The notion of conceptual space, proposed by Gärdenfors as a framework for the representation of concepts and knowledge, has been highly influential over the last decade or so. One of the main theses involved in this approach is that the conceptual regions associated with properties, concepts, verbs, etc. are convex. The aim of this paper is to show that such a constraint—that of the convexity of the geometry of conceptual regions—is problematic; both from a theoretical perspective and with regard to (...) the inner workings of the theory itself. On the one hand, all the arguments provided in favor of the convexity of conceptual regions rest on controversial assumptions. Additionally, his argument in support of a Euclidean metric, based on the integral character of conceptual dimensions, is weak, and under non-Euclidean metrics the structure of regions may be non-convex. Furthermore, even if the metric were Euclidean, the convexity constraint could be not satisfied if concepts were differentially weighted. On the other hand, Gärdenfors’ convexity constraint is brought into question by the own inner workings of conceptual spaces because: some of the allegedly convex properties of concepts are not convex; the conceptual regions resulting from the combination of convex properties can be non-convex; convex regions may co-vary in non-convex ways; and his definition of verbs is incompatible with a definition of properties in terms of convex regions. Therefore, the mandatory character of the convexity requirement for regions in a conceptual space theory should be reconsidered. (shrink)

The scientific study of consciousness emerged as an organized field of research only a few decades ago. As empirical results have begun to enhance our understanding of consciousness, it is important to find out whether other factors, such as funding for consciousness research and status of consciousness scientists, provide a suitable environment for the field to grow and develop sustainably. We conducted an online survey on people’s views regarding various aspects of the scientific study of consciousness as a field of (...) research. 249 participants completed the survey, among which 80% were in academia, and around 40% were experts in consciousness research. Topics covered include the progress made by the field, funding for consciousness research, job opportunities for consciousness researchers, and the scientific rigor of the work done by researchers in the field. The majority of respondents (78%) indicated that scientific research on consciousness has been making progress. However, most participants perceived obtaining funding and getting a job in the field of consciousness research as more difficult than in other subfields of neuroscience. Overall, work done in consciousness research was perceived to be less rigorous than other neuroscience subfields, but this perceived lack of rigor was not related to the perceived difficulty in finding jobs and obtaining funding. Lastly, we found that, overall, the global workspace theory was perceived to be the most promising (around 28%), while most non-expert researchers (around 22% of non-experts) found the integrated information theory (IIT) most promising. We believe the survey results provide an interesting picture of current opinions from scientists and researchers about the progresses made and the challenges faced by consciousness research as an independent field. They will inspire collective reflection on the future directions regarding funding and job opportunities for the field. (shrink)

Resumen En el año 2022 se celebra el 1900 aniversario de la visita del emperador Adriano a Hispania. La bibliografía científica ya ha estudiado este acontecimiento, aclarando muchos de los sucesos, la identidad de algunos de los personajes que pudieron venir con el Príncipe y las actuaciones de éste en la península Ibérica. En algunos casos, los testimonios conocidos no permiten una datación que los sitúe durante la presencia imperial en el territorio. Quedan también algunas incógnitas, como el verdadero recorrido (...) de su viaje. Este trabajo tiene un doble objetivo: hacer un estado de la cuestión sobre la visita e identificar los preparativos que se hicieron en Hispania ante el anuncio de un viaje de Adriano. Las iniciativas parecen haber afectado a las tres provincias, que se habrían preparado para la estancia o incluso para el posible paso de la comitiva por sus territorios, aunque en muchos casos esto no llegara a ocurrir. (shrink)

As James Caesar highlights in Reconstructing America, the word “globalization” seems sometimes to be synonymous with “Americanization” or “Americanism,” evoking negative images. Globalization may bring indigenous cultures to their death and cause national individualism to disappear into a shapeless muddle. On Americanism, Heidegger declared that it was “the future monstrosity of modern times.” This would be homogenization, the rubbing out of cultural specificity, life in one universe, one dimension. Extremists like Alexandre Kohève take it further still. It would be the (...) end of history. Third world nations, particularly the Caribbean countries, would be predesignated victims of such an order, without power in political or economic realms, only making the front page of newspapers during cataclysm and natural catastrophes like Hugo, George, and Mitch. The tiny island of Montserrat, never before known to the West, rose to international fame when its volcano La Soufrière began to erupt. Rwanda would be known for genocide, and the Congo for a civil war and the assassination of its leader. (shrink)

Recently, Casasanto and Lupyan (2015) have asserted that there are no context-independent concepts: all concepts are constructed ad hoc when they are instantiated. My aim is to show that the ad hoc cognition framework can be characterized by a similarity-based theory of concepts, and that two different notions of concept should be distinguished —which may be identified with two distinct stages of their life cycle (storage and instantiation). This approach brings together virtues from opposing views: (a) invariantist: stored concepts are (...) stable enough to collect new information; (b) contextualist: instantiated concepts are context-dependent, what explains our adaptive ability to changing environments. (shrink)

Recently, Casasanto and Lupyan (2015) have proposed an appealing and daring thesis: there are no context-independent concepts—that is, all concepts are ad hoc concepts. They argue that the seeming stability of concepts is merely due to commonalities across their different instantiations but that, in fact, there is nothing invariant in them. In their view, concepts only exist when they are instantiated for categorizing, communicating, drawing inferences, etc., and those instantiations are produced on the fly from a set of contextual cues. (...) However, the main weakness of Casasanto and Lupyan’s framework is that it lacks a proposal for articulating it within a theory on the structure of concepts. My aim is to show that the ad hoc cognition framework can be characterized by means of a prototype theory of concepts developed in terms of a conceptual similarity space. (shrink)

El objetivo fundamental de este artículo está dirigido a valorar las funciones de la intertextualidad en la construcción del espacio insular caribeño en WideSargasso Sea, de la escritora dominiquesa Jean Rhys. Por tal motivo se analizaron las relaciones intertextuales entre Jean Eyre, de Charlotte Brontë, y Wide Sargasso Sea, de Jea Rhys, con énfasis en la isla en tanto espacio literario presentado de manera explícita. Como resultado se pudo constatar que la principal función de la intertextualidad en dicho texto responde (...) a la intención calibanesca y desmitificadora de desmonte de los arquetipos en los que la imagen del otro ha sido construida en el discurso del poder. De igual manera, el presente análisis permite develar la riqueza de las connotaciones otorgadas en el texto al espacio isla y a sus significados añadidos. La red de significaciones encontradas refuerza su identidad cultural caribeña. (shrink)

A relevância adquirida pelo pensamento de Michel Foucault no Brasil contemporâneo é circunstância bem conhecida. A despeito disso, poucos têm se dedicado a investigar suas cinco visitas a nosso país, datadas de 1965, 1973, 1974, 1975 e 1976. Sendo assim, a autora desenvolveu a pesquisa "Michel Foucault no Brasil: presença, efeitos e ressonâncias", cujos objetivos incluem o estabelecimento de uma "audiografia" da presença do Foucault-corpo no Brasil - análise do modo como ele aqui ocupou os espaços de fala -, bem (...) como de uma "geo-epistemologia" - busca das condições geopolíticas de produção do saber - e de uma "cronobibliografia" das ideias de Foucault entre nós - exame analítico-crítico das temporalidades associadas à primazia conferida a determinados procedimentos, categorias, problemáticas e conceitos pelos intelectuais e militantes brasileiros. Para tanto, foram utilizados documentos escritos e fonográficos relativos às visitas, artigos, coletâneas e livros brasileiros voltados à discussão das perspectivas de Foucault, e narrativas orais tanto dos que com ele conviveram nas passagens por São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte, Salvador, Recife e Belém como daqueles que, atualmente, exibem efeitos e ressonâncias de seu pensamento nos âmbitos acadêmico, profissional e político. Os ensaios que compõem este livro já haviam sido publicados aqui e ali, e foram apenas ligeiramente modificados - evitando repetições excessivas, mas mantendo alguma reiteração, para que possam ser apreciados em qualquer ordem, ou mesmo selecionados conforme os interesses específicos dos leitores. (shrink)

In this article the author presents Husserl’s analysis of the problem of time-consciousness in the C-Manuscripts (1929-1934). He tries to discuss the reasons why Husserl introduces the concept of “living present” and the necessity of distinguishing the originary temporalizing flux of absolute consciousness and the immanent time where acts are placed when they become object of an act of reflection. Another important issue is the introduction of a Ur-Ich, which works anonymously and temporalizes itself. It will be also studied why (...) Husserl considers at the end that temporalization is an non-intentional passive process that works at the deepest level of consciousness. (shrink)

The relationship between kinetochores and nuclear pore complexes (NPCs) is intimate but poorly understood. Several NPC components and associated proteins are relocated to mitotic kinetochores to assist in different activities that ensure faithful chromosome segregation. Such is the case of the Mad1‐c‐Mad2 complex, the catalytic core of the spindle assembly checkpoint (SAC), a surveillance pathway that delays anaphase until all kinetochores are attached to spindle microtubules. Mad1‐c‐Mad2 is recruited to discrete domains of unattached kinetochores from where it promotes the rate‐limiting (...) step in the assembly of anaphase‐inhibitory complexes. SAC proficiency further requires Mad1‐c‐Mad2 to be anchored at NPCs during interphase. However, the mechanistic relevance of this arrangement for SAC function remains ill‐defined. Recent studies uncover the molecular underpinnings that coordinate the release of Mad1‐c‐Mad2 from NPCs with its prompt recruitment to kinetochores. Here, current knowledge on Mad1‐c‐Mad2 function and spatiotemporal regulation is reviewed and the critical questions that remain unanswered are highlighted. (shrink)

Desde la polémica mantenida entre Jacobi y Mendelssohn en 1785 sobre el supuesto spinozismo de Lessing, se ha considerado que sistema de razón , fatalismo y panteísmo (y con él el spinozismo como forma más perfecta) constituyen una tríada de conceptos inseparables, de ahí la afirmación clave de Schlegel en el Indierbuch : “der Pantheismus ist das System der reinen Vernunft” (KA VIII, 249; Cit. por Schelling en SW I/VII 339, n. a ; 117). De esta manera, Schelling no deja (...) de ser un “vástago” del Pantheismusstreit de Mendelssohn y Jacobi: una polémica cuyo fantasma, personificado por Schlegel, aparecerá entre las páginas del Freiheitsschrift. (shrink)

Human Evolution provides a comprehensive overview of hominid evolution, synthesising data and approaches from fields as diverse as physical anthropology, evolutionary biology, molecular biology, genetics, archaeology, psychology and philosophy. The book starts with chapters on evolution, population genetics, systematics, and the methods for constructing evolutionary trees. These are followed by a comprehensive review of the fossil history of human evolution since our divergence from the apes. Subsequent chapters cover more recent data, both fossil and molecular, relating to the evolution of (...) modern humans. A final section describes the evolution of culture, language, art, and morality.The authors are leading experts in two complementary fields of scholarship, physical anthropology and molecular evolution. Throughout the book they successfully integrate their expertise in evolutionary theory, phylogenetics, genomics, cultural evolution, language, aesthetics and morality to produce a cutting edge textbook, copiously illustrated and with an extensive and up-to-date bibliography. It will be suitable for both senior undergraduate and graduate level students taking courses on human evolution within departments of biology, anthropology, psychology and philosophy. The book will also appeal to a more general audience seeking a readable, up-to-date and inclusive treatment of human origins and evolution. (shrink)

El reclutamiento de esclavos y libertos en las milicias, guerrillas y ejércitos conformados durante las guerras de Independencia fue un fenómeno creciente tanto en las filas de las fuerzas realistas como en la de los patriotas. Ambos prometieron a los reclutas con ese estatus social la libertad por su servicio militar, pero el Ejército libertador le sumó al hecho de ser personas libres la ciudadanía. Los libertos soldados, entonces, aprovecharon el contexto generado por la guerra para luchar y afianzar la (...) libertad, la ciudadanía y otros derechos a través de memoriales y representaciones en los cuales emplearon un lenguaje revolucionario que en ocasiones trascendía las propuestas de los libertadores. (shrink)

Ernesto Laclau’s theory of hegemony interprets in a peculiar way two central concepts of Lacanian psychoanalysis: the signifier and the real. Laclau maintains that signifiers are per se tendentially empty and that there is some constituting impossibility in every social system, that is, some real in the Lacanian sense. This paper levels two criticisms at this interpretation. Firstly, Lacan never employs the concept “empty signifier”: His definition of the signifier as that which represents a subject—and his enjoyment—for another signifier contradicts (...) this emptiness. Secondly, in the place of the impossible, Lacan puts enjoyment. The main political consequence of these two considerations is that the theory of hegemony is mistaken when focusing on the rhetorical debate and forgets that individual political inclinations are based mainly on their enjoyment. (shrink)

Damos por hecho que los seres humanos somos egoístas y tendemos al mal. Por eso, resignados, afirmamos que el mal es inevitable. Todo lo que leemos sobre él no hace sino reforzar nuestro punto de partida. Y nos damos por vencidos: no tenemos remedio, el mal de hoy se repetirá mañana. Llegamos incluso a insensibilizarnos ante el horror. Pero ¿y si el mal pudiera pensarse de otro modo? Al recurrir al egoísmo, ¿estamos siendo ciegos a otras posibilidades para entenderlo? ¿Hacemos (...) el mal más por falta de cuestionamiento de lo que realmente lo posibilita que por su carácter consustancial? ¿Tiene sentido reducir el mal a una cuestión de voluntad individual en lugar de abordarlo desde la conformación de la comunidad? Hemos convertido el mal en un sesudo objeto distanciado de reflexión filosófica sin querer detenernos en la cercanía de un mal imperceptible y ordinario que no es tal por ser vulgar, sino porque es una práctica común y corriente y, por tanto, algo compartido por los integrantes de una comunidad. (shrink)

The article brings up an analysis of the notion of the Real and the notion of Reality in contemporary thought in order to show the influence and relevance of the concept of “Grund” and “Remainder” by Schelling in ŽiŽek. The paper proposes from Schelling´s perspective a reading of something “which does not exist, [but] continues to insist” that explains the conformation of Real and reality and reality and simulacrum.

La propuesta contrapone tres autores en un momento concreto de la historia de la filosofía para analizar el diálogo que se establece entre ellos a través sus respectivos textos: Ueber gelehrte Gesellschaften, ihren Geist und Zweck ; Ueber die Behauptung: dass kein uebler Gebrach der Vernunft sein könne y Philosophische Untersuchungen über das Wesen der menschlichen Freiheit und die damit zusammenhängenden Gegenstände, con el fin, por un lado, de atender a la relación e influencia recíproca entre ellos, y, por otro, (...) de pensar a partir de ellos si el uso en sí mismo de la razón es causante del mal, si la aparición de éste tiene que ver con un mal uso de ella o, siguiendo una antigua tradición filosófica, el origen del mal se sitúa en la sensibilidad o en el entendimiento. (shrink)

Si la gran mayoría de las reflexiones actuales (y no tan actuales) abordan cómo el sujeto se “subjetiviza” y adquiere identidad y peso en el seno de una comunidad, Presencias irReales, en diálogo con Hegel, Schelling, Heidegger, Deleuze, Derrida, Žižek o Sloterdijk constituye una reflexión a contracorriente porque su propósito es analizar los mecanismos más peligrosos y más desatendidos: aquellos que destruyen al sujeto, que le vacían de identidad e incluso corrompen su memoria. Este libro comienza para ello con un (...) parricidio, el de Parménides, cuyo fantasma aparecerá a lo largo de las páginas a través de uno de los conceptos más relevantes para la filosofía: el de aquello que no siendo es de alguna manera y tiene efectos, a veces terribles, en nuestra realidad. Se trata de un libro de terror, pero no tanto por contener toda una galería espectral, con asedios de las fantasías, de fantasmas que vagan por nuestra realidad o de fantasmas que lo son y no lo saben, sino porque ningún yo está a salvo de la espectralización. (shrink)

El artículo trata de analizar las repercusiones que tiene nuestro tiempo de “sociedad del espectáculo” en la construcción de realidades históricas. Para ello se analizarán las propuestas de S. Zizek y de J. Baudrillard en torno a lo Real, la realidad y el simulacro, empleando algunos planteamientos de la filosofía de F.W.J. Schelling, mostrando así la relevancia de la filosofía schellinguiana para entender para entender esta construcción.

El tránsito de las sociedades premodernas a las industriales, de la comunidad a la asociación, de la solidaridad orgánica a la mecánica, del precapitalismo al capitalismo, de la deferencia a la participación política, hizo necesario un nuevo elemento integrador que, en sociedades secularizadas, ocupase el lugar de la religión como fuente de legitimidad de la obligación política. Este factor cohesionador fue el nacionalismo: la ideología capaz de sostener el mito de la pertenencia a una "comunidad imaginada", pobladora de un espacio (...) político definido territorialmente sobre el que aspira al autogobierno libre de interferencias internas y externas. (shrink)

With the discovery of Australopithecus, the concepts of bipedalism, the emergence of the open savannas, and the separation of pongids and hominids (bipedal-savanna-cladogeny; the BSC model) were integrated in an attempt to interpret the keys to the emergence of man. However, palæoclimatology, palaeoecology, and the morphology of A. ramidus and A. afarensis show that early hominids were better adapted to the tropical forest. Consequently, the BSC model is no longer valid, even though the relationship between open savannas and bipedalism can (...) still be invoked to explain cladogeny between Paranthropus and Homo. That the BSC model is still thriving could be due to preconceived ideas as to what constitutes a human being — ideas that are projected into the past to explain our origins. (shrink)

The use of the computer metaphor has led to the proposal of mind architecture (Pylyshyn 1984; Newell 1990) as a model of the organization of the mind. The dualist computational model, however, has, since the earliest days of psychological functionalism, required that the concepts mind architecture and brain architecture be remote from each other. The development of both connectionism and neurocomputational science, has sought to dispense with this dualism and provide general models of consciousness – a uniform cognitive architecture –, (...) which is in general reductionist, but which retains the computer metaphor. This paper examines, in the first place, the concepts of mind architecture and brain architecture, in order to evaluate the syntheses which have recently been offered. It then moves on to show how modifications which have been made to classical functionalist mind architectures, with the aim of making them compatible with brain architectures, are unable to resolve some of the most serious problems of functionalism. Some suggestions are given as to why it is not possible to relate mind structures and brain structures by using neurocomputational approaches, and finally the question is raised of the validity of reductionism in a theory which sets out to unite mind and brain architectures. (shrink)

This article discusses how the persistence of child labor, especially in Brazil and the United States of America, constitutes a current facet of neo-colonialism. Cultivated as an educational and dignifying activity, exploited child labor persists and is naturalized. Schools, religions, and the legislation contribute to making the working class come to love and naturalize what in the past was understood as torture and punishment, thus jointly acting as a fundamental means of forming a new cultural form: the love of work. (...) Initially, the article discusses how the culture of work is historically founded and then argues against the idealist and postmodern explanations that naturalize it. The argument is based on the understanding that culture has a material basis and is linked to the production and social reproduction of life. Data from the empirical research on child labor in tobacco farming in Brazil and the USA reveal the persistence of the problem among Latino children and families. We conclude with the need to found a new culture for contemporary society, based on other social and economic relations, which allows the working class to free itself from what dominates and exploits it. (shrink)

La docencia de materias relativas a la producción audiovisual encuentra un modelo de trabajo idóneo en el uso del dossier de producción. Esta herramienta con formato de portfolio, utilizada en el mundo profesional, permite que el alumnado pueda desarrollar intuitivamente el rol prosumidor, creando contenidos audiovisuales de proximidad en el marco de un simulacro de productora audiovisual, que genera valor a partir del guion inicial, adiestrando también a los estudiantes en los compromisos de Responsabilidad Social Corporativa que las empresas deben (...) implementar en su funcionamiento. (shrink)

Human Evolution provides a comprehensive overview of hominid evolution, synthesising data and approaches from fields as diverse as physical anthropology, evolutionary biology, molecular biology, genetics, archaeology, psychology and philosophy. The book starts with chapters on evolution, population genetics, systematics, and the methods for constructing evolutionary trees. These are followed by a comprehensive review of the fossil history of human evolution since our divergence from the apes. Subsequent chapters cover more recent data, both fossil and molecular, relating to the evolution of (...) modern humans. A final section describes the evolution of culture, language, art, and morality. The authors are leading experts in two complementary fields of scholarship, physical anthropology and molecular evolution. Throughout the book they successfully integrate their expertise in evolutionary theory, phylogenetics, genomics, cultural evolution, language, aesthetics and morality to produce a cutting edge textbook, copiously illustrated and with an extensive and up-to-date bibliography. It will be suitable for both senior undergraduate and graduate level students taking courses on human evolution within departments of biology, anthropology, psychology and philosophy. The book will also appeal to a more general audience seeking a readable, up-to-date and inclusive treatment of human origins and evolution. (shrink)

This paper reports an experiment that investigates interpretive distinctions between two different expressions of generalization in Spanish. In particular, our aim was to find out when the distinction between generic statements (GS) such as Tigers have stripes and universally quantified statements (UQS) such as All tigers have stripes was acquired in Spanish-speaking children of two different age groups (4/5-year-olds and 8/9-year-olds), and then compare these results with those of adults. The starting point of this research was the semantic distinction between (...) GS and UQS in that the former admit exceptions, unlike the latter. On the other hand, several authors have observed a Generic overgeneralization effect (GOG) consisting in allowing for UQS to be felicitous in the face of exceptions, thus proposing that this “error” stems from GS being defaults (simpler, more easily learned and processed). In the current paper we aimed to test the “Generics as Default” (GaD) hypothesis by comparing GS and UQS in three different age ranges. Our data show that, overall, the accuracy of GS is greater than the accuracy of UQS. Moreover, we also confirm a hypothesized interaction between age and NP type (GS vs UQS). Further, we present several data points that are not predicted by the GaD, including an observed decline in the accuracy of GS in the older group of children as well as in adults, and that children fail at rejecting statements that are not considered to be true generalizations. (shrink)

In his book Modal Logic as Metaphysics, Timothy Williamson defends first-order necessitism using simplicity as a powerful argument. However, simplicity is decomposed into two different, even antagonistic, sides: elegance and parsimony. On the one hand, elegance is the property of theories possessing few and simple principles that allow them to deploy all their theoretical power; on the other hand, parsimony is the property of theories having the fair and necessary number of ontological entities that allow such theories give an account (...) of themselves. Since necessitism endorses Barcan Formulae for the sake of elegance, it is committed to a vast number of contingently non-concrete objects, so one may think that it is not qualitatively parsimonious. I argue that necessitism could be viewed as an additive case in the sense that Alan Baker characterizes the adjective so quantitative parsimony should be considered when it comes to necessitism instead of qualitative parsimony. (shrink)

Much has been written about the disagreement and even radical opposition between Gilles Deleuze’s and Félix Guattari’s conceptualizations and those of Jacques Lacan: for example, about desire, psychotherapy, the subject and the radically opposed political consequences that result from their approaches. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate from a Lacanian perspective that in the case of a central concept such as the body, there are rather more similarities than differences. Its main thesis is that Deleuze’s and Guattari’s body (...) without organs is very close to Lacan’s notion of the Other jouissance and that with slightly different strategies they both provide arguments to fight the same enemy: that is, the control and repression of singularity under capitalism. (shrink)

En el presente artículo se tratará de reflexionar acerca del estatus ontológico del concepto de identidad personal a partir de las así denominadas propuestas «narrativistas» de los filósofos Daniel Dennett y Clément Rosset. No se pretende tanto abordar la pregunta sobre la existencia última de dicha identidad cuanto hacerse cargo de cómo se nos aparece, las similitudes que presenta el proceso de construcción identitaria con el proceso narrativo y el papel activo tanto de uno mismo como de los demás en (...) su edificación. (shrink)

In this article the author tries to deconstruct the critic against Husserl´s analysis of the signs in the first logical investigation as it is exposed in Derridas ´s work Speech and Phenomena . Derrida’s main critic is that the husserlian distinction between two kinds of signs – expressions and indications- is unjustified and artificial. He also rejects the husserlian topic that sustains the ideality of significations and misinterprets the concept of meaning by understanding it as “the intention to say something”. (...) The author of the article tries to show how Derrida manipulates the very strict husserlian notions by means of small but severe conceptual perversions that allow him to criticize without reason Husserls understanding of the meaning as built upon some conscious “forgetting” of the empiric side and of the indicative function of the expressions. The article begins with an exposition of some important points of the first logical investigation and then tries to show how Derrida manipulates them in his “approach” to the husserlian text. (shrink)

Thomas Kuhn is mostly known for his contributions to the philosophy of science. However, it was chiefly to investigations in philosophy of language that he dedicated the last part of his career. The aim of this paper is to present a systematic view of Kuhn’s main ideas on this subject. I start by describing his theory of concept, in particular what he says about kind terms. Such terms, acquired in blocks that form contrast sets or “taxonomies,” are learned through ostensible (...) definitions. Next, I analyze Kuhn’s concepts of “meaning” and “truth.” Finally, I discuss a second type of kinds terms, not fully investigated by him, which is learned together with scientific laws. Resumo Thomas Kuhn é conhecido principalmente por suas contribuições para a filosofia da ciência. No entanto, foi em grande medida à filosofia da linguagem que ele dedicou a última parte de sua carreira. O objetivo deste artigo é apresentar uma visão sistemática das principais ideias de Kuhn sobre esse assunto. Começo descrevendo sua teoria do conceito, em particular o que ele diz sobre termos para espécie. Tais termos, aprendidos em blocos que formam conjuntos de contraste ou “taxonomias”, são aprendidos através de definições ostensivas. Em seguida, analiso as concepções de Kuhn de “significado” e “verdade”. Finalmente, discuto um segundo tipo de termo para espécies, não totalmente investigado por ele, que é aprendido junto com as leis científicas. (shrink)