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11The influence of robot appearance on visual perspective taking: Testing the boundaries of the mere-appearance hypothesisConsciousness and Cognition 116 (C): 103588. 2023.
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10Pragmatic interpretation and the production of ideographic codesBehavioral and Brain Sciences 46. 2023.We argue that the problem of ideographic codes stems from neither learnability nor standardization, but from a general issue of pragmatic interpretation. As ideographic codes increase in expressive power, in order to reduce ambiguity, they must become more detailed – such that production becomes more cumbersome, and requires greater artistry on the part of users, limiting their capacity for growth.
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19Great ape enculturation studies: a neglected resource in cognitive development researchBiology and Philosophy 38 (2): 1-24. 2023.Disagreement remains about whether particular human socio-cognitive traits arose primarily as a result of biological adaptations, or because of changing cultural practices. Heyes argues that uniquely human traits, including imitation and theory of mind, are the product of cultural learning. In contrast, Tomasello argues that they are, in key respects, part of a suite of adaptations for ‘shared intentionality’. We consider how such disagreements might be resolved. We show that the kinds of consid…Read more
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15Metarepresentation, trust, and “unleashed expression”Behavioral and Brain Sciences 46. 2023.Heintz & Scott-Phillips's account of human expression leaves a number of central issues unclear – not least, whether the lack of expression in nonhuman species is attributable to their lack of the relevant metarepresentational abilities, an absence of trust, or a consequence of other factors. In place of their view, we propose a gradualistic account of the origins of human expression.
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7Talking about thinking: Language, Thought, and MentalizingDe Gruyter. 2021.Our ability to attribute mental states to others ("to mentalize") has been the subject of philosophical and psychological studies for a very long time, yet the role of language acquisition in the development of our mentalizing abilities has been largely understudied. This book addresses this gap in the philosophical literature. The book presents an account of how false belief reasoning is impacted by language acquisition, and it does so by placing it in the larger context of the issue, how langu…Read more
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Countability shifts in the normative dimensionProceedings of Sinn Und Beduetung 26. 2022.In this paper, we discuss what we argue is a newly observed use of nouns like woman, man, and lawyer, in the sort of morphosyntax characteristic of count nouns. We argue that the relevant data constitutes normative uses of the relevant nouns, and we build an analysis on the assumption that such nouns are polysemous between descriptive and normative senses (Leslie 2015), using the formal account of polysemy in Pustejovsky (1998), and the analysis of count- ability in Rothstein (2010). In doing so…Read more
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46How language shapes our minds: On the relationship between generics, stereotypes and social normsMind and Language 38 (4): 944-961. 2022.In this article, we discuss the role of labels and generics referring to social kinds in mindshaping practices, arguing that they promote generalizations that foster essentialist thinking and carry a normative force. We propose that their cognitive function consists in both contributing to the formation and reinforcement of schemata and scripts for social interaction and in activating these schemata in specific social situations. Moreover, we suggest that failure to meet the expectations engende…Read more
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14Enriching the Cognitive Account of Common GroundGrazer Philosophische Studien 97 (3): 495-527. 2020.Classical notions of Common Ground have been criticized for being cognitively demanding given their appeal to complex meta-representations. The authors here propose a distinction between Immediate Common Ground, containing information specific to the communicative situation, and General Common Ground, containing information that is not situation-specific. This distinction builds on previous work by Horton and Gerrig [2016], extending the idea that common cognitive processes are part of the estab…Read more
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Enriching the Cognitive Account of Common Ground Kinds of Shared Information and Cognitive ProcessesGrazer Philosophischen Studien 97 (3). 2020.Classical notions of Common Ground have been criticized for being cognitively demanding given their appeal to complex meta-representations. The authors here propose a distinction between Immediate Common Ground, containing information specific to the communicative situation, and General Common Ground, containing information that is not situation-specific. This distinction builds on previous work by ], extending the idea that common cognitive processes are part of the establishment and use of com…Read more
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31Culturally embedded schemata for false belief reasoningSynthese (Special Issue: THE CULTURAL EVOL): 1-30. 2020.I argue that both language acquisition and cultural and social factors contribute to the formation of schemata that facilitate false belief reasoning. While the proposal for an active role of language acquisition in this sense has been partially advanced by several voices in the mentalizing debate, I argue that other accounts addressing this issue present some shortcomings. Specifically, I analyze the existing proposals distinguishing between “structure-oriented” views :1858–1878, 2007; de Villi…Read more
Bochum, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany
Areas of Specialization
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Philosophy of Mind |
Philosophy of Language |
Philosophy of Cognitive Science |
Ontology |
Feminist Philosophy |
Feminist Approaches to Philosophy |