29 found
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  1. Concepts and Cognitive Science.Stephen Laurence & Eric Margolis - 1999 - In Eric Margolis & Stephen Laurence (eds.), Concepts: Core Readings. MIT Press. pp. 3-81.
    Given the fundamental role that concepts play in theories of cognition, philosophers and cognitive scientists have a common interest in concepts. Nonetheless, there is a great deal of controversy regarding what kinds of things concepts are, how they are structured, and how they are acquired. This chapter offers a detailed high-level overview and critical evaluation of the main theories of concepts and their motivations. Taking into account the various challenges that each theory faces, the chapter also presents a novel approach (...)
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  2. The ontology of concepts: Abstract objects or mental representations?Eric Margolis & Stephen Laurence - 2007 - Noûs 41 (4):561-593.
    What is a concept? Philosophers have given many different answers to this question, reflecting a wide variety of approaches to the study of mind and language. Nonetheless, at the most general level, there are two dominant frameworks in contemporary philosophy. One proposes that concepts are mental representations, while the other proposes that they are abstract objects. This paper looks at the differences between these two approaches, the prospects for combining them, and the issues that are involved in the dispute. We (...)
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  3. Concepts, core knowledge, and the rationalism–empiricism debate.Eric Margolis & Stephen Laurence - 2024 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 47:e137.
    While Spelke provides powerful support for concept nativism, her focus on understanding concept nativism through six innate core knowledge systems is too confining. There is also no reason to suppose that the curse of a compositional mind constitutes a principled reason for positing less innate structure in explaining the origins of concepts. Any solution to such problems must take into account poverty of the stimulus considerations, which argue for postulating more innate structure, not less.
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  4. Making sense of domain specificity.Eric Margolis & Stephen Laurence - 2023 - Cognition 240 (C):105583.
    The notion of domain specificity plays a central role in some of the most important debates in cognitive science. Yet, despite the widespread reliance on domain specificity in recent theorizing in cognitive science, this notion remains elusive. Critics have claimed that the notion of domain specificity can't bear the theoretical weight that has been put on it and that it should be abandoned. Even its most steadfast proponents have highlighted puzzles and tensions that arise once one tries to go beyond (...)
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  5. How to acquire a concept.Eric Margolis - 1998 - Mind and Language 13 (3):347-369.
    In this paper, I develop a novel account of concept acquisition for an atomistic theory of concepts. Conceptual atomism is rarely explored in cognitive science because of the feeling that atomistic treatments of concepts are inherently nativistic. My model illustrates, on the contrary, that atomism does not preclude the learning of a concept.
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  6. In defense of nativism.Eric Margolis & Stephen Laurence - 2013 - Philosophical Studies 165 (2):693-718.
    This paper takes a fresh look at the nativism–empiricism debate, presenting and defending a nativist perspective on the mind. Empiricism is often taken to be the default view both in philosophy and in cognitive science. This paper argues, on the contrary, that there should be no presumption in favor of empiricism (or nativism), but that the existing evidence suggests that nativism is the most promising framework for the scientific study of the mind. Our case on behalf of nativism has four (...)
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  7. The poverty of the stimulus argument.Stephen Laurence & Eric Margolis - 2001 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 52 (2):217-276.
    Noam Chomsky's Poverty of the Stimulus Argument is one of the most famous and controversial arguments in the study of language and the mind. Though widely endorsed by linguists, the argument has met with much resistance in philosophy. Unfortunately, philosophical critics have often failed to fully appreciate the power of the argument. In this paper, we provide a systematic presentation of the Poverty of the Stimulus Argument, clarifying its structure, content, and evidential base. We defend the argument against a variety (...)
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  8. Concepts and conceptual analysis.Stephen Laurence & Eric Margolis - 2003 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 67 (2):253-282.
    Conceptual analysis is undergoing a revival in philosophy, and much of the credit goes to Frank Jackson. Jackson argues that conceptual analysis is needed as an integral component of so-called serious metaphysics and that it also does explanatory work in accounting for such phenomena as categorization, meaning change, communication, and linguistic understanding. He even goes so far as to argue that opponents of conceptual analysis are implicitly committed to it in practice. We show that he is wrong on all of (...)
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  9. Radical concept nativism.Stephen Laurence & Eric Margolis - 2002 - Cognition 86 (1):25-55.
    Radical concept nativism is the thesis that virtually all lexical concepts are innate. Notoriously endorsed by Jerry Fodor (1975, 1981), radical concept nativism has had few supporters. However, it has proven difficult to say exactly what’s wrong with Fodor’s argument. We show that previous responses are inadequate on a number of grounds. Chief among these is that they typically do not achieve sufficient distance from Fodor’s dialectic, and, as a result, they do not illuminate the central question of how new (...)
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  10. The Small Number System.Eric Margolis - 2020 - Philosophy of Science 87 (1):113-134.
    I argue that the human mind includes an innate domain-specific system for representing precise small numerical quantities. This theory contrasts with object-tracking theories and with domain-general theories that only make use of mental models. I argue that there is a good amount of evidence for innate representations of small numerical quantities and that such a domain-specific system has explanatory advantages when infants’ poor working memory is taken into account. I also show that the mental models approach requires previously unnoticed domain-specific (...)
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  11. Concepts and Theoretical Unification.Eric Margolis & Stephen Laurence - 2010 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 33 (2-3):219-220.
    This article is a commentary on Machery (2009) Doing without Concepts. Concepts are mental symbols that have semantic structure and processing structure. This approach (1) allows for different disciplines to converge on a common subject matter; (2) it promotes theoretical unification; and (3) it accommodates the varied processes that preoccupy Machery. It also avoids problems that go with his eliminativism, including the explanation of how fundamentally different types of concepts can be co-referential.
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  12. Number and natural language.Stephen Laurence & Eric Margolis - 2005 - In Peter Carruthers, Stephen Laurence & Stephen P. Stich (eds.), The Innate Mind: Structure and Contents. New York, US: Oxford University Press on Demand. pp. 1--216.
    One of the most important abilities we have as humans is the ability to think about number. In this chapter, we examine the question of whether there is an essential connection between language and number. We provide a careful examination of two prominent theories according to which concepts of the positive integers are dependent on language. The first of these claims that language creates the positive integers on the basis of an innate capacity to represent real numbers. The second claims (...)
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  13. How to Learn the Natural Numbers: Inductive Inference and the Acquisition of Number Concepts.Eric Margolis & Stephen Laurence - 2008 - Cognition 106 (2):924-939.
    Theories of number concepts often suppose that the natural numbers are acquired as children learn to count and as they draw an induction based on their interpretation of the first few count words. In a bold critique of this general approach, Rips, Asmuth, Bloomfield [Rips, L., Asmuth, J. & Bloomfield, A.. Giving the boot to the bootstrap: How not to learn the natural numbers. Cognition, 101, B51–B60.] argue that such an inductive inference is consistent with a representational system that clearly (...)
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  14. Concept Nativism and Neural Plasticity.Stephen Laurence & Eric Margolis - 2015 - In Eric Margolis & Stephen Laurence (eds.), The Conceptual Mind: New Directions in the Study of Concepts. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press. pp. 117-147.
    One of the most important recent developments in the study of concepts has been the resurgence of interest in nativist accounts of the human conceptual system. However, many theorists suppose that a key feature of neural organization—the brain’s plasticity—undermines the nativist approach to concept acquisition. We argue that, on the contrary, not only does the brain’s plasticity fail to undermine concept nativism, but a detailed examination of the neurological evidence actually provides powerful support for concept nativism.
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  15. The Scope of the Conceptual.Eric Margolis & Stephen Laurence - 2012 - In Eric Margolis, Richard Samuels & Stephen P. Stich (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Cognitive Science. Oxford University Press.
    This chapter provides a critical overview of ten central arguments that philosophers have given in support of a distinction between the conceptual and the nonconceptual. We use these arguments to examine the question of whether (and in what sense) perceptual states might be deemed nonconceptual and also whether (and in what sense) animals and infants might be deemed to lack concepts. We argue that philosophers have implicitly relied on a wide variety of different ways to draw the conceptual/nonconceptual distinction and (...)
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  16. Should we trust our intuitions? Deflationary accounts of the analytic data.Eric Margolis & Stephen Laurence - 2003 - Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 103 (3):299-323.
    At least since W. V. O. Quine's famous critique of the analytic/synthetic distinction, philosophers have been deeply divided over whether there are any analytic truths. One line of thought suggests that the simple fact that people have ' intuitions of analyticity' might provide an independent argument for analyticities. If defenders of analyticity can explain these intuitions and opponents cannot, then perhaps there are analyticities after all. We argue that opponents of analyticity have some unexpected resources for explaining these intuitions and (...)
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  17. Abstraction and the Origin of General Ideas.Stephen Laurence & Eric Margolis - 2012 - Philosophers' Imprint 12:1-22.
    Philosophers have often claimed that general ideas or representations have their origin in abstraction, but it remains unclear exactly what abstraction as a psychological process consists in. We argue that the Lockean aspiration of using abstraction to explain the origins of all general representations cannot work and that at least some general representations have to be innate. We then offer an explicit framework for understanding abstraction, one that treats abstraction as a computational process that operates over an innate quality space (...)
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  18. Animals are not cognitively stuck in time.Gerardo Viera & Eric Margolis - 2019 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 42.
    We argue that animals are not cognitively stuck in time. Evidence pertaining to multisensory temporal order perception strongly suggests that animals can represent at least some temporal relations of perceived events.
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  19. Linguistic Determinism and the Innate Basis of Number.Stephen Laurence & Eric Margolis - 2005 - In Peter Carruthers, Stephen Laurence & Stephen P. Stich (eds.), The Innate Mind: Structure and Contents. New York, US: Oxford University Press on Demand.
    Strong nativist views about numerical concepts claim that human beings have at least some innate precise numerical representations. Weak nativist views claim only that humans, like other animals, possess an innate system for representing approximate numerical quantity. We present a new strong nativist model of the origins of numerical concepts and defend the strong nativist approach against recent cross-cultural studies that have been interpreted to show that precise numerical concepts are dependent on language and that they are restricted to speakers (...)
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  20. Regress arguments against the language of thought.Stephen Laurence & Eric Margolis - 1997 - Analysis 57 (1):60-66.
    The Language of Thought Hypothesis is often taken to have the fatal flaw that it generates an explanatory regress. The language of thought is invoked to explain certain features of natural language (e.g., that it is learned, understood, and is meaningful), but, according to the regress argument, the language of thought itself has these same features and hence no explanatory progress has been made. We argue that such arguments rely on the tacit assumption that the entire motivation for the language (...)
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  21. Artifacts and Original Intent: A Cross-Cultural Perspective on the Design Stance.H. Clark Barrett, Eric Margolis & Stephen Laurence - 2008 - Journal of Cognition and Culture 8 (1-2):1-22.
    How do people decide what category an artifact belongs to? Previous studies have suggested that adults and, to some degree, children, categorize artifacts in accordance with the design stance, a categorization system which privileges the designer’s original intent in making categorization judgments. However, these studies have all been conducted in Western, technologically advanced societies, where artifacts are mass produced. In this study, we examined intuitions about artifact categorization among the Shuar, a hunter-horticulturalist society in the Amazon region of Ecuador. We (...)
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  22. Multiple meanings and stability of content.Eric Margolis & Stephen Laurence - 1998 - Journal of Philosophy 95 (5):255-63.
    We examine a proposal for dealing with perhaps the chief difficulty facing holistic theories of meaning—meaning instability. The problem is that, given a robust holism, small changes in a representational system are likely to lead to meaning changes throughout the system. Consequently, different individuals are likely never to mean the same thing. Eric Lormand suggests that holists can avoid this problem—and even secure more stability than non-holists—by positing that symbols have multiple meanings. We argue that the proposal doesn't work, however, (...)
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  23. Infants, animals, and the origins of number.Eric Margolis - 2017 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 40.
    Where do human numerical abilities come from? This article is a commentary on Leibovich et al.’s “From 'sense of number' to 'sense of magnitude' —The role of continuous magnitudes in numerical cognition”. Leibovich et al. argue against nativist views of numerical development by noting limitations in newborns’ vision and limitations regarding newborns’ ability to individuate objects. I argue that these considerations do not undermine competing nativist views and that Leibovich et al.'s model itself presupposes that infant learners have numerical representations.
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  24. Lewis' strawman.Eric Margolis & Stephen Laurence - 2002 - Philosophical Quarterly 52 (206):55-65.
    In a survey of his views in the philosophy of mind, David Lewis criticizes much recent work in the field by attacking an imaginary opponent, Strawman. His case against Strawman focuses on four central theses which Lewis takes to be widely accepted among contemporary philosophers of mind. These theses concern (1) the language of thought hypothesis and its relation to folk psychology, (2) narrow content, (3) de se content, and (4) rationality. We respond to Lewis, arguing that he underestimates Strawman’s (...)
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  25. Where the regress argument still goes wrong: Reply to Knowles.Stephen Laurence & Eric Margolis - 1999 - Analysis 59 (4):321-327.
    Many philosophers reject the Language of Thought Hypothesis (LOT) on the grounds that is leads to an explanatory regress problem. According to this line of argument, LOT is invoked to explain certain features of natural language, but the language of thought has the very same features and consequently no explanatory progress has been made. In an earlier paper (“Regress Arguments against the Language of Thought”, Analysis 57.1), we argued that this regress argument doesn’t work and that even proponents of LOT (...)
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  26. Beyond the Building Blocks Model.Eric Margolis & Stephen Laurence - 2011 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 34 (3):139-140.
    This article is a commentary on Carey (2009) The Origin of Concepts. Carey rightly rejects the building blocks model of concept acquisition on the grounds that new primitive concepts can be learned via the process of bootstrapping. But new primitives can be learned by other acquisition processes that do not involve bootstrapping, and bootstrapping itself is not a unitary process. Nonetheless, the processes associated with bootstrapping provide important insights into conceptual change.
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  27. The Building Blocks of Thought: A Rationalist Account of the Origins of Concepts.Stephen Laurence & Eric Margolis - 2024 - Oxford: Oxford University Press.
    The human mind is capable of entertaining an astounding range of thoughts. These thoughts are composed of concepts or ideas, which are the building blocks of thoughts. This book is about where all of these concepts come from and the psychological structures that ultimately account for their acquisition. We argue that the debate over the origins of concepts, known as the rationalism-empiricism debate, has been widely misunderstood—not just by its critics but also by researchers who have been active participants in (...)
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  28. Jerry A. Fodor, Concepts: Where Cognitive Science Went Wrong. [REVIEW]S. Laurence & Eric Margolis - 1999 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 50 (3):487-491.
    Review of Jerry Fodor's book Concepts: Where Cognitive Science Went Wrong (Oxford University Press).
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  29. What's Within: Nativism Reconsidered. [REVIEW]Stephen Laurence & Eric Margolis - 2008 - European Journal of Philosophy 9:242-247.
    Fiona Cowie's book What's Within: Nativism Reconsidered offers an important critical assessment of nativist views of the mind. She provides an account of what nativism consists in, and discusses prominent nativist views of concept acquisition and language acquisition. In the latter case, she also offers an empiricist alternative to Chomskyan nativist accounts, and claims that the main arguments for an innate language faculty—one that embodies Universal Grammar—don't work. We provide an overview of her position, focusing mostly on her views about (...)
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