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398The Building Blocks of Thought: A Rationalist Account of the Origins of ConceptsOxford University Press. 2024.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 acti…Read more
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1Number and NaturalIn Peter Carruthers, Stephen Laurence & Stephen P. Stich (eds.), The Innate Mind: Structure and Contents, Oxford University Press On Demand. pp. 1--216. 2005.
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134Concepts, core knowledge, and the rationalism–empiricism debateBehavioral and Brain Sciences 47. 2024.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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1148Making sense of domain specificityCognition 240 (C): 105583. 2023.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 …Read more
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21ConceptsIn Stephen Stich Ted Warfield (ed.), The Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of Mind, Blackwell. 2003.This chapter contains sections titled: Definitional Structure Probabilistic Structure Theory Structure Concepts Without Structure Rethinking Conceptual structure.
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279What's Within: Nativism Reconsidered (review)European Journal of Philosophy 9 242-247. 2008.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 …Read more
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659Jerry A. Fodor, Concepts: Where Cognitive Science Went Wrong (review)British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 50 (3): 487-491. 1999.Review of Jerry Fodor's book Concepts: Where Cognitive Science Went Wrong (Oxford University Press).
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433Animals are not cognitively stuck in timeBehavioral and Brain Sciences 42. 2019.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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464The Small Number SystemPhilosophy of Science 87 (1): 113-134. 2020.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…Read more
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369Artifacts and Original Intent: A Cross-Cultural Perspective on the Design StanceJournal of Cognition and Culture 8 (1-2): 1-22. 2008.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 a…Read more
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461Infants, animals, and the origins of numberBehavioral and Brain Sciences 40. 2017.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 itse…Read more
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Concepts and the Innate MindDissertation, Rutgers the State University of New Jersey - New Brunswick. 1995.The topic of this thesis is the nature of human concepts understood as mental symbols or representations. ;Many discussions in this area presuppose an inferential model of concepts taken together with what I call the standard model of concept learning. An inferential model of concepts says that a concept's identity depends upon its participating in inferential dispositions linking it to certain other concepts. For example, one might think that part of what makes a mental symbol the concept BIRD …Read more
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449Beyond the Building Blocks ModelBehavioral and Brain Sciences 34 (3): 139-140. 2011.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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551Number and natural languageIn Peter Carruthers, Stephen Laurence & Stephen P. Stich (eds.), The Innate Mind: Structure and Contents, Oxford University Press On Demand. pp. 1--216. 2005.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 t…Read more
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46The priority of the individual in cultural inheritanceBehavioral and Brain Sciences 37 (3): 257-258. 2014.Smaldino's (2014) proposed extension of the theory of cultural evolution embraces emergent group-level traits. We argue, instead, that group-level traits reduce to the traits of individuals, particularly when it comes to the question of how group-level traits are inherited or transmitted, and that this metaphysical fact is integral to the theory of cultural evolution.
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609Should we trust our intuitions? Deflationary accounts of the analytic dataProceedings of the Aristotelian Society 103 (3): 299-323. 2003.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 un…Read more
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106Creations of the Mind: Theories of Artifacts and Their Representaion (edited book)Oxford University Press. 2007.Creations of the Mind presents sixteen original essays by theorists from a wide variety of disciplines who have a shared interest in the nature of artifacts and their implications for the human mind. All the papers are written specially for this volume, and they cover a broad range of topics concerned with the metaphysics of artifacts, our concepts of artifacts and the categories that they represent, the emergence of an understanding of artifacts in infants' cognitive development, as well as the…Read more
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544Where the regress argument still goes wrong: Reply to KnowlesAnalysis 59 (4): 321-327. 1999.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 propo…Read more
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808Concept Nativism and Neural PlasticityIn Eric Margolis & Stephen Laurence (eds.), The Conceptual Mind: New Directions in the Study of Concepts, Mit Press. pp. 117-147. 2015.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 powerfu…Read more
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117The significance of the theory analogy in the psychological study of conceptsMind and Language 10 (1-2): 45-71. 1995.Many psychologists think that concepts should be understood on analogy with the terms of scientific theories, yet the significance of this claim has always been obscure. In this paper, I clarify the psychological content of the theory analogy, focusing on influential pieces by Susan Carey. Once plainly put, the analogy amounts to the view that a mental representation has its semantic properties by virtue of its role in a restricted knowledge structure. One of the commendable things about Carey's…Read more
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462Concepts and Theoretical UnificationBehavioral and Brain Sciences 33 (2-3): 219-220. 2010.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-ref…Read more
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1776In defense of nativismPhilosophical Studies 165 (2): 693-718. 2013.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 parts.…Read more
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148ConceptsIn Stephen P. Stich & Ted A. Warfield (eds.), Blackwell Guide to Philosophy of Mind, Blackwell. pp. 190-213. 2002.This article provides a critical overview of competing theories of conceptual structure (definitional structure, probabilistic structure, theory structure), including the view that concepts have no structure (atomism). We argue that the explanatory demands that these different theories answer to are best accommodated by an organization in which concepts are taken to have atomic cores that are linked to differing types of conceptual structure.
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964Regress arguments against the language of thoughtAnalysis 57 (1): 60-66. 1997.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 langua…Read more
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1169Abstraction and the Origin of General IdeasPhilosophers' Imprint 12 1-22. 2012.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 pr…Read more
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198The Conceptual Mind: New Directions in the Study of Concepts (edited book)MIT Press. 2015.The Conceptual Mind’s twenty-four newly commissioned essays cover the most important recent theoretical developments in the study of concepts, identifying and exploring the big ideas that will guide further research over the next decade. Topics include concepts and animals, concepts and the brain, concepts and evolution, concepts and perception, concepts and language, concepts across cultures, concept acquisition and conceptual change, concepts and normativity, concepts in context, and conceptua…Read more
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537How to acquire a conceptMind and Language 13 (3): 347-369. 1998.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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87A reassessment of the shift from the classical theory of concepts to prototype theoryCognition 51 (1): 73-89. 1994.A standard view within psychology is that there have been two important shifts in the study of concepts and that each has led to some improvements. The first shift was from the classical theory of concepts to probabilistic theories, including the prototype theory. The second shift was from probabilistic theories to theory-based theories. In this article, I critically evaluate the view that the first shift was a major advance and argue that the prototype theory suffers some of the same problems t…Read more
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633Linguistic Determinism and the Innate Basis of NumberIn Peter Carruthers, Stephen Laurence & Stephen P. Stich (eds.), The Innate Mind: Structure and Contents, Oxford University Press On Demand. 2005.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 depe…Read more
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485The Scope of the ConceptualIn Eric Margolis, Richard Samuels & Stephen P. Stich (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Cognitive Science, Oxford University Press. 2012.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/no…Read more
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Cognitive Science |
Philosophy of Mind |
Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Cognitive Science |