Researchers have converged on the idea that a pragmatic understanding of communication can shed important light on the evolution of language. Accordingly, animal communication scientists have been keen to adopt insights from pragmatics research. Some authors couple their appeal to pragmatic aspects of communication with the claim that there are fundamental asymmetries between signalers and receivers in non-human animals. For example, in the case of primate vocal calls, signalers are said to produce signals unintentionally and mindlessly, whereas receivers are thought (...) to engage in contextual interpretation to derive the significance of signals. We argue that claims about signaler-receiver asymmetries are often confused. This is partly because their authors conflate two conceptions of pragmatics, which generate different accounts of the explanatory target for accounts of the evolution of language. Here we distinguish these conceptions, in order to help specify more precisely the proper explanatory target for language evolution research. (shrink)

Grice’s analysis of human communication has proven to be highly influential among many philosophers and cognitive scientists, both past and present. At the same time, it has long been recognized that his analysis faces some difficult objections. In particular, a number of theorists have objected to the account Grice provides of the mental states and processes of those engaged in communication. For these theorists, communication as conceived of by Grice has seemed too mentally demanding and complex to be a good (...) general model of human communication. In this article, I consider this challenge afresh from the perspective of Dan Dennett’s intentional stance theory. More specifically, I consider some recent remarks Dennett has made in this area, seeking to pin down and clarify his view. I then argue that while Dennett’s thinking is on the right track, his view stands in need of both a substantive adjustment and more positive detail. I seek to provide such improvements here. Finally, I consider some of the implications of this improved Dennettian account of Gricean communication for how great ape and human communication are related. (shrink)

According to the socio-cognitive revolution hypothesis, humans but not other great apes acquire language because only we possess the socio-cognitive abilities required for Gricean communication, which is a pre-requisite of language development. On this view, language emerged only following a socio-cognitive revolution in the hominin lineage that took place after the split of the Pan-Homo clade. In this paper, I argue that the SCR hypothesis is wrong. The driving forces in language evolution were not sweeping biologically driven changes to hominin (...) social cognition. Our LCA with non-human great apes was likely already a Gricean communicator, and what came with evolution was not a raft of new socio-cognitive abilities, but subtle tweaks to existing ones. It was these tweaks, operating in conjunction with more dramatic ecological changes and a significant increase in general processing power, that set our ancestors on the road to language. (shrink)

Humans alone acquire language. According to one influen- tial school of thought, we do this because we possess a uniquely human ability to act with and attribute “Gricean” communicative intentions. A challenge for this view is that attributing communicative intent seems to require cognitive abilities that infant language learners lack. After considering a range of responses to this challenge, I argue that infant language development can be explained, because Gricean communication is cognitively less demanding than many suppose. However, a consequence (...) of this is that abilities for Gricean communication are unlikely to be uniquely human. (shrink)

The last three decades have seen a renaissance in Anglo-American philosophy of efforts to think of human reasoning as constitutively social and, indeed, discursive. This approach does not see reaso...

The last three decades have seen a renaissance in Anglo-American philosophy of efforts to think of human reasoning as constitutively social and, indeed, discursive. This approach does not see reaso...

Various psychopathologies of self-awareness, such as somatoparaphrenia and thought insertion in schizophrenia, might seem to threaten the viability of the higher-order thought (HOT) theory of consciousness since it requires a HOT about one’s own mental state to accompany every conscious state. The HOT theory of consciousness says that what makes a mental state a conscious mental state is that there is a HOT to the effect that “I am in mental state M.” I have argued in previous work that a (...) HOT theorist can adequately respond to this concern with respect to somatoparaphrenia and thought insertion. There is also Cotard syndrome which is a rare neuropsychiatric disorder in which people hold the delusional belief that they are dead, do not exist, or have lost their blood or internal organs. In this paper, I argue that HOT theory has nothing to fear from it either and can consistently account for what happens in such unusual cases. I analyze Cotard syndrome in light of my previous discussion of somatoparaphrenia and thought insertion, and argue that HOT theory can provide a somewhat analogous account without the worry of inconsistency. It is crucial to recognize that there are multiple “self-concepts” and levels of HOTs which can help to provide a more nuanced explanation. With regard to the connection between consciousness and self-consciousness, it is proposed that Cotard patients are indeed capable of having some “I-thoughts” about their bodies and mental states. (shrink)

In this article, I argue for cooperation as a three-dimensional phenomenon lying on the continua of a cognitive, a behavioural, and an affective axis. Traditional accounts of joint action argue for cooperation as involving a shared intention. Developmental research has shown that such cooperation requires rather sophisticated social cognitive skills such as having a robust theory of mind - that is acquired not until age 4 to 5 in human ontogeny. However, also younger children are able to cooperate in various (...) ways. Moreover, the coordinated behaviours of the agents can be more or less complex. Finally, phenomenological considerations and findings from social psychology illustrate that affective states and agent-specificities may play a central role in cooperative activities. I end with discussing the implications of my analysis that speak in favour of a pluralist account of social cognition. (shrink)

It is commonly accepted that conversation is, in some sense, cooperative. This is due in part to Paul Grice’s articulation of the Cooperative Principle, which states that participants should “make [their] conversational contributions such as is required...” (1989, 26). Yet the significance of this principle, as well as the notion of cooperation that is entailed, is up for interpretation. For example, there are several ways of understanding what kind of force the Cooperative Principle is supposed to have: it could be (...) meant as a requirement on the behavior of speakers, a description of the way speakers behave, or an articulation of what speakers assume of one another’s contributions. I consider each of these options, and I argue that the first, which is often seen as a naïve interpretation, is worth considering. Although I ultimately reject the prescriptive interpretation of the Cooperative Principle, it offers a jumping off point for exploring other prescriptions on conversational behavior, such as the Requirement of Interlocutor Responsiveness, which I offer as an explicitly prescriptive conversational principle. (shrink)