•  846
    Making sense of domain specificity
    Cognition 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
  •  3
    Concepts
    In Stephen P. Stich & Ted A. Warfield (eds.), The Blackwell Guide to Philosophy of Mind, Blackwell. 2003.
    This chapter contains sections titled: Definitional Structure Probabilistic Structure Theory Structure Concepts Without Structure Rethinking Conceptual structure.
  •  133
    What'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
  •  259
    Animals are not cognitively stuck in time
    Behavioral 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.
  •  320
    The Small Number System
    Philosophy 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
  •  195
    Artifacts and Original Intent: A Cross-Cultural Perspective on the Design Stance
    with H. Clark Barrett and Stephen Laurence
    Journal 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
  •  342
    Infants, animals, and the origins of number
    Behavioral 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
  • Concepts and the Innate Mind
    Dissertation, 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
  •  1334
    The poverty of the stimulus argument
    British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 52 (2): 217-276. 2001.
    Noam Chomsky's Poverty of the Stimulus Argument is one of the most famous and controversial arguments in the study of language and the mind. Though widely endorsed by linguists, the argument has met with much resistance in philosophy. Unfortunately, philosophical critics have often failed to fully appreciate the power of the argument. In this paper, we provide a systematic presentation of the Poverty of the Stimulus Argument, clarifying its structure, content, and evidential base. We defend the …Read more
  •  2274
    Concepts and Cognitive Science
    In Eric Margolis & Stephen Laurence (eds.), Concepts: Core Readings, Mit Press. pp. 3-81. 1999.
    Given the fundamental role that concepts play in theories of cognition, philosophers and cognitive scientists have a common interest in concepts. Nonetheless, there is a great deal of controversy regarding what kinds of things concepts are, how they are structured, and how they are acquired. This chapter offers a detailed high-level overview and critical evaluation of the main theories of concepts and their motivations. Taking into account the various challenges that each theory faces, the ch…Read more
  •  1129
    What is a concept? Philosophers have given many different answers to this question, reflecting a wide variety of approaches to the study of mind and language. Nonetheless, at the most general level, there are two dominant frameworks in contemporary philosophy. One proposes that concepts are mental representations, while the other proposes that they are abstract objects. This paper looks at the differences between these two approaches, the prospects for combining them, and the issues that are inv…Read more
  •  318
    Beyond the Building Blocks Model
    Behavioral 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.
  •  387
    Number and natural language
    In Peter Carruthers, Stephen Laurence & Stephen P. Stich (eds.), The Innate Mind: Structure and Contents, Oxford University Press New York. 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
  •  33
    The priority of the individual in cultural inheritance
    Behavioral 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.
  •  412
    Should we trust our intuitions? Deflationary accounts of the analytic data
    Proceedings 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
  •  156
    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
  •  404
    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
  •  539
    Concept Nativism and Neural Plasticity
    In 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
  •  86
    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
  •  289
    Concepts and Theoretical Unification
    Behavioral 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
  •  1395
    In defense of nativism
    Philosophical 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
  •  152
    Concepts
    In Stephen P. Stich & Ted A. Warfield (eds.), Blackwell Guide to Philosophy of Mind, Blackwell. pp. 190-213. 2003.
    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.
  •  649
    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
  •  992
    Abstraction and the Origin of General Ideas
    Philosophers' 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
  •  159
    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
  •  397
    How to acquire a concept
    Mind 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.
  •  67
    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
  •  415
    Linguistic Determinism and the Innate Basis of Number
    In Peter Carruthers, Stephen Laurence & Stephen P. Stich (eds.), The Innate Mind: Foundations and the Future, . 2007.
    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