[ { "id": "authors:n7mhq-pta11", "collection": "authors", "collection_id": "n7mhq-pta11", "cite_using_url": "https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechAUTHORS:20110112-134521069", "type": "article", "title": "By the Waters of Babel: Jean-Louis Dessalles' Why We Talk", "author": [ { "family_name": "Cowie", "given_name": "Fiona", "clpid": "Cowie-Fiona" } ], "abstract": "Why We Talk is a complex, ambitious, original, thought-provoking, and\nsometimes frustrating book. In it, Jean-Louis Dessalles argues that the critical spur\nto the development of human language\u2014language's true biological function\u2014was\npolitical. It wasn't political in any of the senses hitherto floated in the literature,\nthough: language didn't evolve because it fostered group cohesion or cooperation,\nor facilitated mind-reading or manipulation. Instead, language originally served\nmore or less the same function as ritualized displays of aggression and submission\nin many social animals: among early Homo (maybe erectus, maybe only sapiens\u2014p.\n333), one's gifts in the area of gab conferred status (recall Socrates' gripes about the\nSophists) and with higher status came, basically, more and better kids, both for the\nloquacious themselves and for anyone smart enough to ally himself with them.", "doi": "10.1007/s10539-009-9168-8", "issn": "0169-3867", "publisher": "Springer", "publication": "Biology and Philosophy", "publication_date": "2010-11", "series_number": "5", "volume": "25", "issue": "5", "pages": "880-888" }, { "id": "authors:kpbcd-aev31", "collection": "authors", "collection_id": "kpbcd-aev31", "cite_using_url": "https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechAUTHORS:20151011-054624460", "type": "article", "title": "Innateness and Language", "author": [ { "family_name": "Cowie", "given_name": "Fiona", "clpid": "Cowie-Fiona" } ], "contributor": [ { "family_name": "Zalta", "given_name": "Edward N.", "clpid": "Zalta-E-N" } ], "issn": "1095-5054", "publisher": "Metaphysics Research Lab at Stanford University", "publication": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy", "publication_date": "2010", "series_number": "Summer 2010", "issue": "Summer 2010" }, { "id": "authors:m23mp-x9v31", "collection": "authors", "collection_id": "m23mp-x9v31", "cite_using_url": "https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechAUTHORS:20151011-053226741", "type": "book_section", "title": "Why isn't Stich an ElimiNativist about Innate Ideas?", "book_title": "Stich and His Critics", "author": [ { "family_name": "Cowie", "given_name": "Fiona", "clpid": "Cowie-Fiona" } ], "contributor": [ { "family_name": "Murphy", "given_name": "Dominic" }, { "family_name": "Bishop", "given_name": "Michael" } ], "abstract": "[First paragraph]. In 1975, and as usual scratching where it itches, Steve Stich published Innate\nIdeas, a collection of philosophical papers illustrating and analyzing the varied roles of\nthe concept of innateness in philosophical psychology. In the thirty years since then, the\nidea of the innate has flourished in both popular and academic writings. Not only has it\nreceived a fair amount of use (think Chomsky and Pinker; think Fodor; think Herrnstein\nand Murray; think the New York Times' 'Science Times' every other Tuesday), it has also\noccasioned a good deal of mention, particularly in the last twenty or so years, as\nphilosophers, biologists and psychologists have sought to develop a more precise\nunderstanding of what innateness is.", "isbn": "9781405112079", "publisher": "Wiley-Blackwell", "place_of_publication": "Malden, Mass.", "publication_date": "2009", "pages": "74-100" }, { "id": "authors:5d1xj-mes11", "collection": "authors", "collection_id": "5d1xj-mes11", "cite_using_url": "https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechAUTHORS:20151011-053731772", "type": "book_section", "title": "The Mind is Not (Just) a System of Modules Shaped (Just) by Natural Selection", "book_title": "Contemporary Debates in Philosophy of Science", "author": [ { "family_name": "Cowie", "given_name": "Fiona", "clpid": "Cowie-Fiona" }, { "family_name": "Woodward", "given_name": "James", "clpid": "Woodward-J-F" } ], "contributor": [ { "family_name": "Hitchcock", "given_name": "Christopher", "clpid": "Hitchcock-C-R" } ], "abstract": "[First paragraph]. 1. Did the Mind Evolve by Natural Selection? Of course our minds and brains evolved by natural selection! They aren't the result of divine intervention or fabrication by space aliens. Nor are they solely products of drift or any other naturalistic alternative to selection. That natural selection profoundly \"shaped\" the mind and brain is accepted by both by evolutionary psychologists and virtually all of their most vigorous critics.", "isbn": "9781405101516", "publisher": "Blackwell", "place_of_publication": "Malden, Mass.", "publication_date": "2004", "pages": "312-334" }, { "id": "authors:wjkaa-4db16", "collection": "authors", "collection_id": "wjkaa-4db16", "cite_using_url": "https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechAUTHORS:20190211-093501426", "type": "article", "title": "Hurford's partial vindication of classical empiricism", "author": [ { "family_name": "Cowie", "given_name": "Fiona", "clpid": "Cowie-Fiona" } ], "abstract": "Hurford's discussion also vindicates the classical empiricist program in semantics. The idea that PREDICATE(x) is the logical form of the sensory representations encoded via the dorsal and ventral streams validates empiricists' insistence on the psychological primacy of sense data, which have the same form. In addition to knowing the logical form of our primitive representations, however, we need accounts of (1) their contents and (2) how more complex thoughts are derived from them. Ideally, our semantic vocabulary would both reflect the psychological \"primitiveness\" of these representations and make clear how more complex representations derive from them.", "doi": "10.1017/S0140525X03290075", "issn": "0140-525X", "publisher": "Cambridge University Press", "publication": "Behavioral and Brain Sciences", "publication_date": "2003-06", "series_number": "3", "volume": "26", "issue": "3", "pages": "289-290" }, { "id": "authors:4z2db-jrb40", "collection": "authors", "collection_id": "4z2db-jrb40", "cite_using_url": "https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechAUTHORS:20151015-141433292", "type": "book_section", "title": "Innateness, Philosophical Issues about", "book_title": "Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science", "author": [ { "family_name": "Cowie", "given_name": "Fiona", "clpid": "Cowie-Fiona" } ], "contributor": [ { "family_name": "Nadel", "given_name": "Lynn", "clpid": "Nadel-L" }, { "family_name": "Chalmers", "given_name": "David", "clpid": "Chalmers-D" } ], "abstract": "Philosophical problems about innateness cover conceptual and empirical issues regarding the claim that concepts or beliefs are innate, inborn, or genetically determined.", "doi": "10.1002/0470018860.s00167", "isbn": "9780333792612", "publisher": "Nature Pub. Group", "place_of_publication": "New York", "publication_date": "2003", "pages": "559-565" }, { "id": "authors:2c078-94m96", "collection": "authors", "collection_id": "2c078-94m96", "cite_using_url": "https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechAUTHORS:20151011-052125501", "type": "article", "title": "On Cussing in Church: In Defense of What's Within?", "author": [ { "family_name": "Cowie", "given_name": "Fiona", "clpid": "Cowie-Fiona" } ], "abstract": "In his testimony in McLean v. Arkansas Board of Education, 529 F.Supp.1255\n(E.D. Ark. 1982), Michael Ruse cites the lack of integrity and closed-mindedness\nof Creationists\u2014in addition to Creationism's untestability, absence of\npredictive power and tendency to appeal to miracles by way of 'explanation'\nof natural phenomena\u2014as reasons to deny Creationism scientific status. While\none may quibble with Ruse's contention that the character of its advocates\nbears on Creationism's claim to be a science, one can at least agree with him\nthat it's pointless to attempt to shake Creationists from their beliefs by the\napplication of reasoned argument and evidence. Arguing with Creationists, as\nRuse's testimony emphasizes, is like arguing with the business end of a cricket\nbat: however many bits of empirical evidence or carefully-fashioned argument\nyou lob at them, they whack them undigested right back at you, only harder\nand a lot nastier.\n\nArguing with Nativists is sometimes like that too. Thus, it is a great relief\nto find Louise Antony and Robert Matthews expressing their critical reactions\nto What's Within? (Cowie 1999) in such reasonable and respectful terms. I am\ngrateful to them for transforming what might have been a thankless task\u2014the\nwriting of this response\u2014into a welcome opportunity to conclude what has\nclearly been for all of us an illuminating and enriching exchange.", "doi": "10.1111/1468-0017.00167", "issn": "0268-1064", "publisher": "Wiley", "publication": "Mind and Language", "publication_date": "2001-03", "series_number": "2", "volume": "16", "issue": "2", "pages": "231-245" }, { "id": "authors:s6j4z-28z78", "collection": "authors", "collection_id": "s6j4z-28z78", "cite_using_url": "https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechAUTHORS:20151011-052515470", "type": "book_section", "title": "The Role of Universal Grammar in Language Learning", "book_title": "What's Within? Nativism Reconsidered", "author": [ { "family_name": "Cowie", "given_name": "Fiona", "clpid": "Cowie-Fiona" } ], "abstract": "In contrast to what others may commonly believe, reflecting on the poverty of the stimulus does not sustain or reinforce the notion of learning a language within nativism. Also, although initially opposed, there are a lot more explanatory resources to empiricism than it is given credit for, particularly on issues regarding the domain-neutral mechanism for learning. While the enlightened empiricist would believe that the mechanism for language learning is general in purpose and that the theory choices of learners would be attributed to the knowledge about language that they have already obtained through experience, enlightened empiricism supports the nativist view that learning is restricted by task-specific knowledge and the constraints involved are not fixed. This chapter focuses on linguistics and examines how universal grammar is important in the processes involved in learning a language.", "doi": "10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195159783.003.0010", "isbn": "9780195123845", "publisher": "Oxford University Press", "place_of_publication": "New York", "publication_date": "1999", "pages": "239-275" }, { "id": "authors:4mj94-vf843", "collection": "authors", "collection_id": "4mj94-vf843", "cite_using_url": "https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechAUTHORS:20120112-113102983", "type": "article", "title": "Mad Dog Nativism", "author": [ { "family_name": "Cowie", "given_name": "Fiona", "clpid": "Cowie-Fiona" } ], "abstract": "In his recent book, Concepts: Where Cognitive Science Went Wrong, Jerry Fodor retracts the radical concept-nativism he once defended. Yet that position stood, virtually unchallenged, for more than twenty years. This neglect is puzzling, as Fodor's arguments against concepts being learnable from experience remain unanswered, and nativism has historically been taken very seriously as a response to empiricism's perceived shortcomings. In this paper, I urge that Fodorean nativism should indeed be rejected. I argue, however, that its deficiencies are not so obvious that they can simply be taken for granted. Fodor can counter extant objections by stressing two distinctions: between historicist and counterfactual semantic theories and between explaining reference and explaining concept-acquisition. But, I argue, this victory is pyrrhic. Reformulated as objections to his account qua theory of concept-acquisition, and not qua theory of reference, analogous difficulties are fatal to the Fodorean position.", "doi": "10.1093/bjps/49.2.227", "issn": "0007-0882", "publisher": "Oxford University Press", "publication": "British Journal for the Philosophy of Science", "publication_date": "1998-06", "series_number": "2", "volume": "49", "issue": "2", "pages": "227-252" }, { "id": "authors:xqaag-7fb19", "collection": "authors", "collection_id": "xqaag-7fb19", "cite_using_url": "https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechAUTHORS:20151011-052405799", "type": "article", "title": "The Logical Problem of Language Acquisition", "author": [ { "family_name": "Cowie", "given_name": "Fiona", "clpid": "Cowie-Fiona" } ], "abstract": "Arguments from the 'Logical Problem of Language Acquisition' suggest that since linguistic experience provides few negative data that would falsify overgeneral grammatical hypotheses, innate knowledge of the principles of Universal Grammar must constrain learners' hypothesis formulation. Although this argument indicates a need for domain-specific constraints, it does not support their innateness. Learning from mostly positive data proceeds unproblematically in virtually all domains. Since not every domain can plausibly be accorded its own special faculty, the probative value of the argument in the linguistic case is dubious. In ignoring the holistic and probablistic nature of theory construction, the argument underestimates the extent to which positive data can supply negative evidence and hence overestimates the intractability of language learning in the absence of a dedicated faculty. While nativism about language remains compelling, the alleged 'Logical Problem' contributes nothing to its plausibility and the emphasis on the Problem in the recent acquisition literature has been a mistake.", "doi": "10.1023/A:1004975305820", "issn": "0039-7857", "publisher": "Springer Netherlands", "publication": "Synthese", "publication_date": "1997-04", "series_number": "1", "volume": "111", "issue": "1", "pages": "17-51" } ]