Philosophy Research Works

Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/1626

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On Fodor's Problem
(Blackwell Publishing, Ltd., 2003-11) Carruthers, Peter
This paper sketches a solution to a problem which has been emphasized by Fodor. This is the problem of how to explain distinctively-human flexible cognition in modular terms. There are three aspects to the proposed account. First, it is suggested that natural language sentences might serve to integrate the outputs of a number of conceptual modules. Second, a creative sentence-generator, or supposer, is postulated. And third, it is argued that a set of principles of inference to the best explanation can be constructed from already-extant aspects of linguistic testimony and discourse interpretation. Most importantly, it is suggested that the resulting architecture should be implementable in ways that are computationally tractable.
Thinking in Language?: Evolution and a Modularist Possibility
(Cambridge University Press, 1998) Carruthers, Peter
This chapter argues that our language faculty can both be a peripheral module of the mind and be crucially implicated in a variety of central cognitive functions, including conscious propositional thinking and reasoning. I also sketch arguments for the view that natural language representations (e.g. of Chomsky’s Logical Form, or LF) might serve as a lingua franca for interactions (both conscious and non-conscious) between a number of quasi-modular central systems. The ideas presented are compared and contrasted with the evolutionary proposals made by Derek Bickerton (1990, 1995), who has also argued for the involvement of language in thought. Finally, I propose that it was the evolution of a mechanism responsible for pretend play, circa 40,000 years ago, which led to the explosion of creative culture visible in the fossil record from that time onwards.