In this paper, I argue for a modified version of what Devitt calls the Representational Thesis. According to RT, syntactic rules or principles are psychologically real, in the sense that they are represented in the mind/brain of every linguistically competent speaker/hearer. I present a range of behavioral and neurophysiological evidence for the claim that the human sentence processing mechanism constructs mental representations of the syntactic properties of linguistic stimuli. I then survey a range of psychologically plausible computational models of comprehension (...) and show that they are all committed to RT. I go on to sketch a framework for thinking about the nature of the representations involved in sentence processing. My claim is that these are best characterized not as propositional attitudes but, rather, as subpersonal states whose representational properties are determined by their functional role. Finally, I distinguish between explicit and implicit representations and argue that the latter can be drawn on as data by the algorithms that constitute our sentence processing routines. I conclude that skepticism concerning the psychological reality of grammars cannot be sustained. (shrink)

This study examined L1 and L2 English speakers’ sensitivity to constructional meaning by investigating their categorization of Noun1 of Noun2 constructions (e.g., results of studies) and argument structure constructions (e.g., Tom cut the bread). Participants were 40 L1 English speakers and 44 intermediate proficiency Chinese-speaking learners of L2 English, who completed two online sorting experiments. In each experiment, participants were instructed to (i) sort the stimuli according to their overall meaning and (ii) provide explanations for their sorting decisions. Results showed (...) that EFL users preferred construction-based sorting for the argument structure stimuli but not the Noun1 of Noun2 stimuli. However, L1 English speakers showed a preference toward word-based sorting for both construction types. Participants’ self-reported explanations for their sorts nonetheless indicated sensitivity to the constructional meanings of argument structure constructions and Noun1 of Noun2 constructions. Additionally, language users were found more likely to produce construction-based sorts with more time spent on the task. (shrink)

I defend the non-cognitivist outlook on knowledge of grammar from the criticisms levelled against it by Jonathan Knowles. The first part of the paper is largely critical. First, I argue that Knowles's argument against Christopher Peacocke and Martin Davies's non-cognitivist account of the psychological reality of grammar fails, and thus that no reason has been given to think that cognitivism is integral to an understanding of Chomskyan theoretical linguistics. Second, I argue that cognitivism is philosophically problematic. (...) In particular, I argue (a) that Knowles misunderstands Stephen Stich and Gareth Evans's points about inferential integration; and (b) that Knowles misunderstands the philosophical status and demands of Evans's Generality Constraint. In the final, non-critical part of the paper, I try to show that the Stich and Evans's constraints, together with a Self-Knowledge Constraint, are genuine constitutive constraints by showing how they have rationality as their underlying organizing principle. I argue further that recognizing the constitutive character of these constraints allows one to distinguish two kinds of psychological explanation; in this sense, the constraints mark a genuine boundary in our theorizing about the mind. (shrink)

Methodological questions concerning Chomsky’s generative approach to linguistics have been debated without consensus. The status of linguistics as psychology, the psychological reality of grammars, the character of tacit knowledge and the role of intuitions as data remain heatedly disputed today. I argue that the recalcitrance of these disputes is symptomatic of deep misunderstandings. I focus attention on Michael Devitt’s recent extended critique of Chomskyan linguistics and I suggest that his complaints are based on a failure to appreciate the (...) special status of Chomsky’s computational formalisms found elsewhere in cognitive science. Devitt ascribes an intentional conception of representations that Chomsky repudiates and that is independently implausible. I argue that Devitt’s proposed “linguistic reality ” as the proper subject matter of linguistics neglects the problems of tokens as opposed to types and he misses the force of Chomsky’s arguments against Behaviourism and nominalism. I suggest that Devitt’s case against intuitions as data misunderstands their standard role throughout perceptual psychology. Finally, of more general interest, I argue that Devitt’s position exemplifies compelling errors concerning mental representation seen throughout cognitive science and philosophy of mind. (shrink)

My book, Ignorance of Language (2006a), challenges the received Chomskian “psychological conception” of grammars and proposes a “linguistic conception” according to which a grammar is a theory of a representational system. My response to Guy Longworth rejects his claim in “Ignorance of Linguistics” (2009) that there is “mutual determination” between linguistic and psychological facts with the result that both of these conceptions are true. Peter Slezak’s “Linguistic Explanation and ‘Psychological Reality’” (2009) is full of flagrant (...) misrepresentations of my discussion of the psychological conception and of the psychological reality of linguistic principles and rules. My response summarizes the worst of these misrepresentations. (shrink)

This volume examines two main questions: What is linguistics about? And how do the results of linguistic theorizing bear on inquiry in related fields, particularly in psychology? The book develops views that depart from received wisdom in both philosophy and linguistics. With regard to questions concerning the subject matter, methodological goals, and ontological commitments of formal syntactic theorizing, it argues that the cognitive conception adopted by most linguists and philosophers is not the only acceptable view, and that the arguments in (...) its favor collapse under scrutiny. Nevertheless, as the book shows, a detailed examination of the relevant psycholinguistic results and computational models does support the claim that the theoretical constructs of formal linguistics are operative in real-time language comprehension. These constructs fall into two categories: mental phrase markers and mental syntactic principles. Both are indeed psychologically real, but in importantly different ways. The book concludes by drawing attention to the importance of the often-elided distinction between personal and subpersonal psychological states and processes, as well as the logical character of dispositional and occurrent states. By clarifying these concepts, particularly by reference to up-and-running psychological and computational models, the book yields a richer and more satisfying perspective on the psychological reality of language. (shrink)

The received Chomskian view is that a grammar is about the language faculty. In contrast to this “psychological conception” of linguistics I have argued in Ignorance of Language for a “linguistic conception”. This paper aims to strengthen the case for this conception. It argues that there is a linguistic reality external to the mind and that it is theoretically interesting to study it. If there is this reality, we have good reason to think that grammars are (...) more or less true of it. So, the truth of the grammar of a language entails that its rules govern linguistic reality, giving a rich picture of this reality. In contrast, the truth of the grammar does not entail that its rules govern the psychological reality of speakers competent in the language and it alone gives a relatively impoverished picture of that reality. For, all we learn about that reality from the grammar is that it “respects” the rules of the grammar. (shrink)

Action explanations like ‘I am heading to the ferry because the bridge is closed,’ are supposed to require restatement: ‘I am... because I believe the bridge is closed,’ because (i) the objective claim may be false though the intended explanation is correct, and (ii) because objective circumstances have to be cognitively mediated if they are to bear on action. This supposition is rejected here. Restatements cannot withdraw the objective claim without withdrawing the explanation. In the context of reason‐giving, belief statements (...) do not function as assertions about the inner life. The fact that belief statements may be true though the belief itself is false creates the illusion of distinctive subject matters. The illusion is exploited by conceptions of belief positing stored representations. Even if there were such representations, retrieved for the sake of expressing previously acquired beliefs, the expression of belief must endorse p and cannot merely advert to the existence and content of a representation. The reverse of the standard philosophical view about restatement is actually correct. Wherever an agent correctly adduces a belief that an objective circumstance obtains in explaining his action, a de‐psychologizing restatement that merely makes the objective claim must be ascribable to the agent. (shrink)

We represent the world in a variety of ways: through percepts, concepts, propositional attitudes, words, numerals, recordings, musical scores, photographs, diagrams, mimetic paintings, etc. Some of these representations are mental. It is customary for philosophers to distinguish two main kinds of mental representations: perceptual representation (e.g., vision, auditory, tactile) and conceptual representation. This essay presupposes a version of this dichotomy and explores the way in which a further kind of representation – procedural representation – represents. It is argued that, in (...) some important respects, procedural representations represent differently from both purely conceptual representations and purely perceptual representations. Although procedural representations, just like conceptual and perceptual representations, involve modes of presentation, their modes of presentation are distinctively practical, in a sense which I will clarify. It is argued that an understanding of this sort of practical representation has important consequences for the debate on the nature of know-how. (shrink)

In recent years, dependency grammars have established themselves as valuable tools in theoretical and computational linguistics. To many linguists, dependency grammars and the more standard constituency-based formalisms are notational variants. We argue that, beyond considerations of formal equivalence, cognition may also serve as a background for a genuine comparison between these different views of syntax. In this paper, we review and evaluate some of the most common arguments and evidence employed to advocate for the cognitive or neural reality of (...) dependency grammars in linguistics, psycholinguistics, or neurolinguistics. We then raise the possibility that the abilities to represent and track, alternatively or in parallel, constituency and dependency structures co-exist in human cognition and are constitutive of syntactic competence. (shrink)

Analytical commentary -- Fruits upon one tree -- The continuation of the early draft into philosophy of mathematics -- Hidden isomorphism -- A common methodology -- The flatness of philosophical grammar -- Following a rule 185-242 -- Introduction to the exegesis -- Rules and grammar -- The tractatus and rules of logical syntax -- From logical syntax to philosophical grammar -- Rules and rule-formulations -- Philosophy and grammar -- The scope of grammar -- Some morals (...) -- Exegesis 185-8 -- Accord with a rule -- Initial compass bearings -- Accord and the harmony between language and reality -- Rules of inference and logical machinery -- Formulations and explanations of rules by examples -- Interpretations, fitting and grammar -- Further misunderstandings -- Exegesis 189-202 -- Following rules, mastery of techniques and practices -- Following a rule -- Practices and techniques -- Doing the right thing and doing the same thing -- Privacy and the community view -- On not digging below bedrock -- Private linguists and private linguists : Robinson Crusoe sails again -- Is a language necessarily shared with a community of speakers? -- Innate knowledge of a language -- Robinson Crusoe sails again -- Solitary cavemen and monolinguists -- Private languages and private languages -- Exegesis 203-37 -- Agreement in definitions, judgements, and form of life -- The scaffolding of facts -- The role of our nature -- Forms of life -- Agreement : consensus of human beings and their actions -- Exegesis 238-42 -- Grammar and necessity -- Setting the stage -- Leitmotifs -- External guidelines -- Necessary propositions and norms of representation -- Concerning the truth and falsehood of necessary propositions -- What necessary truths are about illusions of correspondence : ideal objects, kinds of reality, and ultra-physics -- The psychology of the A priori -- Knowledge -- Belief -- Certainty -- Surprise -- Discoveries and conjectures -- Compulsion -- Propositions of logic and laws of thought -- Alternative forms of representation -- The arbitrariness of grammar -- A kinship to the non-arbitrary -- Proof in mathematics -- Conventionalism. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Setting the stage Leitmotifs External guidelines Necessary propositions and norms of representation Concerning the truth and falsehood of necessary propositions What necessary truths are about Illusions of correspondence: ideal objects, kinds of reality and ultra‐physics The psychology and epistemology of the a priori Propositions of logic and laws of thought Alternative forms of representation The arbitrariness of grammar A kinship to the non‐arbitrary Proof in mathematics Conventionalism.

There are reasons for reservations with respect to the postulated function of Broca's area. Evidence for the psychological reality of the relevant traces does not exist. In addition, because the syntax of non- (or partly) configurational languages is not described in terms of empty categories, no receptive agrammatism should be observed in these languages. Aphasia should not be examined in isolation from its cognitive components.

Roger Scruton’s ontology of sound is found wanting on two counts. Scruton removes from music the importance of the performer’s manipulating of his instrument. This misconceives the phenomenology of hearing and, as a consequence, impoverishes our understanding of music. I argue that the musician’s manipulations can be heard in the music; and, in a discussion of notions developed by Richard Wollheim and Jerrold Levinson, that these manipulations have psychological reality, and that it is this psychological reality (...) which brings to life the sui generis musical persona of musical expressiveness. (shrink)

Clahsen reports the results from two sets of word-recognition experiments with adult native speakers of German supporting the notion that the processing of regular (or default) inflection differs from the processing of irregular inflection. My commentary points to shortcomings in stimulus selection and inconsistencies in the pattern of results, revealing that the empirical support for the proposed dual mechanism is much weaker than Clahsen suggests.

We argue that Halford et al.'s characterisation of relational complexity offers an unadaptive principle in terms of cognitive economy, that its relation with the empirical evidence is highly selective, and that the task behaviours used in support of a multivector processing space are better described by linear serial processes which do not require n-dimensional mappings for their emergence.

Bursill-Hall, writing as a linguist, has produced a book of interest and use to all students of philosophy who are intrigued either by medieval or by modern theories of language, or by both. Bursill-Hall’s book is the first full-length presentation of this material in English. After a brief, not to say, desultory, survey of the history of linguistic theory from the Greeks until the appearance of the so-called Modistae, the author discusses the descriptive technique and the terminology of the speculative (...) grammarians. The third chapter, "Metalanguage," offers a valuable analysis of the basic "elements" and "categories" of modistic grammar. One especially striking feature of this chapter is the author’s account of the sequence of operations through which a vox, or meaningless sound, becomes, first, a dictio, or sound capable of signifying, and, then, a pars orationis, a part of speech or word-class, capable of entering into syntactic relations with other partes orationis so as to produce a meaningful and well-formed sentence. The next four chapters form the core of the work. Taking as his primary sources the Belgian Siger of Courtrai, the German Thomas of Erfurt, and the Dane Martin of Dacia, Bursill-Hall expounds in detail the modistic treatments of the essential, specific and accidental features of the declinable and indeclinable word-classes and the modistic theories of syntax. An evaluative conclusion comparing modistic and modern linguistic theory is followed by a series of appendices in which detailed diagrams make visible the definitions and interrelations of the various modes and partes orationis in the texts of Siger, Thomas and Martin. The work includes a useful bibliography, a table of passages cited from medieval authors, an index of examples cited in the main text, an index of names and an index of subjects. The exposition and the apparatus combine to yield a volume of quickly apparent value for both reference and research. This said, and with due regard for the fact that the author is writing as a professional linguist, it must be said that a certain sense of philosophical disappointment cannot be suppressed. Looked at linguistically, speculative grammar is an attempt to inventory and describe those features of word-classes in virtue of which an element of language is potentially expressive of meaning and capable of entering into syntactic relations with other significant elements. Looked at philosophically, speculative grammar is a theory of the intelligibility of linguistic expressions—cp. Thomas of Erfurt, #225: the end served by a complete expression is "to express a composite mental concept and to generate a perfect understanding in the mind of the hearer." Intelligibility is seen in this theory as the product of the concurrence or interpenetration of the ontological constitution of extramental realities, the apprehensive powers of the intellect and the manners of signifying conferred by the intellect on the linguistic medium in accordance with its appreciation of extramental reality. The author is certainly aware of the philosophical matrix of the grammatical theories he rehearses. At the same time, he seems to give these underlying philosophical considerations rather short shrift. To say, as he does, that the Modistae "seem to have been unaware of... the fact that their theories were in fact a projection into reality of the basic patterns of the language in which they were expressed," is surely not to do justice to the complex ontological, epistemological and semantic issues informing their work. Similarly, a statement that comparison between modistic and modern theories faces the difficulty that "the medieval vision of man in his environment and the metaphysical theories of the world are entirely different from those of today" is, at best, uninformative and, at worst, a piece of vaporous historicism. At other times, it is not entirely clear what interpretation the author is recommending. This is especially true of his remarks about the inactive character of the modus intelligendi. While the Modistae were, after all, doing grammar and not epistemology or, should one say, rational psychology, still, their grammatical theory rests on their insistence that the forms of language are linked appropriately to the forms of being and it is the modus intelligendi activus that is responsible both for the possibility and the success of this linkage. This volume is well-produced and almost completely free of misprints. However, the obnoxiously high price asked by the publisher is not justified either by the quality of production or by the inclusion of numerous Latin citations; it only serves, I fear, as a barrier to the wide circulation the book deserves.—D. L. (shrink)

Bursill-Hall, writing as a linguist, has produced a book of interest and use to all students of philosophy who are intrigued either by medieval or by modern theories of language, or by both. Bursill-Hall’s book is the first full-length presentation of this material in English. After a brief, not to say, desultory, survey of the history of linguistic theory from the Greeks until the appearance of the so-called Modistae, the author discusses the descriptive technique and the terminology of the speculative (...) grammarians. The third chapter, "Metalanguage," offers a valuable analysis of the basic "elements" and "categories" of modistic grammar. One especially striking feature of this chapter is the author’s account of the sequence of operations through which a vox, or meaningless sound, becomes, first, a dictio, or sound capable of signifying, and, then, a pars orationis, a part of speech or word-class, capable of entering into syntactic relations with other partes orationis so as to produce a meaningful and well-formed sentence. The next four chapters form the core of the work. Taking as his primary sources the Belgian Siger of Courtrai, the German Thomas of Erfurt, and the Dane Martin of Dacia, Bursill-Hall expounds in detail the modistic treatments of the essential, specific and accidental features of the declinable and indeclinable word-classes and the modistic theories of syntax. An evaluative conclusion comparing modistic and modern linguistic theory is followed by a series of appendices in which detailed diagrams make visible the definitions and interrelations of the various modes and partes orationis in the texts of Siger, Thomas and Martin. The work includes a useful bibliography, a table of passages cited from medieval authors, an index of examples cited in the main text, an index of names and an index of subjects. The exposition and the apparatus combine to yield a volume of quickly apparent value for both reference and research. This said, and with due regard for the fact that the author is writing as a professional linguist, it must be said that a certain sense of philosophical disappointment cannot be suppressed. Looked at linguistically, speculative grammar is an attempt to inventory and describe those features of word-classes in virtue of which an element of language is potentially expressive of meaning and capable of entering into syntactic relations with other significant elements. Looked at philosophically, speculative grammar is a theory of the intelligibility of linguistic expressions—cp. Thomas of Erfurt, #225: the end served by a complete expression is "to express a composite mental concept and to generate a perfect understanding in the mind of the hearer." Intelligibility is seen in this theory as the product of the concurrence or interpenetration of the ontological constitution of extramental realities, the apprehensive powers of the intellect and the manners of signifying conferred by the intellect on the linguistic medium in accordance with its appreciation of extramental reality. The author is certainly aware of the philosophical matrix of the grammatical theories he rehearses. At the same time, he seems to give these underlying philosophical considerations rather short shrift. To say, as he does, that the Modistae "seem to have been unaware of... the fact that their theories were in fact a projection into reality of the basic patterns of the language in which they were expressed," is surely not to do justice to the complex ontological, epistemological and semantic issues informing their work. Similarly, a statement that comparison between modistic and modern theories faces the difficulty that "the medieval vision of man in his environment and the metaphysical theories of the world are entirely different from those of today" is, at best, uninformative and, at worst, a piece of vaporous historicism. At other times, it is not entirely clear what interpretation the author is recommending. This is especially true of his remarks about the inactive character of the modus intelligendi. While the Modistae were, after all, doing grammar and not epistemology or, should one say, rational psychology, still, their grammatical theory rests on their insistence that the forms of language are linked appropriately to the forms of being and it is the modus intelligendi activus that is responsible both for the possibility and the success of this linkage. This volume is well-produced and almost completely free of misprints. However, the obnoxiously high price asked by the publisher is not justified either by the quality of production or by the inclusion of numerous Latin citations; it only serves, I fear, as a barrier to the wide circulation the book deserves.—D. L. (shrink)

Recent advances in genetics and neurobiology have greatly increased the degree of variation that one finds in what is taken to provide the biological foundations of our species-specific linguistic capacities. In particular, this variation seems to cast doubt on the purportedly homogeneous nature of the language faculty traditionally captured by the concept of “Universal Grammar.” In this article we discuss what this new source of diversity reveals about the biological reality underlying Universal Grammar. Our discussion leads us (...) to support (1) certain hypotheses advanced in evolutionary developmental biology that argue for the existence of robust biological mechanisms capable of canalizing variation at different levels, and (2) a bottom-up perspective on comparative cognition. We conclude by sketching future directions for what we call “comparative biolinguistics,” specifying which experimental directions may help us succeed in this new research avenue. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Cognitive Linguistics Jahrgang: 27 Heft: 1 Seiten: 1-33.

This paper defends Some anti-Chomskian themes in Ignorance of Language (Devitt 2006a) from, the criticisms of John Collins (2007, 2008a) and Georges Rey (2008). It argues that there is a linguistic reality external to the mind and that it is theoretically interesting to study it. If there is this reality, we have good reason to think that grammars are more or less true of it. So, the truth of the grammar of a language entails that its rules (...) govern linguistic reality, giving a rich picture of this reality. In contrast, the truth of the grammar does not entail that its rules govern the psychological reality of speakers competent in the language and it alone gives a relatively impoverished picture of that reality. For, all we learn about that reality from the grammar is that it “respects” the rules of the grammar. (shrink)

A growing number of philosophers and linguists have argued that many, if not most, terms in our language should be understood as semantically context sensitive. In opposition to this trend, Herman Cappelen and Ernie Lepore defend a view they call "Semantic Minimalism", which holds that there are virtually no semantically context sensitive expressions in English once you get past the standard list of indexicals and demonstratives such as "I", "you", "this", and "that". While minimalism strikes many as obviously false, it (...) will be argued here that the view is more plausible than commonly assumed if one accepts the 'normative' conception of the relation between meaning and use characteristic of the literature on semantic externalism. That said, it is not clear that Cappelen and Lepore always conceive of their minimal semantic contents in this more normative fashion, and once this framework is place, a version of 'moderate contextualism' that they do not consider comes into view. (shrink)

This volume presents one possible conceptual analysis of the task of constructing a model of psychological reality, so that psychology's pluralistic state can ...

Like philosophy itself, Dune explores everything from politics to art to life to reality, but above all, the novels ponder the mysteries of mind. Voyaging through psychic expanses, Frank Herbert hits upon some of the same insights discovered by indigenous people from the Americas. Many of these ideas are repeated in mainstream American and European philosophical traditions like pragmatism and existential phenomenology. These outlooks share a regard for mind as ecological, which is more or less to say that minds (...) extend beyond the brain into the rest of the body and the surrounding environment. -/- The cross-cultural strands in Dune tie closely to Herbert’s life and interests. An outdoorsman born in the Pacific West, he had an abiding bond with a friend from the Quileute tribe, Howie Hansen. Herbert advocated for aboriginal rights and crafted well-intentioned if slightly stereotypical tales about indigenous characters, partly based on his visits with Northwest tribes. Carl Jung (1875-1961), whose idea of collective consciousness echoes aboriginal views, was among Herbert’s European influences. So was existential phenomenology, especially as developed by Martin Heidegger (1889-1976). The names of characters in one of Herbert’s novels—The Santaroga Barrier—in fact coincide with terms that Heidegger used to articulate how emotionally colored coping with our environment defines our existence. Many indigenous philosophers have treated phenomenology and its American cousin pragmatism in approving ways. Indeed, the ideas of North America’s first inhabitants seem to have been absorbed by pragmatists and even earlier by transcendentalists like Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) and Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862). -/- These different philosophies all advance a place-based psychology. Anne Waters, herself of mixed tribal heritage, generalizes the mindset of her people this way: “American Indian consciousness, and hence American Indian identity is … interdependent with our land base.” Lee Hester, a Choctaw thinker, adds that practices—not mere beliefs—are most important for native thought. American transcendentalists and pragmatists, as well as European phenomenologists, similarly see hands-on practices and environmental interactions as the core of experience. Extending this a little, they sometimes suggest experience isn’t individual but instead cultural. “Culture” is here understood as interactions within communities that define our worlds and experiences, as when we talk about the “French experience,” “culture” or “world,” or the “experience of parenthood.” This theme also shows up in indigenous thought. -/- Exploring the Dune universe, we find everything from land-based concepts of personal identity, to the idea of sharpening the mind through hands-on training, to collective notions of experience in cooperative tribes or through the genetic memory of central characters. The stories explore fate versus free will in cosmic contexts, introducing views from indigenous thought and the pragmatic philosophy of William James (1842-1910). Different forms of spiritualism mingle to shape minds and cultural mixtures around the globe, and the same occurs in the Dune series. The customs and personalities of characters fuse elements from Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Judaism, Taoism, and especially Islam. The series not only highlights that religion shapes psychology, but also that faith connects to place, especially paralleling Judeo-Christian-Islamic desert faiths. In capturing these points, the Dune novels show that “our values, our lifestyles and even the ways we think and feel have been strongly influenced by our locations in history and geography. The study of the human mind is fundamentally the study of place.”. (shrink)

Artificial intelligence has historically been conceptualized in anthropomorphic terms. Some algorithms deploy biomimetic designs in a deliberate attempt to effect a sort of digital isomorphism of the human brain. Others leverage more general learning strategies that happen to coincide with popular theories of cognitive science and social epistemology. In this paper, I challenge the anthropomorphic credentials of the neural network algorithm, whose similarities to human cognition I argue are vastly overstated and narrowly construed. I submit that three alternative supervised learning (...) methods—namely lasso penalties, bagging, and boosting—offer subtler, more interesting analogies to human reasoning as both an individual and a social phenomenon. Despite the temptation to fall back on anthropomorphic tropes when discussing AI, however, I conclude that such rhetoric is at best misleading and at worst downright dangerous. The impulse to humanize algorithms is an obstacle to properly conceptualizing the ethical challenges posed by emerging technologies. (shrink)

EVERY speaker of a language knows a bewildering variety of linguistic facts, and will come to know many more. It is knowledge that connects sound and meaning. Questions about the nature of this knowledge cannot be separated from fundamental questions about the nature of language. The conception of language we should adopt depends on the part it plays in explaining our knowledge of language. This chapter explores options in accounting for language, and our knowledge of language, and defends the view (...) that individuals’ languages are constituted by the standing knowledge they carry from one speech situation to another. (shrink)

The Chomskian revolution in linguistics gave rise to a new orthodoxy about mind and language. Michael Devitt throws down a provocative challenge to that orthodoxy. What is linguistics about? What role should linguistic intuitions play in constructing grammars? What is innate about language? Is there a 'language faculty'? These questions are crucial to our developing understanding of ourselves; Michael Devitt offers refreshingly original answers. He argues that linguistics is about linguistic reality and is not part of psychology; that linguistic (...) rules are not represented in the mind; that speakers are largely ignorant of their language; that speakers' intuitions do not reflect information supplied by the language faculty and are not the main evidence for grammars; that the rules of 'Universal Grammar' are largely, if not entirely, innate structure rules of thought; indeed, that there is little or nothing to the language faculty. Devitt's controversial theses will prove highly stimulating to anyone working on language and the mind. (shrink)

In the history of formal semantics, the successful joining of linguistic and philosophical work brought with it some difficult foundational questions concerning the nature of meaning and the nature of knowledge of language in the domain of semantics: questions in part about “what’s in the head” of a competent language-user. This paper, part of a project on the history of formal semantics, revisits the central issues of (Partee, 1979) in a historical context, as a clash between two traditions, Fregean and (...) Chomskyan, a clash that accompanied early work combining Montague’s semantics with Chomskyan syntax. Recent advances in philosophy of mind (from, e.g., Stalnaker and Burge) go a long way towards changing the framework of arguments about “psychological reality” and “competence”, challenging the suppositions on which the original dichotomy rested, thus largely defusing the tension. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:NEWMAN'S PSYCHOLOGICAL DISCOVERY: THE ILLATIVE SENSE (V. Continued) 15. The Universals. A long and vehement dispute once raged about the reality of universals. Are they only mental creations, forged by the human brain, without any reality outside them, or have they some independent existence apart from their mental reality? Anyhow, there was an apparent contradiction between die universal character of our ideas and the individual (...) character of concrete things. The Scholastics solved this problem by drawing clear distinctions. An idea is an abstraction; as soon as it becomes applicable to a number of objects or things in the same sense, it is a universal idea. The "direct universal" (universale directum seu metaphysicum) as such has no existence apart from our minds, because an existing thing is always bound up with concrete, determining, individualizing notes, and it is these very circumstances or accidents which are ignored by the mind as it strips the thing of its individual characteristics. When the mind reflects on this "direct universal," i.e., on the abstract essence of the thing, it sees that this is to be found in many more things and that it is identical in all those things, and in this way the "reflex or logical universal" is formed (universale reflexum seu logicum). This same essence or quiddity is not really different from the thing itself, but the mind makes abstraction of all accidents, and this foundation makes it possible to apply this idea in die same sense to all other beings of the same kind, whether they are actually existing or not. In other words the universal as a universal has only reality in the mind but it has a foundation or a ground in the thing itself. Newman was not so well acquainted with Scholasticism that he knew and mastered the solution of the problem. As a matter of fact he approached it from quite another angle. Hence when scholastically trained minds read some of his statements on universals, they may feel shocked. They sound very curious, they seem incon418 DR. ZENO, O.F.M. CAP.419 sistent with each other, they apparenüy imply a negation of the objective reality of universals. This makes it necessary to compare the texts and to explain his meaning. a. Newman Inconsistent. We should never lose sight of the fact that Newman had no intention at all to enter the province of philosophy in the restricted sense of the word. "I am only contemplating the mind as it moves in fact, by whatever hidden mechanism,"1 that is what could be put as a heading to every page of the Grammar of Assent. And when he virtually deals with metaphysics, he wants us to consider his statements as hypotheses, or as propositions stated only by the way, and in this department he always wishes "to speak under correction." This explains how he could refer to the universale metaphy sicum and the universale directum in a very correct way without realizing he was teaching Scholastic doctrine. As far as I know, it is Professor Walgrave who has first drawn attention to this fact,2 when he dealt with Newman's alleged conceptualism. Newman states that "even one act of cruelty, ingratitude, generosity or justice reveals to us at once intensive the immutable distinction between those qualities and their contraries; that is, in that particular instance and pro bac vice."3 The same holds for the opposites: right and wrong, true and false, just and unjust, beautiful and deformed.4 In one experience, therefore, he sees a thing as an immutable, absolute quiddity, which objectively and in the same sense belongs to all possible things of the same kind, although the mind does not yet explicidy confirm this universal applicability. The contemplated quality remains limited to the particular case; but in its absoluteness it is stripped of all individual, changeable and concrete characteristics. This is the metaphysical universal of the Scholastics. But Newman also mentions the logical universal when he says: "As we form our notion of whiteness from the actual sight of snow, a lily or a cloud, so, after experiencing the sentiment of approbation which arises in us on the sight of certain... (shrink)

Noam Chomsky claims that we know the grammatical principles of our languages in pretty much the same sense that we know ordinary things about the world (e.g. facts), a view about linguistic knowledge that I term ''cognitivism''. In much recent philosophy of linguistics (including that sympathetic to Chomsky's general approach to language), cognitivism has been rejected in favour of an account of grammatical competence as some or other form of mental mechanism, describable at various levels of abstraction (''non-cognitivism''). I argue (...) for cognitivism and against non-cognitivism. First, I show that the distinction between competence and performance in current linguistics is as clearly made as ever it was, in spite of recent interest in linguistic processing modules. Second, I use these facts about the practice of theoretical linguistics to refute various proposals for a non-cognitivist construal of grammatical competence, and to support cognitivism by reflecting on the inapplicability of a multi-level account of linguistic competence. Cognitivism is then defended against several objections centring around the problems of rational integration and conceptualization of grammatical knowledge. Finally, the conception of competence argued for in relation to linguistics is placed in the larger context of cognitive science research and its implications for philosophy of mind. (shrink)

This book employs contemporary philosophy, scientific research, and clinical reports to argue that pain, though real, is not an appropriate object of scientific generalisations or an appropriate target for medical intervention. Each pain experience is instead complex and idiosyncratic in a way which undermines scientific utility. In addition to contributing novel arguments and developing a novel position on the nature of pain, the book provides an interdisciplinary overview of dominant models of pain. The author lays the needed groundwork for improved (...) models and targeted treatments at a time when pain science, pain medicine, and philosophy are explicitly searching for both and failing to find them. The Complex Reality of Pain will be of interest to a broad range of researchers and students, including those working in philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, cognitive science, neuroscience, medicine, health, cognitive and behavioural psychology, and pain science. (shrink)

Repression is one of the most haunting concepts in psychology. Something shocking happens, and the mind pushes it into some inaccessible corner of the unconscious. Later, the memory may emerge into consciousness. Repression is one of the foundation stones on which the structure of psychoanalysis rests. Recently there has been a rise in reported memories of childhood sexual abuse that were allegedly repressed for many years. With recent changes in legislation, people with recently unearthed memories are suing alleged perpetrators for (...) events that happened 20, 30, even 40 or more years earlier. These new developments give rise to a number of questions: (a) How common is it for memories of child abuse to be repressed? (b) How are jurors and judges likely to react to these repressed memory claims? (c) When the memories surface, what are they like? and (d) How authentic are the memories? (shrink)