Lehar (rightly) insists on the volumetric character of our experience of space. He claims that three-dimensional space stems from the functional three-dimensional topology of the brain. But his “Gestalt Bubble” model of volumetric space bears an intrinsically static structure – a kind of theater, or “diorama,” bound to the visual modality. We call attention to the ambivalence of Gestalt legacy and question the status and precise import of Lehar's model and the phenomenology that motivates it.

We support Shanker & King's (S&K's) proposal for a dynamic systems approach in ape language research, but question their vision of what it means to have language. Language plays an essential role in the making of the human mind. It underlies any kind of human interaction and codetermines perception and action. Moreover, what gives human thought the very characteristic architecture of textuality criterially requires a third party.