational structures, such as prototypes, sets of exemplars and theories. In this paper I argue that these accounts agree on two additional central claims related to the ways in which they articulate those structures: each type of representational structure can be used independently in psychological processes, and co-referential concepts are associated in a distinctive way as representations of the same category. Although they disagree (...) on concept individuation, they seem to agree that on a processing dimension there are multiple independent representations for a given category and on a long-term storage dimension concepts that represent the same category conform an epistemic unity. (shrink)

This paper seeks to show that human cognition cannot be characterised purely in mentalistic term. It has a bodily basis and cognition is thus the product of the interplay between mind, body, and brain. This is how the idea of embodiment and its importance is realised and gets its foothold in both philosophy and cognitive science. This brings a radical change introducing a new framework for philosophy and cognitive science. In this new change philosophy and cognitive science have a special (...) role to play which this paper seeks to explore. Philosophy in its capacity as a conceptual inquiry provides justification for human embodiment on a conceptual ground whereas cognitive science provides the same on an empirical and experimental ground. This brings the two disciplines closer resulting into a new field of inquiry which can be best described as the interface between philosophy and cognitive science. An important consequence that follows from this alignment is that the traditional epistemological distinction between the a priori and the empirical can no longer be rigidly maintained. (shrink)

It is common to distinguish two great families of representation. Symbolic representations include logical and mathematical symbols, words, and complex linguistic expressions. Iconic representations include dials, diagrams, maps, pictures, 3-dimensional models, and depictive gestures. This essay describes and motivates a new way of distinguishing iconic from symbolic representation. It locates the difference not in the signs themselves, nor in the contents they express, but in the semantic rules by which signs are associated with contents. The two kinds of rule have (...) divergent forms, occupying opposite poles on a spectrum of naturalness. Symbolic rules are composed entirely of primitive juxtapositions of sign types with contents, while iconic rules determine contents entirely by uniform natural relations with sign types. This distinction is marked explicitly in the formal semantics of familiar sign systems, both for atomic first-order representations, like words, pixel colors, and dials, and for complex second-order representations, like sentences, diagrams, and pictures. (shrink)

The first aim of this paper is to remind the reader of a very original theory of meaning which in many aspects has not been surpassed by subsequent theories. The theory in question is Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz’s Directival Theory of Meaning. In the first section I present a version of this theory which, I trust, retains the gist of the original but loses its outdated language. In the second section I analyze some problematic consequences of the directival theory and show how (...) they can be addressed. The second aim of this paper is exploiting some of the similarities between the directival theory and later theories of meaning. In the third section I argue that using the directival theory as an interpretative tool enables us to create explications of some of the notoriously vague notions which contemporary theories of meaning employ. (shrink)

Consider the sentence “Lois knows that Superman flies, but she doesn’t know that Clark flies”. In this paper we defend a Millian contextualist semantics for propositional attitude ascriptions, according to which ordinary uses of this sentence are true but involve a mid-sentence shift in context. Absent any constraints on the relevant parameters of context sensitivity, such a semantics would be untenable: it would undermine the good standing of systematic theorizing about the propositional attitudes, trivializing many of the central questions of (...) epistemology, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of action. In response to this problem, we prove a series of tenability results. We show that, given certain constraints on the parameters of context sensitivity, there is a broad class of principles of propositional attitude psychology whose good standing follows from corresponding claims about people’s mental representations. But these constraints also have some surprising consequences: they are jointly incompatible with coarse-grained theories of propositions, and they are in tension with a natural picture of how speakers and hearers coordinate on the interpretation of attitude ascriptions. In light of these consequences we explore different ways in which the contextualist picture might be developed, and argue that our preferred way compares favorably with Fregeanism and neo-Russellianism. (shrink)

The so-called ‘mental files theory’ in the philosophy of mind stems from an analogy comparing object-concepts to ‘files’, and the mind to a ‘filing system’. Though this analogy appears in philosophy of mind and language from the 1970s onward, it remains unclear to many how it should be interpreted. The central commitments of the mental files theory therefore also remain unclear. Based on influential uses of the file analogy within philosophy, I elaborate three central explanatory roles for mental files. Next, (...) I outline several common criticisms of the file picture, which have been a source of resistance to the view. Finally, I outline several interpretations of the theory, thus highlighting that the best interpretation of the file-theory's central analogy remains a live issue. (shrink)

New definitions are proposed for communication and language. Communication is defined as the evolution of physical, biochemical, cellular, community, and technological information exchange. Language is defined as community communication whereby the information exchanged comprises evolving individual and group-constructed knowledge and beliefs, that are enacted, narrated, or otherwise conveyed by evolving rule-governed and meaningful symbol systems, that are grounded, interpreted, and used from within evolving embodied, cognitive, ecological, sociocultural, and technological niches. These definitions place emphasis on the evolutionary aspects of communication (...) and language, and they are here differentiated from four older paradigms that instead focus either on the referential or social aspects of language, or the informational or semantic aspects of communication. In contrast with these paradigms, the definitions proposed here for communication and language are in line with a pluralistic evolutionary worldview, one that necessitates the recognition that a multitude of units, levels, mechanisms and processes are involved in bringing forth communication and language. (shrink)

Some emotional representations seem to be unreliable. For instance, we are often afraid when there is no danger present. If emotions such as fear are so unreliable, what function do they have in our representational system? This is a problem for representationalist theories of emotion. I will argue that seemingly unreliable emotional representations are reliable after all. While many mental states strike an optimal balance between minimizing inaccurate representations and maximizing accurate representations, some emotional representations only aim at maximizing accuracy. (...) They detect important phenomena such as danger based on little evidence, which will lead to a lot of false alarms. When it matters, however, these emotional representations will detect danger and other important phenomena. Often, one is better scared (and wrong) than sorry. (shrink)

Some emotional representations seem to be unreliable. For instance, we are often afraid when there is no danger present. If emotions such as fear are so unreliable, what function do they have in our representational system? This is a problem for representationalist theories of emotion. I will argue that seemingly unreliable emotional representations are reliable after all. While many mental states strike an optimal balance between minimizing inaccurate representations and maximizing accurate representations, some emotional representations only aim at maximizing accuracy. (...) They detect important phenomena such as danger based on little evidence, which will lead to a lot of false alarms. When it matters, however, these emotional representations will detect danger and other important phenomena. Often, one is better scared (and wrong) than sorry. (shrink)

A long tradition, which starts with the metaphor of the wax tablet presented in the Theaetetus of Plato, leads us to think that the relationship between mental representation and the represented reality is in a certain way mechanical or automatic. But the truth is that the conventional aspects of signification make it impossible to understand it as a physical- mechanical process. The computer sciences, contrary to a superficial vision, do not support but rather disprove this mechanistic conception of rationality, confirming (...) that semiosis can only occur in free subjects, that is to say, not completely subject to the laws of matter. (shrink)

Philosophers debate about which logical system, if any, is the One True Logic. This involves a disagreement concerning the sufficient conditions that may single out the correct logic among various candidates. This paper discusses whether there are necessary conditions for the correct logic; that is, I discuss whether there are features such that if a logic is correct, then it has those features, although having them might not be sufficient to single out the correct logic. Traditional rationalist arguments suggest that (...) the necessary conditions of thought are necessary and sufficient conditions singling out the correct logical and mathematical theories. In the contemporary debate, Chalmers advocates a view along this line. Jago, analogously, suggests that the necessary conditions for thought—or, as he calls them, our basic epistemic expectations—single out a family of logical and mathematical theories. Warren and Williamson, on the other hand, argue that there are no necessary conditions of thought. I argue that there are necessary conditions for thought, and these are necessary but not sufficient conditions to be the correct logic; indeed, these are features that all logics—correct or incorrect—share. No view we can understand is ruled out by the necessary conditions for thought, but we cannot understand quite any view. Human linguistic and conceptual abilities are genetically constrained, and these constraints are our best guide to the boundaries of logic. Arguing for this, I tackle two dogmas of modern rationalism: namely, the view that the biological constraints of human cognition have no bearing on the boundaries of the epistemic space, and the view that the boundaries of thought coincide with the boundaries of language. (shrink)

The paper thematizes basic content-free cognition in human social practices. It explores the enlanguaged dimension of skilled practical doings and expertise by taking the minimal case of concept-based perception as its starting point. Having made a case for considering such activity as free of mental content, I argue in favor of the abolishment of the distinction between truth-telling and social consensus, thus questioning the assumption held by proponents of Radical Enactivism, namely that truth and accuracy conditions are restricted to content-involving (...) activity. Instead, I claim, even content-free practical activity can be evaluated on the basis of accuracy conditions which ultimately tie with agents’ practical understandings and the normative aspects of the practice. With this as my backdrop, I explore how expertise arises in the interplay of enlanguaged affordances, concept-involving perception and the normative accuracy conditions that constrain a particular practice. (shrink)

The Free Choice effect—whereby \\) seems to entail both \ and \—has traditionally been characterized as a phenomenon affecting the deontic modal ‘may’. This paper presents an extension of the semantic account of free choice defended by Fusco to the agentive modal ‘can’, the ‘can’ which, intuitively, describes an agent’s powers. On this account, free choice is a nonspecific de re phenomenon that—unlike typical cases—affects disjunction. I begin by sketching a model of inexact ability, which grounds a modal approach to (...) agency in a Williamson -style margin of error. A classical propositional semantics combined with this framework can reflect the intuitions highlighted by Kenny ’s dartboard cases, as well as the counterexamples to simple conditional views recently discussed by Mandelkern et al.. In Section 3, I turn to an independently motivated actual-world-sensitive account of disjunction, and show how it extends free choice inferences into an object language for propositional modal logic. (shrink)

Sortal concepts are at the center of certain logical discussions and have played a significant role in solutions to particular problems in philosophy. Apart from logic and philosophy, the study of sortal concepts has found its place in specific fields of psychology, such as the theory of infant cognitive development and the theory of human perception. In this monograph, different formal logics for sortal concepts and sortal-related logical notions are characterized. Most of these logics are intensional in nature and possess, (...) in addition, a bidimensional character. That is, they simultaneously represent two different logical dimensions. In most cases, the dimensions are those of time and natural necessity, and, in other cases, those of time and epistemic necessity. Another feature of the logics in question concerns second-order quantification over sortal concepts, a logical notion that is also represented in the logics. Some of the logics adopt a constant domain interpretation, others a varying domain interpretation of such quantification. Two of the above bidimensional logics are philosophically grounded on predication sortalism, that is, on the philosophical view that predication necessarily requires sortal concepts. Another bidimensional logic constitutes a logic for complex sortal predicates. These three sorts of logics are among the important novelties of this work since logics with similar features have not been developed up to now, and they might be instrumental for the solution of philosophically significant problems regarding sortal predicates. The book assumes a modern variant of conceptualism as a philosophical background. For this reason, the approach to sortal predicates is in terms of sortal concepts. Concepts, in general, are here understood as intersubjective realizable cognitive capacities. The proper features of sortal concepts are determined by an analysis of the main features of sortal predicates. Posterior to this analysis, the sortal-related logical notions represented in the above logics are discussed. There is also a discussion on the extent to which the set-theoretic formal semantic systems of the book capture different aspects of the conceptualist approach to sortals. These different semantic frameworks are also related to realist and nominalist approaches to sortal predicates, and possible modifications to them are considered that might represent those alternative approaches. (shrink)

Is it possible for there to be facts about reality with a logical structure that is in principle unrepresentable by us? I outline the main motivations for thinking that this question should receive a positive answer. I then argue that, upon inspection, the view that such structurally ineffable facts are possible is self-defeating and thus incoherent. My argument is based on considerations about the fundamental role that the purely formal concept of an object plays in our propositional representations and its (...) intimate connection with subject-predicate structure. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to argue against the real possibility of languages without subject‐predicate structure, so‐called feature‐placing languages. They were first introduced by Strawson (1959/1990), later given formal expression through Quine's Predicate Functor Logic (Quine, 1960, Quine, 1971/Quine, 1976, Quine, 1992), and further elaboration in (Hawthorne & Cortens, 1995). I argue that, on the presumption that feature‐placing languages are not mere notational variants on first‐order languages, the idea of such languages is incoherent. The argument for this view rests (...) on two highly plausible views about the conditions for the possibility of sentential meaning in natural languages. If accepted, these two views jointly imply that the sentences of feature‐placing languages lack sufficient internal structure to meet the conditions for sentential meaning. Feature‐placing languages cannot then count as genuine languages. (shrink)

Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 56, Issue 2, Page 210-226, April 2022.

Human presencing explores how people’s past encounters with others shape their present actions. In this paper, I present an alternative perspective on human embodiment in which the re-evoking of the absent can be traced to the intricate interplay of bodily dynamics. By situating the phenomenon within distributed, embodied, and dialogic approaches to language and cognition, I am overcoming the theoretical and methodological challenges involved in perceiving and acting upon what is not perceptually present. In a case study, I present strong (...) and weak dimensions of human presencing. In the former, a person uses their body in distinct ways and shapes their immediate ecology to make others present to them. In contrast, in the latter, a person’s past encounter with others powerfully shapes the projections they make onto written digital inscriptions. These findings have implications for how people act in online learning environments and how human activity shapes the machines we use every day. In this way, the paper highlights the complexity of a person as a social being and allows for different approaches to human embodiment in technology. (shrink)

The article examines the impact the grammarian/philosopher Bhartṛhari had on the way the ‘School of Recognition’ elaborated the notion that knowledge and consciousness have a close relationship with language. The paper first lays out Bhartṛhari’s ideas, showing that his theses are rationally defensible and philosophically refined. More specifically, it claims that the grammarian is defending a view which is in many respects similar to ‘higher-order theories’ of consciousness advanced by some contemporary philosophers of mind. In the second part, the paper (...) shows how Utpaladeva and Abhinavagupta adopted Bhartṛhari’s scheme without significant alteration. (shrink)

Currently, there are almost as many conceptions of emergence as authors who address the issue. Most literature on the matter focuses either on discussing, evaluating and comparing particular contributions or accounts of emergence, or on assessing a particular case study. Our aim in this paper is rather different. We here set out to introduce a distinction that has not been sufficiently taken into account in previous discussions on this topic: the distinction between inter-domain emergence—a relation between items belonging to different (...) ontic domains—and intra-domain emergence—a relation between items belonging to a same ontic domain. Our final purpose is not to assume and defend a definite stance on emergence, but to stress the relevance of such distinction when attempting to argue for or against emergence, in the first place. We will also address the connections between emergence so distinguished and more general philosophical perspectives, suggesting where would reductionists and pluralists stand with respect to intra- and inter-domain emergence. (shrink)