In this paper I study the development of arithmetical cognition with the focus on metaphorical thinking. In an approach developing on Lakoff and Núñez, I propose one particular conceptual metaphor, the Process → Object Metaphor, as a key element in understanding the development of mathematical thinking.

Why would we want to develop artificial human-like arithmetical intelligence, when computers already outperform humans in arithmetical calculations? Aside from arithmetic consisting of much more than mere calculations, one suggested reason is that AI research can help us explain the development of human arithmetical cognition. Here I argue that this question needs to be studied already in the context of basic, non-symbolic, numerical cognition. Analyzing recent machine learning research on artificial neural networks, I show how AI studies could potentially shed (...) light on the development of human numerical abilities, from the proto-arithmetical abilities of subitizing and estimating to counting procedures. Although the current results are far from conclusive and much more work is needed, I argue that AI research should be included in the interdisciplinary toolbox when we try to explain the development and character of numerical cognition and arithmetical intelligence. This makes it relevant also for the epistemology of mathematics. (shrink)

Beck presents an outline of the procedure of bootstrapping of integer concepts, with the purpose of explicating the account of Carey. According to that theory, integer concepts are acquired through a process of inductive and analogous reasoning based on the object tracking system, which allows individuating objects in a parallel fashion. Discussing the bootstrapping theory, Beck dismisses what he calls the "deviant-interpretation challenge"—the possibility that the bootstrapped integer sequence does not follow a linear progression after some point—as being general to (...) any account of inductive learning. While the account of Carey and Beck focuses on the OTS, in this paper I want to reconsider the importance of another empirically well-established cognitive core system for treating numerosities, namely the approximate number system. Since the ANS-based account offers a potential alternative for integer concept acquisition, I show that it provides a good reason to revisit the deviant-interpretation challenge. Finally, I will present a hybrid OTS-ANS model as the foundation of integer concept acquisition and the framework of enculturation as a solution to the challenge. (shrink)

The present article tests counterintuitiveness theory and methodology in relation to religious dream imagery using data on religious dream content. The endeavor adopts a “fractionated” or “piecemeal” approach where supernatural agent (SA) cognition is held to be a pivotal building block of purportedly religious dreaming. Such supernaturalistic conceptualizations manifests in a cognitive environment of dream simulation processes, threat detection and violation of basic conceptual categorization characterized by counterintuitiveness. By addressing SA cognitions as constituents of allegedly religious dream imagery, additional theorizing (...) and supporting data is presented in a growing body of research in the Cognitive Science of Religion (e.g., Barrett, 2017; Barrett et al., 2009; Hornbeck and Barrett, 2013) and on religious dreaming (McNamara, 2016; McNamara and Bulkeley, 2015). The aim of the article is partly to map and align contemporary theorizing regarding counterintuitiveness and CI schemes with empirical qualification of the prosaic hypothesis about the predominance of supernaturalism in allegedly religious dreaming. This is done by (a) exploring the crucial topic of the pervasiveness of cognitive counterintuitiveness; (b) testing Barrett’s counterintuitiveness coding and quantifying scheme (CI scheme) for counterintuitiveness in the context of religious dreaming by assessing intercoder reliability; and (c) exploring the prevalence and base rate frequency of counterintuitiveness in dream reports. This undertaking aims to contribute to the methodology and understanding of religious dream cognition, as well as to establish the cross-cultural base rates of counterintuitiveness in dreams for future research. (shrink)

Self-knowledge is knowledge of one’s own states (or processes) in an indexical mode of presentation. The philosophical debate is concentrating on mental states (or processes). If we characterize self-knowledge by natural language sentences, the most adequate utterance has a structure like “I know that I am in mental state M”. This common sense characterization has to be developed into an adequate description. In this investigation we will tackle two questions: (i) What precisely is the phenomenon referred to by “self-knowledge” and (...) how can we adequately describe a form of self-knowledge which we might realistically enjoy? (ii) Can we have self-knowledge given the fact that the meaning of some words which we utter depends on the environment or the speech community? The theory we defend argues that we have to distinguish the public meaning of utterances, on the one hand, and the mental representations which are constituting a mental state of an individual, on the other. Self-knowledge should be characterized on the level of mental representations while the semantics of utterances self-attributing mental states should be treated separately. Externalism is only true for the public meaning of utterances but not for beliefs and other mental states including self-knowledge. (shrink)

Recent work on the acquisition of number words has emphasized the importance of integrating linguistic and developmental perspectives [Musolino, J. (2004). The semantics and acquisition of number words: Integrating linguistic and developmental perspectives. Cognition93, 1-41; Papafragou, A., Musolino, J. (2003). Scalar implicatures: Scalar implicatures: Experiments at the semantics-pragmatics interface. Cognition, 86, 253-282; Hurewitz, F., Papafragou, A., Gleitman, L., Gelman, R. (2006). Asymmetries in the acquisition of numbers and quantifiers. Language Learning and Development, 2, 76-97; Huang, Y. T., Snedeker, J., Spelke, (...) L. (submitted for publication). What exactly do numbers mean?]. Specifically, these studies have shown that data from experimental investigations of child language can be used to illuminate core theoretical issues in the semantic and pragmatic analysis of number terms. In this article, I extend this approach to the logico-syntactic properties of number words, focusing on the way numerals interact with each other (e.g. Three boys are holding two balloons) as well as with other quantified expressions (e.g. Three boys are holding each balloon). On the basis of their intuitions, linguists have claimed that such sentences give rise to at least four different interpretations, reflecting the complexity of the linguistic structure and syntactic operations involved. Using psycholinguistic experimentation with preschoolers (n=32) and adult speakers of English (n=32), I show that (a) for adults, the intuitions of linguists can be verified experimentally, (b) by the age of 5, children have knowledge of the core aspects of the logical syntax of number words, (c) in spite of this knowledge, children nevertheless differ from adults in systematic ways, (d) the differences observed between children and adults can be accounted for on the basis of an independently motivated, linguistically-based processing model [Geurts, B. (2003). Quantifying kids. Language Acquisition, 11(4), 197-218]. In doing so, this work ties together research on the acquisition of the number vocabulary with a growing body of work on the development of quantification and sentence processing abilities in young children [Geurts, 2003; Lidz, J., Musolino, J. (2002). Children's command of quantification. Cognition, 84, 113-154; Musolino, J., Lidz, J. (2003). The scope of isomorphism: Turning adults into children. Language Acquisition, 11(4), 277-291; Trueswell, J., Sekerina, I., Hilland, N., Logrip, M. (1999). The kindergarten-path effect: Studying on-line sentence processing in young children. Cognition, 73, 89-134; Noveck, I. (2001). When children are more logical than adults: Experimental investigations of scalar implicature. Cognition, 78, 165-188; Noveck, I., Guelminger, R., Georgieff, N., & Labruyere, N. (2007). What autism can tell us about every. . . not sentences. Journal of Semantics,24(1), 73-90. On a more general level, this work confirms the importance of integrating formal and developmental perspectives [Musolino, 2004], this time by highlighting the explanatory power of linguistically-based models of language acquisition and by showing that the complex structure postulated by linguists has important implications for developmental accounts of the number vocabulary. (shrink)

We see no grounds for insisting that, because the concept natural number is abstract, its foundations must be innate. It is possible to specify domain general learning processes that feed into more abstract concepts of numerical infinity. By neglecting the messiness of children's slow acquisition of arithmetical concepts, Rips et al. present an idealized, unnecessarily insular, view of number development.

Norman forms the belief that the president is in New York by way of a clairvoyance faculty he doesn’t know he has. Many agree that his belief is unjustified but disagree about why it is unjustified. I argue that the lack of justification cannot be explained by a higher-level evidence requirement on justification, but it can be explained by a no-defeater requirement. I then explain how you can use cognitive faculties you don’t know you have. Lastly, I use lessons from (...) the foregoing to compare Norman’s belief, formed by clairvoyance, with Sally’s theistic belief, formed by a sensus divinitatis. (shrink)

Although biologists and philosophers of science generally agree that genes cannot determine the forms of biological and psychological traits, students, journalists, politicians, and other members of the general public nonetheless continue to embrace genetic determinism. This article identifies some of the concerns typically raised by individuals when they first encounter the systems perspective that biologists and philosophers of science now favor over genetic determinism, and uses arguments informed by that perspective to address those concerns. No definitive statements can yet be (...) made about why genetic determinism has proven so resilient in the face of empirical evidence pointing up its deficiencies, but conveying the essential interdependence of 'nature' and 'nurture' to the general public will likely require deployment of the arguments that systems theorists ordinarily use to reject genetic determinism. In addition, the elaboration of new metaphors that focus attention on the dynamic nature of trait construction will likely prove valuable, because re-conceptualizing notions like 'genes' and 'nature' will probably be one of the most effective ways to help students and the general public abandon the genetic determinism that biologists now recognize as indefensible. (shrink)

Evolutionary developmental systems theory stresses that selection pressures operate on entire developmental systems rather than just genes. This study extends this approach to language evolution, arguing that selection pressure may operate on two quasi-independent timescales. First, children clearly must acquire language successfully and evolution must equip them with the tools to do so. Second, while this is developing, they must also communicate with others in the moment using partially developed knowledge. These pressures may require different solutions, and their combination may (...) underlie the evolution of complex mechanisms for language development and processing. I present two case studies to illustrate how the demands of both real-time communication and language acquisition may be subtly different. The first case study examines infant-directed speech. A recent view is that IDS underwent cultural to statistical learning mechanisms that infants use to acquire the speech categories of their language. However, recent data suggest is it may not have evolved to enhance development, but rather to serve a more real-time communicative function. The second case study examines the argument for seemingly specialized mechanisms for learning word meanings. Both behavioral and computational work suggest that learning may be much slower and served by general-purpose mechanisms like associative learning. Fast-mapping, then, may be a real-time process meant to serve immediate communication, not learning, by augmenting incomplete vocabulary knowledge with constraints from the current context. Together, these studies suggest that evolutionary accounts consider selection pressure arising from both real-time communicative demands and from the need for accurate language development. (shrink)

Within cognitive and developmental psychology, it is commonly argued that perception is the basis for object concepts. According to this view, sensory experiences would translate into concepts thanks to the recognition, correlation and integration of physical attributes. Once attributes are integrated into general patterns, subjects would become able to parse objects into categories. In this article, we critically review the three epistemological perspectives according to which it can be claimed that object concepts depend on perception:state non-conceptualism, content non-conceptualism, andcontent conceptualism. (...) We show that the three perspectives have problems that make perception inadequate as a conceptual basis. We suggest that the inquiry about the origin and development of object concepts can benefit from a pragmatic perspective that considers objects’cultural functionsas a conceptual foundation. We address this possibility from the theoretical framework of thepragmatics of the object, considering the importance of objects’functional permanence. (shrink)

Within cognitive and developmental psychology, it is commonly argued that perception is the basis for object concepts. According to this view, sensory experiences would translate into concepts thanks to the recognition, correlation and integration of physical attributes. Once attributes are integrated into general patterns, subjects would become able to parse objects into categories. In this article, we critically review the three epistemological perspectives according to which it can be claimed that object concepts depend on perception: state non-conceptualism, content non-conceptualism, and (...) content conceptualism. We show that the three perspectives have problems that make perception inadequate as a conceptual basis. We suggest that the inquiry about the origin and development of object concepts can benefit from a pragmatic perspective that considers objects’ cultural functions as a conceptual foundation. We address this possibility from the theoretical framework of the pragmatics of the object, considering the importance of objects’ functional permanence. (shrink)

I can be wrong about things I seem to perceive; the conditions might lead me to be mistaken about them. Since I can't rule out the possibility that the conditions are misleading, I can't be sure that I am perceiving this thing in my hand correctly. But suppose that I am able to examine it actively—handling it, looking closer, shining a light on it, and so on. Then, my level of uncertainty goes down; in the limit it is eliminated entirely. (...) Of course, I might be mistaken because I am a brain in a vat, or because some other sceptical scenario obtains. But sceptical scenarios apply not just to this thing in my hand, but to everything all at once. Define "empirical certainty" as the absence of the kind of doubt that spreads to all empirical states of affairs. Sensory exploration, or active examination, can in principle lead to empirical certainty. (shrink)

In the debate about the nature of social cognition we see a shift towards theories that explain social understanding through interaction. This paper discusses autopoietic enactivism and the we-mode approach in the light of such developments. We argue that a problem seems to arise for these theories: an interactionist account of social cognition makes the capacity of shared intentionality a presupposition of social understanding, while the capacity of engaging in scenes of shared intentionality in turn presupposes exactly the kind of (...) social understanding that it is intended to explain. The social capacity in question that is presupposed by these accounts is then analyzed in the second section via a discussion and further development of Searle’s ‘sense of us’ and ‘sense of the other’ as a precondition for social cognition and joint action. After a critical discussion of Schmid’s recent proposal to analyze this in terms of plural pre-reflective selfawareness, we develop an alternative account. Starting from the idea that infants distinguish in perception between physical objects and other agents we distinguish between affordances and social affordances and cash out the notion of a social affordance in terms of “interaction-oriented representations”, parallel to the analysis of object affordances in terms of “action-oriented representations”. By characterizing their respective features we demonstrate how this approach can solve the problem formulated in the first part. (shrink)

It has been claimed that a sense of us is presupposed for shared intentions to be possible. Searle introduced this notion together with the notion of the sense of the other. in joint action. It argues that the sense of the other is a necessary condition for a sense of us. Whereas thisarticle distinguishes between the “sense of the other” and the “sense of us” and elaborates on their role the sense of the other is immediate and automatic, the sense (...) of us can (but need not) arise between people and can (a) develop over time, (b) depend on the situation, and (c) involves several sufficient but not necessary processes. The article relies on research on core knowledge to better understand the sense of the other. It elaborates the sense of us using insights from cognitive science and social psychology. The article shows that the sense of the other and the sense of us can contribute to our understanding of the perception of possibilities for joint action and how individuals can come to experience actions and intentions as shared, even if the participants lack common knowledge. This leads to the conclusion that people are ordinarily socially oriented rather than individually. (shrink)

The linguistic and cognitive sciences have severely underestimated the degree of linguistic diversity in the world. Part of the reason for this is that we have projected assumptions based on English and familiar languages onto the rest. We focus on some distortions this has introduced, especially in the study of semantics.

Landau also pushes the role of syntax and its mapping to semantics in learning what some would consider “easy words”—the simplest spatial prepositions in English, in and on. Taking as a starting point that the syntactic distribution of a word is a reflex of its meaning, Landau shows that careful study of how children and adults linguistically encode a range of containment and support configurations reveals a special status for “core” configurations in each domain. She proposes that children come to (...) learning spatial terms with the expectation that configurations reflecting core concepts of containment and support will be expressed with the maximally simple, unmarked, linguistic expression. (shrink)

Recent progress in artificial intelligence has renewed interest in building systems that learn and think like people. Many advances have come from using deep neural networks trained end-to-end in tasks such as object recognition, video games, and board games, achieving performance that equals or even beats that of humans in some respects. Despite their biological inspiration and performance achievements, these systems differ from human intelligence in crucial ways. We review progress in cognitive science suggesting that truly human-like learning and thinking (...) machines will have to reach beyond current engineering trends in both what they learn and how they learn it. Specifically, we argue that these machines should build causal models of the world that support explanation and understanding, rather than merely solving pattern recognition problems; ground learning in intuitive theories of physics and psychology to support and enrich the knowledge that is learned; and harness compositionality and learning-to-learn to rapidly acquire and generalize knowledge to new tasks and situations. We suggest concrete challenges and promising routes toward these goals that can combine the strengths of recent neural network advances with more structured cognitive models. (shrink)

This paper provides an account of the developmental origins of our belief in free will based on research from a range of ages—infants, preschoolers, older children, and adults—and across cultures. The foundations of free will beliefs are in infants' understanding of intentional action—their ability to use context to infer when agents are free to “do otherwise” and when they are constrained. In early childhood, new knowledge about causes of action leads to new abilities to imagine constraints on action. Moreover, unlike (...) adults, young children tend to view psychological causes (i.e., desires) and social causes (i.e., following rules or group norms, being kind or fair) of action as constraints on free will. But these beliefs change, and also diverge across cultures, corresponding to differences between Eastern and Western philosophies of mind, self, and action. Finally, new evidence shows developmentally early, culturally dependent links between free will beliefs and behavior, in particular when choice‐making requires self‐control. (shrink)

In the paper, being the second part of the work entitled Noema and Noesis, the formal model of the noematic synthesis functions is presented. Together with functions of noetic synthesis, they are understood as components of functions of intentional reference, which are to be, in turn, formalizations of intentional acts of reference performed in the stream of consciousness. Noemata are understood as mental representations associated with mental worlds. The processes of their synthesis in the mind engage the work of many (...) noematic functions: generating predicative senses, producing noematic cores, and locating noemata in mental worlds (mental spaces). The constructed model is not intended as the faithful reconstruction of the Husserlian conception of noemata. Intuitions of the creator of phenomenology are treated as the only source of inspiration. (shrink)

In this paper, representational structures of arithmetical thinking, encoded in human minds, are described. On the basis of empirical research, it is possible to distinguish four types of mental number lines: the shortest mental number line, summation mental number lines, point-place mental number lines and mental lines of exact numbers. These structures may be treated as generative mechanisms of forming arithmetical representations underlying our numerical acts of reference towards cardinalities, ordinals and magnitudes. In the paper, the theoretical framework for a (...) formal model of mental arithmetical representations is constructed. Many competitive conceptions of the mental system responsible for our arithmetical thinking may be unified within the presented framework. The paradigm underlying our research may be interpreted philosophically as a neo-Kantian approach to modeling the mind’s representational structures. (shrink)

The paper undertakes three interdisciplinary tasks. The first one consists in constructing a formal model of the basic arithmetic competence, that is, the competence sufficient for solving simple arithmetic story-tasks which do not require any mathematical mastery knowledge about laws, definitions and theorems. The second task is to present a generalized arithmetic theory, called the arithmetic of indexed numbers (INA). All models of the development of counting abilities presuppose the common assumption that our simple, folk arithmetic encoded linguistically in the (...) mind is based on the linear number representation. This classical conception is rejected and a competitive hypothesis is formulated according to which the basic mature representational system of cognitive arithmetic is a structure composed of many numerical axes which possess a common constituent, namely, the numeral zero. Arithmetic of indexed numbers is just a formal tool for modelling the basic mature arithmetic competence. The third task is to develop a standpoint called temporal pluralism, which is motivated by neo-Kantian philosophy of arithmetic. (shrink)

Language and culture endow humans with access to conceptual information that far exceeds any which could be accessed by a non-human animal. Yet, it is possible that, even without language or specific experiences, non-human animals represent and infer some aspects of similarity relations between objects in the same way as humans. Here, we show that monkeys’ discrimination sensitivity when identifying images of animals is predicted by established measures of semantic similarity derived from human conceptual judgments. We used metrics from computer (...) vision and computational neuroscience to show that monkeys’ and humans’ performance cannot be explained by low-level visual similarity alone. The results demonstrate that at least some of the underlying structure of object representations in humans is shared with non-human primates, at an abstract level that extends beyond low-level visual similarity. Because the monkeys had no experience with the objects we tested, the results suggest that monkeys and humans share a primitive representation of object similarity that is independent of formal knowledge and cultural experience, and likely derived from common evolutionary constraints on object representation. (shrink)

It has often been suggested that people’s ordinary capacities for understanding the world make use of much the same methods one might find in a formal scientific investigation. A series of recent experimental results offer a challenge to this widely-held view, suggesting that people’s moral judgments can actually influence the intuitions they hold both in folk psychology and in causal cognition. The present target article distinguishes two basic approaches to explaining such effects. One approach would be to say that the (...) relevant competencies are entirely non-moral but that some additional factor (conversational pragmatics, performance error, etc.) then interferes and allows people’s moral judgments to affect their intuitions. Another approach would be to say that moral considerations truly do figure in workings of the competencies themselves. It is argued that the data available now favor the second of these approaches over the first. (shrink)

While cognitive scientists increase their tentative incursions in the social domains traditionally reserved for social scientists, most sociologists and anthropologists keep decrying those attempts as reductionist or, at least, irrelevant. In this paper, we argue that collaboration between social and cognitive sciences is necessary to understand the impact of the social environment on the shaping of our mind. More specifically, we dwell on the cognitive strategies and early-developing deontic expectations, termed naïve sociology, which enable well-adapted individuals to constitute, maintain and (...) understand basic social relationships. In order to specify the way in which the demanding character of typical social relationships can be recognized in situ, we introduce the concept of “deontic affordances”. Finally, we shed light on the continuum that might relate a primitive naïve sociology, dedicated to the processing of invariant properties of the social life and a mature naïve sociology, necessary for dealing with the variable properties of cultural forms of life. (shrink)

The visual world of adults consists of objects at various distances, partly occluding one another, substantial and stable across space and time. The visual world of young infants, in contrast, is often fragmented and unstable, consisting not of coherent objects but rather surfaces that move in unpredictable ways. Evidence from computational modeling and from experiments with human infants highlights three kinds of learning that contribute to infants’ knowledge of the visual world: learning via association, learning via active assembly, and learning (...) via visual-manual exploration. Infants acquire knowledge by observing objects move in and out of sight, forming associations of these different views. In addition, the infant’s own self-produced behavior—oculomotor patterns and manual experience, in particular—is an important means by which infants discover and construct their visual world. (shrink)

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)

The contents of representations in non-human animals, human core cognition, and perception cannot precisely be characterized by sentences of a natural language. However, this fact does not stop us from giving imprecise characterizations of these contents through natural language. In this paper, I develop an account of the precision of content characterizations by appealing to possible-world semantics combined with set and measurement theory.

This paper will discuss the origin of the human mind, and the qualitative discontinuity between human and animal cognition. We locate the source of this discontinuity within the language faculty, and thus take the origin of the mind to depend on the origin of the language faculty. We will look at one such proposal put forward by Hauser et al. (Science 298:1569-1579, 2002), which takes the evolution of a Merge trait (recursion) to solely explain the differences between human and animal (...) cognition. We argue that the Merge-only hypothesis fails to account for various aspects of the human mind. Instead we propose that the process of lexicalisation is also unique to humans, and that this process is key to explaining the vast qualitative differences. We will argue that lexicalisation is a process through which concepts are reformatted to be able to take on semantic features and to take part in grammatical relations. These are both necessary conditions for a grammatical mind and the increased ability to express conceptual content. We therefore propose a possible explanans for the discontinuity between humans and animals, namely that merge with lexicalisation (and consequently semantic features and grammatical relations) is a minimal requirement for the human mind. (shrink)

This article derives from a paper presented at the Philosophy of Religion and Mysticism Conference hosted by the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow, May 22-24, 2014. That paper introduced theories and methods drawn from the ”cognitive science of religion’ and suggested future avenues of research connecting CSR and scholarship on mysticism. Towards these same ends, the present article proceeds in three parts. Part I outlines the origins, aims, and basic tenets of CSR research. Part II discusses one specific causal (...) perspective that informs a wide range of CSR research, Sperber’s ”epidemiological’ approach to cultural expression, and connects this perspective to the example of creator deities. Part III discusses some possible future directions for CSR research concerning mysticism and mystical experience. Finally, a coda addresses two common misunderstandings concerning the ”reductionist’ nature of CSR research. (shrink)

In this paper, we focus on the development of geometric cognition. We argue that to understand how geometric cognition has been constituted, one must appreciate not only individual cognitive factors, such as phylogenetically ancient and ontogenetically early core cognitive systems, but also the social history of the spread and use of cognitive artifacts. In particular, we show that the development of Greek mathematics, enshrined in Euclid’s Elements, was driven by the use of two tightly intertwined cognitive artifacts: the use of (...) lettered diagrams; and the creation of linguistic formulae. Together, these artifacts formed the professional language of geometry. In this respect, the case of Greek geometry clearly shows that explanations of geometric reasoning have to go beyond the confines of methodological individualism to account for how the distributed practice of artifact use has stabilized over time. This practice, as we suggest, has also contributed heavily to the understanding of what mathematical proof is; classically, it has been assumed that proofs are not merely deductively correct but also remain invariant over various individuals sharing the same cognitive practice. Cognitive artifacts in Greek geometry constrained the repertoire of admissible inferential operations, which made these proofs inter-subjectively testable and compelling. By focusing on the cognitive operations on artifacts, we also stress that mental mechanisms that contribute to these operations are still poorly understood, in contrast to those mechanisms which drive symbolic logical inference. (shrink)

Increasingly, psychologists have shown a healthy interest in cultural variation and a skepticism about assuming that research with North American and Northern European undergraduates provides reliable insight into universal psychological processes. Unfortunately, this reappraisal has not been extended to questioning the notion of culture central to this project. Rather, there is wide acceptance that culture refers to a kind of social form that is entity-like, territorialized, marked by a high degree of shared beliefs and coalescing into patterns of key values (...) that animate a broad range of cultural performances and representations. Ironically, anthropologists and other scholars in cultural studies have overwhelmingly come to reject this view of culture. Arguably, then, the move in psychology to attend to cultural environments has paradoxically further distanced it from the fields most concerned with cultural forms. This essay reviews this state of affairs and offers a proposal how a more nuanced appreciation of cultural life can be articulated with theories and methods familiar and available to psychologists. (shrink)