Philosophy In An Age of Cognitive Science

Since the publication of The Embodied Mind (1991), the cognitive sciences have been turning away from the mind-as-program analogy that dominated early cognitivism towards a conception of cognitive functioning as embodied in a living organism and embedded in an environment. In the past few years, important contributions to embodied-embedded cognitive science can be found in Noe (Action in Perception), Chemero (Radical Embodied Cognitive Scie Rnce), Thompson (Mind in Life), Clark (Being There and Surfing Uncertainty), and Wheeler (Reconstructing the Cognitive World).

[A note on terminology: the new cognitive science was initially called “enactivism” because of how the cognitive functions of an organism enact or call forth its world-for-it. This lead to the rise of “4E cognitive science — cognition as extended, embedded, embodied, and enacted. At present the debate hinges on whether embodied-embedded cognitive science should dispense with the concept of representation in explaining cognitive function. Wheeler and Clark drop “enaction” because they retain an explanatory role for representation, even though representations are action-oriented and context-sensitive.]

The deeper philosophical background to “the new cognitive sciences” includes Hubert Dreyfus, Merleau-Ponty, Heidegger, Dewey, Wittgenstein, and J. J. Gibson (who was taught by one of William James’s students). It is a striking fact that embodied-embedded cognitive science promises to put an anti-Cartesian, anti-Kantian critique of intellectualism on an scientific (empirical and naturalistic) basis. Embodied-embedded cognitive science is a fruitful place where contemporary cognitive science meets with the best (in my view) of 19th- and 20th-century Eurocentric philosophy.

That’s important for anyone who thinks, with Peirce, that science has some uniquely epistemic position because scientific practices allow the world to get a vote in what we say about it (Peirce contra Rorty).

The philosophical implications of embodied-embedded cognitive science are quite fascinating and complicated. Here’s one I’ve been thinking about the past few days: embodied-embedded cognitive science can strengthen Kant’s critique of both rationalist metaphysics and empiricist epistemology.

Kant argues that objectively valid judgments (statements that can have a truth-value in some but not all possible worlds) require that concepts (rules of possible judgment) be combined with items in a spatio-temporal framework. But Kant was never able to explain how this “combination” happened; and as a result subsequent philosophers were tempted to either reduce concepts to intuitions (as in Mill’s psychologistic treatment of logic) or reduce intuitions to concepts (as in the absolute idealism of Fichte and Hegel). As C. I. Lewis and Sellars rightly saw, however, neither Mill nor Hegel could be right. Somehow, receptivity and spontaneity are both required and they must somehow be combined (at least some degree). But how?

Andy Clark’s “predictive processing” model of cognition (in Surfing Uncertainty) offers a promising option. According to Clark, we should not think of the senses as passively transmitting information to the brain; rather, the brain is constantly signaling to the senses what to expect from the play of energies across receptors (including not only exteroceptive but also interoceptive and proprioceptive receptors). The task of the senses is to convey prediction errors — to indicate how off the predictions were so that the predictions can be updated.

And this bidirectional flow of information takes place between any different levels of neuronal organization — there’s top-down and sideways propagation from the ‘higher’ neuronal levels and also bottom-up propagation from the ‘lower’ neuronal levels (including, most distally, the receptors themselves).

Now, here’s the key move: the bidirectional multilevel hierarchy of neuronal assemblies matches (but also replaces) the Kantian distinction between the understanding (concepts) and the sensibility (intuitions). And it explains the one major thing that Kant couldn’t explain: how concepts and intuitions can be combined in judgment. They are combinable in judgment (at the personal level) because they have as their neurocomputational correlates different directions of signal propagation (at the subpersonal level).

But if embodied-embedded cognitive science allows to see what was right in Kant’s high-altitude sketch of our cognitive capacities, and also allows us to vindicate that sketch in terms of empirical, naturalistic science, it also thereby strengthens both Kant’s critique of empiricism (because top-down signal propagation is necessary for sense receptors to extract any usable information about causal structure from energetic flux), and his critique of rationalism (because the proper functioning of top-down signal propagation is geared towards successful actions, and our only source of information about whether our predictions are correct are not is the bottom-up prediction errors).

And because we can understand, now, both spontaneity and receptivity in neurocomputational terms as two directions of information flow across a multilevel hierarchy, we can see that Kant, C. I. Lewis, and Sellars were correct to insist on a distinction between spontaneity and receptivity, but wrong about how to understand that distinction — and we can also see that Hegel and neo-Hegelians like Brandom and McDowell are wrong to deny that distinction.

 

 

 

 

324 thoughts on “Philosophy In An Age of Cognitive Science

  1. keiths:

    You could have asked. Instead, you seemed to want to end the discussion:

    That is correct. I’ll be up front on why: a big reason I post is to try to clarify and get helpful criticism on my understanding. But based on this and other exchanges I’ve had with you, Keith, I thought I’d reached a point of diminishing returns on that, quite likely because I simply wasn’t expressing myself clearly enough to get what I found to be helpful feedback for me.

    But I’ll give it one more go.

    I want to be clear on two things:
    1. I am trying to explain my understanding of some philosophical thinking, not take a position on it personally
    2. I understand the topics are first, the intentionality of human language, and second, how that could be naturalized.

    I responded by arguing that the evolved ability to name things (such as applying the nonsense name “Scroopy” to my cat) is not a norm:

    That remains true even though the ability in question was selectively favored by an environment in which shared linguistic norms were the norm, so to speak.

    By “naming things”, I understand you to mean assigning a reference, that is a meaning, in a language-like way.

    To do so requires following a rule. If there is no rule about what is correct meaning, and if people cannot follow rules, then there cannot be meaning. I’m not saying that uttering some random sound when your cat is around requires norms. I am saying that assigning a name requires a notion of correctness and the ability to implement that notion requires the ability to follow rules, so the name is used consistently and correctly in future.

    Could these abilities have evolved in creatures which are completely isolated, which never deal with another of their kind? Could the sophisticated implementation that humans have to make language be possible have happened without both social evolution and then social learning of what it takes to follow rules, especially for complex things like languages? Those are the questions I tried to ask. If one thinks the answers are no, as I believe many philosophers who have studied the issue do, then you cannot have a private naming.

    Had that ability evolved in a non-social environment, would you argue that ‘Scroopy’ didn’t really refer to my cat, because there were no social norms on which the intentionality could rest?

    I am saying that philosophers would argue that you could not truly name a cat, because you would have no ability to implement and follow rules to ensure you used the name consistently and properly in future.

    The first creature who used a word to refer to something else, by whatever criteria you specify, was not following in anyone else’s footsteps.

    First usage of a name, and not a random sound, is of course not following in anyone’s footsteps. The issue is how it is possible to do such a thing.

  2. BruceS,

    Right. You can’t give something a name that functions as a name if you haven’t been trained in the social practice of naming. And as a social practice, naming is subject to publicly shared norms of correctness.

    But once you’ve been instructed in naming as a social practice, you can give some particular thing a name even if you never tell anyone else what that name is.

    Notice, however, that idiosyncratic naming like that — giving a name to a cat or car or whatever — doesn’t fall afoul of the PLA. In fact the PLA is carefully tailored to the case of assigning a sign to a sensation, so it is “private” in both sign and referent.

  3. KN, to Bruce:

    Right. You can’t give something a name that functions as a name if you haven’t been trained in the social practice of naming.

    If that were true, then naming could never have gotten started.

    Someone had to go first, and that someone — whoever it was — had not been trained in the social practice of naming, because no one else had ever named anything!

  4. BruceS: By “naming things”, I understand you to mean assigning a reference, that is a meaning, in a language-like way.

    To do so requires following a rule. If there is no rule about what is correct meaning, and if people cannot follow rules, then there cannot be meaning.

    I don’t think it could possibly work that way.

    What do you make of Wittgenstein’s argument about following a rule?

    Suppose I am learning a word. It seems to me that the best I can do is make up my own rule for using that word. This already requires intentionality (perhaps what KN would call “animal intentionality”) in that it requires that I have the ability to reference that word and whatever it is supposed to refer to. Whether I make up this rule consciously or subconsciously does not seem important at this stage.

    I then start to use the word. And, in using it, I get feedback on how effectively I am communicating. This may lead me to refine (or tweak) my definition, to improve the effectiveness of my communication.

    I don’t think there is any basis for correctness of use. At best we can use pragmatics on how well we communicate with our current usage (or current self-made rules). The lack of a basis for correctness is what makes it possible for meanings to drift over time.

  5. keiths: Someone had to go first, and that someone — whoever it was — had not been trained in the social practice of naming, because no one else had ever named anything!

    That seems to assume that the act of naming precedes the social practice of having any names at all. As if the naming comes first, and only then becomes conventionalized.

    I won’t pretend to have a theory of the evolution of language, but since that there aren’t any languages that have words but no names, I’m willing to bet that the evolution of the social practice of naming went hand-in-hand with the evolution of language in general.

    Neil Rickert: Suppose I am learning a word. It seems to me that the best I can do is make up my own rule for using that word. This already requires intentionality (perhaps what KN would call “animal intentionality”) in that it requires that I have the ability to reference that word and whatever it is supposed to refer to. Whether I make up this rule consciously or subconsciously does not seem important at this stage.

    I have to say, this doesn’t cohere with my own take on what Wittgenstein taught us — though I do tend to read Wittgenstein through some pretty hefty Sellarsian lenses.

    I would say that when a young child begins to spontaneously produce words in imitation of older children and adults, it isn’t following any rules at all — not even its own idiosyncratic, private, implicit rules. Rather, its behavior becomes rule-following behavior as some uses are encouraged and others discouraged. When someone who already knows a language is learning a new word in that language or acquiring a second language, she already possesses a background of implicit abilities about how to ask what a word means, how to figure out what a rule is, and even how to ask about what a rule is.

    I don’t think there is any basis for correctness of use. At best we can use pragmatics on how well we communicate with our current usage (or current self-made rules). The lack of a basis for correctness is what makes it possible for meanings to drift over time.

    That depends on what “basis” could be. As I see, the norms of the linguistic community are the basis of correctness for any individual’s use of a term. The reason why meanings drift over time is because the norms of the community are not themselves grounded in anything deeper or more ultimate than the community itself.

  6. KN,

    That seems to assume that the act of naming precedes the social practice of having any names at all. As if the naming comes first, and only then becomes conventionalized.

    How could it be otherwise? Do you think humans instituted the social practice of naming before a single person had named anything?

    …I’m willing to bet that the evolution of the social practice of naming went hand-in-hand with the evolution of language in general.

    That doesn’t help. The first instance of naming — by whatever criteria you define it — had to precede its establishment as a social practice.

  7. Kantian Naturalist:
    ,

    I’m not quite sure about that, actually. I think that Beisecker is making a nice point about the deep connection between intentionality and normativity, but it’s part of his Pittsburgh-School pragmatism that he makes that connection. It’s not industry-standard among philosophers who wrestle with these issues. But I might be mistaken about that.

    Normativity always comes up in any reading I do about naturalizing intentionality; for example, why simple causal covariation approaches to naturalization fail because they do not deal with the disjunction problem.

    That normativity can go under the guise of the semantic nature of intentionality or in the need to handle misrepresentation or in the success conditions for an intentional action. I understand all of those as relying on the idea that norms are part of intentionality.

    Since handling misrepresentation always comes up as a necessary condition for naturalization, I take that to mean philosophers consider it an essential part of intentionality.

  8. keiths, as you were helpful in explaining the biz regarding Copernicanism to me when I was confused by some things Neil had written, maybe you’d care to take a shot at explaining to me why it’s thought (by Bruce and I think some others) that DNA sequences are, if not themselves a language or code, the interpretation of a language or code, while other natural pairings in the world are NOT either a code or the interpretation of a code. I don’t understand why some mappable pairs are thought to have this linguistic aspect, but others are not.

    I’m guessing you get this, whether you agree with that position or not, and I’d be grateful for an (elementary school level) explanation. Thanks.

  9. Neil Rickert: I don’t think it could possibly work that way.

    What do you make of Wittgenstein’s argument about following a rule?

    There are so many aspects to how that part of Witt has been interpreted and what people have said in answer to the puzzle he (might be) posing. I’d need to understand more specifically what you are referring to in order to respond.

    I agree with KN’s replies to your other points. In particular, how can there be feedback if there is not a standard of correctness? I’m assuming you are using feedback in the sense of correcting an error of usage. If there were no standard (which might be vague in some ways) on which the feedback is based, then people could not communicate.

    As KN points out, it is true that standards of usage can change over time or vary among communities, but that does not materially alter the main point.

  10. walto:
    keiths, as you were helpful in explaining the biz regarding Copernicanism to me when I was confused by some things Neil had written, maybe you’d care to take a shot at explaining to me why it’s thought (by Bruce and I think some others) that DNA sequences are, if not themselves a language or code, the interpretation of a language or code, while other natural pairings in the world are NOT either a code or the interpretation of a code. I don’t understand why some mappable pairs are thought to have this linguistic aspect, but others are not.

    I’m guessing you get this, whether you agree with that position or not, and I’d be grateful for an (elementary school level) explanation.Thanks.

    Just to be clear, I did not mean to say that other pairings in the world could not be the basis for making up some formal language which would then have one possible interpretation in that physical process. I merely said I would not know how to do it since I don’t understand what the mapping could be and how to create the right list of words.

    Did my ETA clarifying that strings in a formal language have no meaning help? The BNR defining the language only provides standards for correct syntax: the list of possible words and how they can be combined into sentences of the language.

    Plus I should say there are likely many other formal languages which can be interpreted as DNA replication. I think you just need enough words to handle the different bases and proteins and a syntax which forces the sentences into a maps-to structure.

    I’d also say that I am not sure what you mean by the “linguistic aspect”; I want to confirm that I am only talking about formal languages and the concept of reference/semantics involved in providing a model for them.

    Is it helpful to point out that (as I understand it ), Taski’s truth theory involves similar concepts of defining a formal language and then needing an interpretation for semantics/truth conditions?

  11. keiths:

    Someone had to go first, and that someone — whoever it was — had not been trained in the social practice of naming, because no one else had ever named anything!

    But what type of evolutionary and cultural history preceded that ability to start naming things?

    Perhaps it would help if you could be clearer on what you see as the difference between naming an object as part of language-based communication and uttering random grunt every time you encounter the object.

    The language-based proviso is important; I want to differentiate names in a language from the sort of things bee dances do in “naming” the location of pollen.

    ETA: In particular, language involves productivity, recursivity, and displacement. That is, we can understand novel sentences by their structure, we can create an infinite number of sentences, and we can refer to things displaced in space or time. So assigning a name has to make it capable of participating in those aspects of human language.

  12. Kantian Naturalist: Kantian

    Interesting paper, which I took as an argument for incompleteness in the PP account with respect to
    (1) the need to evaluate goals as being better or worse for an animal in particular circumstances. This cannot be explained just be minimzing prediction error without some normative guidelines. But note these this norms could be implemented by variable weighting on prediction errors with respect to different priors. I thought his “fictive error signals” might reflect that idea.

    I do agree that Clark’s book lacks a detailed explanation for naturalizing norms in a PP context, even assuming that eg Millikan or Eliasmith’s approach works in general.

    (2) evaluating goals in complex circumstance such as human culture, and even more so, assigning value to creating novel goals which are inconsistent with social standards, as people can do.

    Here there is not only the issue of coming up with a mechanism in PP terms, but of dealing with how norms can be naturallistically explained. This type of novelty in the expectations/goals creating mechanisms is a challenge for Millikan’s derived proper functions too, I believe.

    FWIW, the paper’s references to brain components and their role in decision echoes those I’ve seen in neuroeconomics which I’d mentioned earlier

  13. All this sounds to me like speculation about OOL. In this case, origin of language.

    Chomsky made a fool of himself by asserting it must have happened in one big saltation event. A more subtle kind of foolishness is to assume it arose entirely by selection.

  14. petrushka,

    Chomsky made a fool of himself by asserting it must have happened in one big saltation event. A more subtle kind of foolishness is to assume it arose entirely by selection.

    Who are the advocates of the selection-only view?

  15. BruceS: Just to be clear, I did not mean to say that other pairings in the world could not be the basis for making up some formal language which would then have one possible interpretation in that physical process.I merely said I would not know how to do it since I don’t understand what the mapping could be and how to create the right list of words.

    Did my ETA clarifying that strings in a formal language have no meaning help? The BNR defining the language only provides standards for correct syntax:the list of possible words and how they can be combined into sentences of the language.

    Plus I should say there are likely many other formal languages which can be interpreted as DNA replication.I think you just need enough words to handle the different bases and proteins and a syntax which forces the sentences into a maps-to structure.

    I’d also say that I am not sure what you mean by the “linguistic aspect”; I want to confirm that I am only talking about formal languages and the concept of reference/semantics involved in providing a model for them.

    Is it helpful to point out that (as I understand it ), Taski’s truth theory involves similar concepts of defining a formal language and then needing an interpretation for semantics/truth conditions?

    Thanks for these comments, but they don’t really answer my question which is what is considered special about the DNA strings as compared with other naturally occuring pairs and/or processes. It’s obviously important to some people that this particular process be a code (or, if you insist, an interpretation of a code), while the rest don’t have this claimed……specialness. That’s what I’m looking for.

    Again, I don’t think Tarski helps here.

  16. Alan Fox: Are you calling me a fool?

    I don’t doubt that language ability has been reinforced by selection, but I don’t think all the bits and pieces were selected because they contributed to language. I would bet that a lot of necessary bits were neutral fixations.

  17. Alan Fox: Are you calling me a fool?

    I would assume that language evolved by the kind of fits and starts observed in Lenski’s experiment. Two steps neutral or slightly detrimental for each step forward.

    If we assume that language evolved largely as bits and pieces fixed for other reasons, we can discuss Chomsky’s saltation event without assuming a single large and improbable mutation.

  18. petrushka: I don’t doubt that language ability has been reinforced by selection, but I don’t think all the bits and pieces were selected because they contributed to language. I would bet that a lot of necessary bits were neutral fixations

    The study you just linked to suggests a selective advantage for a proto-language as helping the spread of tool-making skills. We can see a wide range of vocal skills as effective communication in other social primates. The enlarged areas of the brain and the changes in the hyoid bone also suggest development of complex language from earlier proto-language has deep roots, at least 500,000 years.

  19. petrushka: If we assume that language evolved largely as bits and pieces fixed for other reasons, we can discuss Chomsky’s saltation event without assuming a single large and improbable mutation.

    Other reasons than pure utility? Why not indeed! I think sexual selection is a good explanation for early and fast development of language skills. Speech is sexy.

  20. I would, for purely ideological reasons, envision the “rapid” evolution of language to be built on an edifice of structures evolved for other reasons, possibly on neutral evolution.

    I do not see language as occupying a privileged or “exceptional” position in the pantheon of behavior. It is certainly remarkable and has enabled the reshaping of the landscape and the ecosystem, but then so did photosynthesis and endosymbiosis and the invention of multi-cellularity.

  21. walto: Thanks for these comments, but they don’t really answer my question which is what is considered special about the DNA strings as compared with other naturally occuring pairs and/or processes.It’s obviously important to some people that this particular process be a code (or, if you insist, an interpretation of a code), while the rest don’t have this claimed……specialness.That’s what I’m looking for.

    My post about formal languages has nothing to do with the question of why other people think it is important. It was merely responding to a question of theoretical interest (to me anyway): in what sense could we related a language and the DNA code. And my answer was via a formal language and here is how.

    Not what you were looking for, it seems, but I had fun recalling some old stuff.

    In another post, I mentioned that I think some biosemioticians would say the DNA code acts as regulator or formal cause for DNA transcription. But they would not see any such role for tree rings and ages. The code is integral to the transcription process, but the tree ring/age effect is more like a side effect of how trees grow. That post might answer your question as it pertains to people who subscribe to that type of biosemiosis.

    But that second post as nothing to do with formal languages and their models.

  22. Bruce,

    The language-based proviso is important; I want to differentiate names in a language from the sort of things bee dances do in “naming” the location of pollen.

    ETA: In particular, language involves productivity, recursivity, and displacement. That is, we can understand novel sentences by their structure, we can create an infinite number of sentences, and we can refer to things displaced in space or time. So assigning a name has to make it capable of participating in those aspects of human language.

    Productivity, recursivity and displacement depend on naming, but not vice-versa.

    Compare these two scenarios:

    Scenario 1:

    1a. A complicated linguistic faculty, exhibiting productivity, recursivity, and displacement, arose in humans.

    1b. Then, someone named something for the very first time.

    Scenario 2:

    2a. Someone named something for the very first time.

    2b. Over a long period, this rudimentary linguistic ability developed into something much more complex, eventually exhibiting productivity, recursivity, and displacement.

    Scenario #1 seems ludicrous to me, but scenario #2 makes sense.

    If you disagree, why?

    If you agree, then why do you regard naming as dependent on things that could only have arisen later?

    The same question applies to KN in regards to naming vs. “the social practice of naming”.

  23. keiths:
    Bruce,

    Productivity, recursivity and displacement depend on naming, but not vice-versa.

    Compare these two scenarios:

    Scenario 1:

    Scenario 2:

    Scenario #1 seems ludicrous to me, but scenario #2 makes sense.

    If you disagree, why?

    If you agree, then why do you regard naming as dependent on things that could only have arisen later?

    The same question applies to KN in regards to naming vs. “the social practice of naming”.

    FWIW, I think one has to be clear about what is entailed by being named to pick between those alternatives. It may be you have a more stripped down version in mind than Bruce and KN. I think you’re right that some such (let’s call it) ‘miinimal reference’ has to come before that other stuff, but if they deny that’s enough for what they call ‘naming’…..

  24. keiths:

    If you agree, then why do you regard naming as dependent on things that could only have arisen later?

    The naming practice of lesser evolved (both physically and culturally) was different from ours. As were their norms. But does not mean there were no norms and that the norms that existed were not based on the social culture that existed at that stage of evolution.

    I agree the sophistication of each changed through time. But they existed from the start of humanity, since they exist in a pre-linguistic sense in our primate ancestors.

    I think I will bow out now.

  25. walto: FWIW, I think one has to be clear about what is entailed by being named to pick between those alternatives. It may be you have a more stripped down version in mind than Bruce and KN. I think you’re right that some such (let’s call it) ‘miinimal reference’ has to come before that other stuff, but if they deny that’s enough for what they call ‘naming’…..

    I think the argument has been about the need for norms to create new words in order to have some way to use the word consistently and correctly in the future.

    An important distinction that has not come up yet is between the norms for social conventions of meaning and correct usage of sentences versus the origin of the derived intentionality of language.

    They are two different things, I believe.

    I think most philosophers would say original intentionality is in the speaker, with a minority putting original intentionality in society.

  26. walto,

    FWIW, I think one has to be clear about what is entailed by being named to pick between those alternatives. It may be you have a more stripped down version in mind than Bruce and KN. I think you’re right that some such (let’s call it) ‘miinimal reference’ has to come before that other stuff, but if they deny that’s enough for what they call ‘naming’…..

    That’s why I wrote this:

    The first instance of naming — by whatever criteria you define it — had to precede its establishment as a social practice.

    [Emphasis added]

    In any case, assigning the name ‘Scroopy’ to my cat seems like a pretty stripped-down form of reference to me.

  27. BruceS: I think the argument has been about the need for norms to create new words in order to have some way to use the word consistently and correctly in the future.

    An important distinction that has not come up yet is between the norms for social conventions of meaning and correct usage of sentences versus the origin of the derived intentionality of language.

    They are two different things, I believe.

    I think most philosophers would say original intentionality is in the speaker, with a minority putting original intentionality in society.

    So, keiths asks, suppose there aren’t any norms of that kind. Can there be a name anyhow?

  28. keiths:
    walto,

    That’s why I wrote this:

    In any case, assigning the name ‘Scroopy’ to my cat seems like a pretty stripped-down form of reference to me.

    That seems right to me. We could call them “proto-names” if they make a stink.

  29. Kantian Naturalist: I have to say, this doesn’t cohere with my own take on what Wittgenstein taught us — though I do tend to read Wittgenstein through some pretty hefty Sellarsian lenses.

    I’m not getting that from Wittgenstein. Rather, it is from my own attempt to understand language acquisition.

    The problem here is that meaning cannot be rule based, at least in the ordinary meaning of “rule”. For to be able to give ordinary rules of meaning would require that the words and their meaning are already expressible in known language. This is roughly the problem you get with a dictionary, where definitions of meaning are often circular (perhaps a long circular chain).

    When I suggested that the child has to make up his own rules, I was thinking of something like rules connecting sounds to private perceptual operations. Here, the sounds are public, but the perceptual operations are not.

    I would say that when a young child begins to spontaneously produce words in imitation of older children and adults, it isn’t following any rules at all — not even its own idiosyncratic, private, implicit rules.

    But then the child would be producing gibberish. In order to have some sort of consistency, so that similar sounds are made in similar circumstance, the child must have at least some sort of crude implicit rules.

    As I see, the norms of the linguistic community are the basis of correctness for any individual’s use of a term.

    I don’t agree, though perhaps we mean different things by “correctness”.

    It seems to me that norms can be some sort of standard of acceptability to the community. But I don’t see that as the same thing as correctness.

  30. walto: So, keiths asks, suppose there aren’t any norms of that kind.Can there be a name anyhow?

    Two different topics at play here.

    The first is could a modern, normally-developed person invent a private name for his or her cat without having had the benefit of learning a language and then drawing on that skill as part of the naming process? I say no.

    How would you be able to say that you will use the name consistently and correctly? By writing it down? By remembering a language-description of the cat “I named the cat ‘x'”? Those don’t meet the conditions of the challenge since these both involve language.

    By remembering some private mental sensation of the cat and … what? A written word?

    How would you do it?

    You have a language if you memorize a word or a description of the situation. Or if you think you can do it by memorizing a private sensation, then you have the basic PLA I believe.

    If you can think of some other way, then we’d likely get into the issue of whether that private name is part of a language using the criteria I mentioned for human languages as opposed to animal communication.

    The second topic is how languages developed and how the practice of assigning names could have happened for early humans. I think we have to recognize that apes are social, gesture using animals. The ability to rely on and use social norms is a given for that early human.

    But I don’t really understand what the situation is. What can be meant by “name” unless we have the framework of some kind of language? So you would have to be more specific on definitions for me to try to respond. And then we would likely get into an argument about whether that was really a name in any meaningful language sense.

    Lots of speculation and personal opinion in that type of discussion which is why I suspect I would bow out.

  31. Neil Rickert

    It seems to me that norms can be some sort of standard of acceptability to the community.But I don’t see that as the same thing as correctness.

    FWIW, that is how I understood norms: the socially-sourced standards for usage. I would have called those the standards for correctness. So it does seem you have something else in mind by “correct” than I have.

  32. walto,

    Thanks for these comments, but they don’t really answer my question which is what is considered special about the DNA strings as compared with other naturally occuring pairs and/or processes.

    What is unique about nucleic acids is self-affinity. A strand of nucleic acid will pair strongly with a complementary strand oriented in precisely the opposite direction (which may be the same strand turned around on itself). People love to see programming and language in there, because there are elements of control, and a language-like modular nature to the polymers, both primary and secondary.

    But it’s this physical affinity that leads to all other consequences. There is no comparable affinity in any other pairing, to my knowledge. Even the pairing with tRNA in protein translation is mediated through the same mechanism of base pairing, as is the building of an mRNA strand or the polymerisation of an entire genome (those are very similar processes). It’s a physical relationship of binding, not a representational one, although there is a sense in which a bare strand ‘specifies’ its complement. It does so through binding.

  33. Allan Miller:
    walto,

    What is unique about nucleic acids is self-affinity. A strand of nucleic acid will pair strongly with a complementary strand oriented in precisely the opposite direction (which may be the same strand turned around on itself). People love to see programming and language in there, because there are elements of control, and a language-like modular nature to the polymers, both primary and secondary.

    But it’s this physical affinity that leads to all other consequences. There is no comparable affinity in any other pairing, to my knowledge. Even the pairing with tRNA in protein translation is mediated through the same mechanism of base pairing, as is the building of an mRNA strand or the polymerisation of an entire genome (those are very similar processes). It’s a physical relationship of binding, not a representational one, although there is a sense in which a bare strand ‘specifies’ its complement. It does so through binding.

    Thanks, Allan. Very helpful and just the sort of thing I was looking for. I’m sorry if you’ve explained this to me before already and apologize in advance for when I ask you again later…..

  34. BruceS: Two different topics at play here.

    The first is could a modern, normally-developed person invent a private name for his or her cat without having had the benefit of learning a language and then drawing on that skill as part of the naming process?I say no.

    How would you be able to say that you will use the name consistently and correctly?By writing it down?By remembering a language-description of the cat “I named the cat ‘x’”?Those don’t meet the conditions of the challenge since these both involve language.

    By remembering some private mental sensation of the cat and … what? A written word?

    How would you do it?

    You have a language if you memorize a word or a description of the situation.Orif you think you can do it by memorizing a private sensation, then you have the basic PLA I believe.

    If you can think of some other way, then we’d likely get into the issue of whether that private name is part of a language using the criteria I mentioned for human languages as opposed to animal communication.

    The second topic is how languages developed and how the practice of assigningnames could have happened for early humans.I think we have to recognize that apes are social, gesture using animals.The ability to rely on and use social norms is a given for that early human.

    But I don’t really understand what the situation is.What can be meant by“name” unless we have the framework of some kind of language?So you would have to be more specific on definitions for me to try to respond.And then we would likely get into an argument about whether that was really a name in any meaningful language sense.

    Lots of speculation and personal opinion in that type of discussion which is why I suspect I would bow out.

    As (IMHO) Putnam has illustrated best, reference isn’t really definable. Whatever constraints we apply to connect the word and the thing it’s supposed to name, we fail to get the proper connection and, as he says, attempts at additional restrictions end up being “just more theory.”

    So we have to take naming/reference as fundamental, indefinable. So the basic question here is: Can this relation occur on an individual basis–without societal assistance or methods of enforcement? There is, as keiths indicated, also a (different) question about whether private sensations are the sorts of things that can be named, and there are historical questions of how it all this naming got going. But those are secondary. The key question is, again, Can reference occur on a strictly individual basis?

    And I agree with keiths not only that it can, but that it must. I charitably read Witt’s PLA as principally about the naming of sensations matter.

  35. walto: As (IMHO) Putnam has illustrated best, reference isn’t really definable.Whatever constraints we apply to connect the word and the thing it’s supposed to name, we fail to get the proper connection and, as he says, attempts at additional restrictions end up being “just more theory.”

    So we have to take naming/reference as fundamental, indefinable.

    And I agree with keiths not only that it can, but that it must.I charitably read Witt’s PLA as principally about the naming of sensations matter.

    First, taking reference as indefinable is, as I understand it, to say the naturalization project for mental representation must fail. Is that a correct understanding of your position?

    But back to the topic at hand. I am talking about the reference involved in creating a word in a language. So it is about derived intentionality of words and languages and the need for norms to make that work.

    Reference solely by mental representation would be different, I think. If you are saying I can recognize my cat when I see her, then I agree. And my cat can do the same with me.

    But my cat cannot create a name for me as I can for her. What is the difference between us? I say it is because we have languages. And that languages require social norms. That is all I was trying to defend.*

    On a related note, I’ve been looking at Putnam on realism as he is seen in an essay by Richard Boyd. Boyd promotes a position that says natural kind terms gain their reference by being part of a process that simultaneously defines the kind and creates the referring term. This process involves our social practices accommodating themselves to the causal structures of the world. Of course, there are a lot more details. Putnam seems in broad agreement in his reply, although he did have concerns with some of the details.

    Have you ever come across that approach, which Boyd calls “accommodationism”?

    ——————
    * (ETA) I need to clarify that I have also said we need norms for mental representation. The social and conventional norms for language are in addition to those.

    So there is the issue of where those norms for mental representation come from. As I understand him, Brandom says they too are social. Dennett agrees Brandom’s story is right for language, but is incomplete in that it does not fully naturalize those norms. Other philosophers disagree with Brandom and Dennett and say the intentionality of language derives from the purposes of speakers (Grice) or other individual mental states.

  36. walto: So we have to take naming/reference as fundamental, indefinable.

    I agree with “indefinable”. But I am skeptical of “fundamental”.

    For that matter, it has never seemed to me that words are names. Maybe “names” is the best we can do at present, but it seems wrong. There often isn’t anything being named. Reference is complicated, but natural language reference doesn’t work the same way as reference in a formal language.

  37. A lot of words have been written about language, but I don’t think anyone has ever improved on Skinner’s Verbal Behavior.

  38. petrushka:
    A lot of words have been written about language, but I don’t think anyone has ever improved on Skinner’s Verbal Behavior.

    See, that’s the kind of big time pontification I just LOVE!

    Much as I do enjoy Skinner’s discussion of the “autoclitic process.” 😉

  39. BruceS: So there is the issue of where those norms for mental representation come from. As I understand him, Brandom says they too are social. Dennett agrees Brandom’s story is right for language, but is incomplete in that it does not fully naturalize those norms. Other philosophers disagree with Brandom and Dennett and say the intentionality of language derives from the purposes of speakers (Grice) or other individual mental states.

    Right. Dennett and Brandom agree with Sellars that the intentionality of mental states is best understood on analogy with the intentionality of language. (Though by the end of his work Sellars was moving more towards Millikan’s position about what the intentionality of mental states really is, naturalistically construed.)

    Dennett’s criticism of Brandom is that the intentionality of the linguistic community is fine for understanding the intentionality of individual linguistic agents, but that Brandom can’t explain the origins of the linguistic community itself, so it ends up being one big ‘skyhook’ (in Dennett’s sense — a posit that can’t be naturalized).

    I think — and I’m fairly sure that Brandom would agree with this — that Tomasello’s account of the origins of language actually does show us how to get to linguistic intentionality through a series of “cranes”. But Brandom seems not to notice that Tomasello’s solution requires positing non-linguistic, individual animal intentionality — Tomasello is perfectly explicit about this! — and that can’t be squared with a Brandomian account.

    That’s why I find Beisecker’s work promising, though terribly sketchy — it offers a way of thinking about non-linguistic, non-social animal intentionality that also avoids both Dennett’s anti-realism about intentionality and Haugeland’s criticism of Millikan’s account of biological intentionality.

    What we need here is a more fleshed out version of Beisecker’s account that is both better grounded in what we know about animal behavior — no toy examples! — and also takes into account our best conjectures about neural computation.

  40. walto: See, that’s the kind of big time pontification I just LOVE!
    Much as I do enjoy Skinner’s discussion of the “autoclitic process.”

    I don’t think Skinner has a finished product. I simply think nothing about language makes sense except in the light of evolution. In this case, evolution of behavior.

  41. Kantian Naturalist:

    What we need here is a more fleshed out version of Beisecker’s account that is both better grounded in what we know about animal behavior — no toy examples! — and also takes into account our best conjectures about neural computation.

    Sounds like an opportunity for an enterprising philosopher, though I suggest looking at Millikan for ideas because I think she already covers what Beisecker does but with more detail . Plus Eliasmith (2005) (from Clark) to get an approach which comes from the neural perspective; I this is control theory ideas are translatable to PP.

    Thanks for the feedback on Brandom/Dennett; I’m glad I was near the ballpark with my brief paragraph.

  42. BruceS: Plus Eliasmith (2005) (from Clark) to get an approach which comes from the neural perspective; I this is control theory ideas are translatable to PP.

    Is that

    Eliasmith, C. (2005). A unified approach to building and controlling spiking attractor networks. Neural Computation. 17(6): 1276-1314

    or

    Eliasmith, C. (2005). A new perspective on representational problems. Journal of Cognitive Science. 6: 97-123.

    ???

  43. petrushka: I don’t think Skinner has a finished product. I simply think nothing about language makes sense except in the light of evolution. In this case, evolution of behavior.

    Perhaps the brain has something to do with behavior? And it might be helpful to understand how it does so? Pretty far out thinking, I know, but still….

  44. petrushka: I simply think nothing about language makes sense except in the light of evolution.

    Agreed. And I don’t think philosophers will make progress unless they take KN’s advice and look at real-world examples of non-human animal communication to get some feeling for how things might have evolved.

  45. Alan Fox: Agreed. And I don’t think philosophers will make progress unless they take KN’s advice and look at real-world examples of non-human animal communication to get some feeling for how things might have evolved.

    Do you really don’t think they don’t that already???

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