This article is inspired by recent psychological studies confirming that a child is not born a blank slate but has important innate capabilities. An important part of the ``learning'' required to deal with the three dimensional world of objects, processes, and other beings was done by evolution. Each child need not do this learning itself.

This volume, derived from the Royal Institute of Philosophy 1992 conference, brings together some of the leading figures in the burgeoning field of cognitive science to explore current and potential advances in the philosophical understanding of mind and cognition. Drawing on work in psychology, computer science and artificial intelligence, linguistics and philosophy, the papers tackle such issues as concept acquisition, blindsight, rationality and related questions as well as contributing to the lively debates about connectionism and neural networks. The collection as (...) a whole reflects the theoretical and methodological dynamism of this interdisciplinary field. (shrink)