Člověk se od jiných živočišných druhů odlišuje mnoha způsoby, k nejpodstatnějším z nichž patří rozum, jazyk a také schopnost řídit se pravidly. V tomto textu argumentuji, že je to především ta poslední schopnost, která je klíčová a bez které jsou ty další nepředstavitelné. Člověk je společenská bytost nejenom v tom smyslu, že žije ve společenstvích, ale i v tom, že tato společenství jsou strukturována složitým pletivem pravidel, která zásadním způsobem determinují modus vivendi lidí, kteří je tvoří, a v důsledku toho (...) determinují i člověka jako takového. Soustava pravidel může vytvořit jistý „vnitřní prostor" - to jest tato pravidla můžeme přijímat a tím vstoupit do tohoto prostoru, nebo je můžeme jenom zaznamenávat. Dialektika těchto dvou postojů nám umožňuje nahlédnout, že ač je normativní rozměr pro člověka jakožto společenskou bytost naprosto klíčový a těžko postižitelný běžnými vědeckými metodami „nezúčastněného pozorování", není tento normativní rozměr ničím esoterickým, něčím, co by bylo z hlediska vědy pochybné. (shrink)

Work on analogy has been done from a number of disciplinary perspectives throughout the history of Western thought. This work is a multidisciplinary guide to theorizing about analogy. It contains 1,406 references, primarily to journal articles and monographs, and primarily to English language material. classical through to contemporary sources are included. The work is classified into eight different sections (with a number of subsections). A brief introduction to each section is provided. Keywords and key expressions of importance to research on (...) analogy are discussed in the introductory material. Electronic resources for conducting research on analogy are listed as well. (shrink)

Gavagai! or the Future History of the Animal Language Controversy By DAVID PREMACK.

According to the target article authors, initial experience with a circumstance primes a relation that can subsequently be applied to a different circumstance to draw an analogy. While I broadly agree with their claim about the role of relational priming in early analogical reasoning, I put forward a few concerns that may be worthy of further reflection.

I argue that we can reconcile two seemingly incompatible traditions for thinking about concepts. On the one hand, many cognitive scientists assume that the systematic redeployment of representational abilities suffices for having concepts. On the other hand, a long philosophical tradition maintains that language is necessary for genuinely conceptual thought. I argue that on a theoretically useful and empirically plausible concept of 'concept', it is necessary and sufficient for conceptual thought that a thinker be able to entertain many of the (...) potential thoughts produced by recombining her representational abilities apart from a direct confrontation with the states of affairs being represented. Such representational abilities support a cognitive engagement with the world that is flexible, abstract, and active. (shrink)

Over the last quarter century, the dominant tendency in comparative cognitive psychology has been to emphasize the similarities between human and nonhuman minds and to downplay the differences as (Darwin 1871). In the present target article, we argue that Darwin was mistaken: the profound biological continuity between human and nonhuman animals masks an equally profound discontinuity between human and nonhuman minds. To wit, there is a significant discontinuity in the degree to which human and nonhuman animals are able to approximate (...) the higher-order, systematic, relational capabilities of a physical symbol system (PSS) (Newell 1980). We show that this symbolic-relational discontinuity pervades nearly every domain of cognition and runs much deeper than even the spectacular scaffolding provided by language or culture alone can explain. We propose a representational-level specification as to where human and nonhuman animals' abilities to approximate a PSS are similar and where they differ. We conclude by suggesting that recent symbolic-connectionist models of cognition shed new light on the mechanisms that underlie the gap between human and nonhuman minds. (shrink)

In strategic situations, agents base actions on knowledge and beliefs. This includes knowledge about others’ strategies and preferences over strategy profiles, but also about other external factors. Bernheim and Pearce in 1984 independently defined the game theoretic solution concept of rationalizability, which is built on the premise that rational agents will only take actions that are the best response to some situation that they consider possible. This accounts for other agents’ rationality as well, limiting the strategies to which a particular (...) agent must respond, enabling further elimination until the strategies stabilize. We seek to generalize rationalizability to account not only for actions, but knowledge of the world as well. This will enable us to examine the interplay between action based and knowledge based rationality. We give an account of what it means for an action to be rational relative to a particular state of affairs, and in turn relative to a state of knowledge. We present a class of games, Epistemic Messaging Games, with a communication stage that clarifies the epistemic state among the players prior to the players’ actions. We use a history based model, which frames individual knowledge in terms of local projections of a global history. With this framework, we give an account of rationalizability for subclasses of EMG. (shrink)