Nativism in Cognitive Science

We start with an observation about implicit quantifier domain restriction: certain implicit restrictions (e.g., restricting objects by location and time) appear to be more natural and widely available than others (e.g., restricting objects by color, aesthetic, or historical properties). Our aim is to explain why this is. That is, we aim to explain why some implicit domain restriction possibilities are available by default. We argue that, regardless of their other explanatory virtues, extant pragmatic and metasemantic frameworks leave this question unanswered. (...) We then motivate a partially nativist account of domain restriction that involves a minimal view of joint planning around broad shared goals about navigating and influencing our environments augmented with cognitive heuristics that facilitate these. Finally, we sketch how the view can be extended to account for the ways non-default restriction possibilities become available when conversationalists have shared idiosyncratic goals. (shrink)

The human mind is capable of entertaining an astounding range of thoughts. These thoughts are composed of concepts or ideas, which are the building blocks of thoughts. This book is about where all of these concepts come from and the psychological structures that ultimately account for their acquisition. We argue that the debate over the origins of concepts, known as the rationalism-empiricism debate, has been widely misunderstood—not just by its critics but also by researchers who have been active participants in (...) the debate. Part I fundamentally rethinks the foundations of the debate. Part II defends a rationalist view of the origins of concepts according to which many concepts across many conceptual domains are either innate or acquired via rationalist learning mechanisms. Our case is built around seven distinct arguments, which together form a large-scale inference to the best explanation argument for our account. Part III then defends this account against the most important empiricist objections and alternatives. Finally, Part IV argues against an extreme but highly influential rationalist view—Jerry Fodor’s infamous view that it is impossible to learn new concepts and his related radical concept nativism, which holds that essentially all lexical concepts are innate. Throughout the book, our discussion blends philosophical and theoretical reflection with consideration of a broad range of empirical work drawn from many different disciplines studying the mind, providing a thorough update to the rationalism-empiricism debate in philosophy and cognitive science and a major new rationalist account of the origins of concepts. [An open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence]. (shrink)

After introducing the new field of cultural evolution, we review a growing body of empirical evidence suggesting that culture shapes what people attend to, perceive and remember as well as how they think, feel and reason. Focusing on perception, spatial navigation, mentalizing, thinking styles, reasoning (epistemic norms) and language, we discuss not only important variation in these domains, but emphasize that most researchers (including philosophers) and research participants are psychologically peculiar within a global and historical context. This rising tide of (...) evidence recommends caution in relying on one’s intuitions or even in generalizing from reliable psychological findings to the species, Homo sapiens. Our evolutionary approach suggests that humans have evolved a suite of reliably developing cognitive abilities that adapt our minds, information-processing abilities and emotions ontogenetically to the diverse culturally-constructed worlds we confront. (shrink)

The article is dedicated to the popular argument among nativists, who use it against the empiricist approach. We analyze the strongest objection against the poverty of the stimulus argument which is the curry argument. As a result of the critical consideration of the poverty of the stimulus discussion, we conclude that the curry argument is quite sound.

This paper will focus on a famous nineteenth century debate over the physiology of perception between Ewald Hering and Hermann von Helmholtz. This debate is often explained as a contest between empiricism (Helmholtz) and nativism (Hering) about perception. I will argue that this is only part of the picture. Hering was a pioneer of Lamarckian explanations, arguing for an early version of the biogenetic law. Hering explains physical processes, including perception, in terms of ‘organic memory’ that is supported by ‘vital (...) forces’ located throughout the body. Helmholtz, on the other hand, argues that vital forces are in direct conflict with the results he and others proved in the 1840s and 50s on the conservation of force. The battleground of the debate was the interpretation of Johannes Müller’s ‘law of specific nerve energies’, which Hering interpreted in terms of vital forces, and Helmholtz interpreted using a naturalized neo-Kantian approach. In the end, the debate revealed deep fissures in nineteenth century accounts of scientific explanation, as well as in the conception of how physiology, psychology, physics, and philosophy are related. (shrink)

Human behavior and thought often exhibit a familiar pattern of within group similarity and between group difference. Many of these patterns are attributed to cultural differences. For much of the history of its investigation into behavior and thought, however, cognitive science has been disproportionately focused on uncovering and explaining the more universal features of human minds—or the universal features of minds in general. -/- This entry charts out the ways in which this has changed over recent decades. It sketches the (...) motivation behind the cultural turn in cognitive science, and situates some of its central findings with respect to the questions that animate it and the debates that it has inspired. Woven throughout the entry are examples of how the cognitive science of culture, and especially its elevated concern with different forms of diversity and variation, continues to influence and be influenced by philosophers. -/- One cluster of philosophical work falls within the traditional subject matter of philosophy of science, in this case of the cognitive and social sciences. Philosophers have analyzed and assessed the methods and evidence central to the scientific study of cognition and culture, and have offered conceptual scrutiny, clarification, and synthesis. Research in a second vein sees philosophers themselves contributing more directly to cognitive scientific projects, (co)constructing theories, helping build computational models, even gathering empirical data. A third kind of work is naturalistic philosophy or philosophy of nature, wherein philosophers seek to use results from the cognitive science of culture to inform or transform debates over long-standing philosophical questions, including questions about the nature of philosophy and philosophical methodology itself. (shrink)

This article explores three ways in which a cognitively entrenched mindreading (or 'theory of mind') system may bias our thinking as cognitive scientists. One issues in a form of tacit dualism, impacting scientific debates about phenomenal consciousness. Another leads us to think that our own minds are easier to know than they really are, influencing debates about self-knowledge, and about mindreading itself. And the third results in a bias in favour of empiricist over nativist accounts of cognitive development. The discussion (...) throughout is tentative and speculative, and can be regarded as an appeal for caution, as well as a call for further research. (shrink)

The innate knowledge problem is a classical problem in philosophy, which has been known since the classical antiquity. Plato in his dialogues Meno and Phaedo formulated the doctrine of innate ideas and proposed an early version of the poverty of the stimulus argument, which is the most frequently used argument in innate knowledge debates. In the history of philosophy there was also an opposite view. This approach is often associated with J. Locke’s philosophy. Locke thought that all our knowledge about (...) the world is a product of the universal learning mechanisms whose functioning is based on perception. The question about the presence of innate ideas in the human mind still remains relevant. New findings in cognitive science and neurosciences and also some recent arguments from philosophers contribute to the contemporary discussion between the spokesmen of the rival approaches to this problem. The paper presents the investigation of one of the approaches to solving the problem of innate concepts, which is called a “concept nativism.” It highlights the outstanding characteristics of the concept nativism: (a) domain specificity position, (b) belief that domain-specific mechanisms of learning are innate and (c) belief that at least some concepts are innate. The article also proposes an analysis of notions “innateness” and “idea” which is important for understanding nativists’ approach to innate ideas theory. And finally, it describes the most popular nativists’ arguments: (a) references to empirical studies using the preferential looking technique, (b) the poverty of the stimulus argument and (c) the argument from animals. (shrink)

The main thesis of Heyes' book is that all of the domain-specific learning mechanisms that make the human mind so different from the minds of other animals are culturally created and culturally acquired gadgets. The only innate differences are some motivational tweaks, enhanced capacities for associative learning, and enhanced executive function abilities. But Heyes' argument depends on contrasting cognitive gadgets with cognitive instincts, which are said to be innately specified. This ignores what has for some years been the mainstream nativist/anti-empiricist (...) view, which commits only to partially specified learning systems that become elaborated and built through domain-specific learning. (shrink)

This paper is principally devoted to comparing and contrasting poverty of stimulus arguments for innate cognitive apparatus in relation to language and in relation to folk psychology. These days one is no longer allowed to use the term ‘innate’ without saying what one means by it. So I will begin by saying what I mean by ‘innate’. Sections 2 and 3 will discuss language and theory of mind, respectively. Along the way, I will also briefly discuss other arguments for innate (...) cognitive apparatus in these areas. (shrink)

This is the third volume of a three-volume set on The Innate Mind. The extent to which cognitive structures, processes, and contents are innate is one of the central questions concerning the nature of the mind, with important implications for debates throughout the human sciences. By bringing together the top nativist scholars in philosophy, psychology, and allied disciplines these volumes provide a comprehensive assessment of nativist thought and a definitive reference point for future nativist inquiry. The Innate Mind: Volume 3: (...) Foundations and the Future, concerns a variety of foundational issues, as well as questions about the direction of future nativist research. It addresses such questions as: What is innateness? Is it a confused notion? What is at stake in debates between nativists and empiricists? What is the relationship between genes and innateness? How do innate structures and learned information interact to produce adult forms of cognition, e.g. about number, and how does such learning take place? What innate abilities underlie the creative aspect of language use, and of creative cognition generally? What are the innate foundations of human motivation, and of human moral cognition? In the course of their discussions, many of the contributors pose the question : Where next for nativist research? Together, these three volumes provide the most intensive and richly cross-disciplinary investigation of nativism ever undertaken. They point the way toward a synthesis of nativist work that promises to provide a powerful picture of our minds and their place in the natural order. (shrink)

La question de l’innéisme reste un sujet de débat actuel dans le domaine des sciences cognitives. Cela vient du fait non seulement que les thèses innéistes restent controversées, mais aussi de ce que, à un niveau conceptuel, la manière dont la notion d’innéité doit être définie n’est pas claire. Le programme de recherche de Chomsky a joué un rôle fondateur, en montrant la portée méthodologique que pouvait avoir une perspective innéiste pour l’étude des facultés mentales et en particulier du langage. (...) Le but de cet article est de clarifier la signification qu’on peut attribuer à l’innéité de la faculté de langage dans la théorie de Chomsky, et de montrer que cela éclaire plus généralement l’usage de cette notion dans le champ des sciences cognitives. (shrink)

Les hypothèses sur l’innéité d’un trait formulées par les sciences cognitives – l’hypothèse d’une faculté innée de langage, par exemple – peuvent-elles échapper à la tautologie? Aucune définition générale de l’innéité ne semble pleinement satisfaisante. En tant que notion dispositionnelle, l’innéité rencontre le « problème de la tautologie » mis en évidence par Locke. Les jugements en matière d’innéité, qu’ils relèvent d’une théorie innéiste ou d’une théorie empiriste (puisque même les empiristes doivent en formuler), dépendent toujours d’une vision particulière du (...) développement cognitif. Ce fait ne condamne pourtant pas ces jugements à la tautologie mais offre au contraire un critère opératoire externe qui permet de les justifier : une explication développementale jugée pertinente permettra de formuler des hypothèses solides en matière d’innéité. (shrink)

The question of innateness, or nativism, is one of the most heated problems in philosophy, reaching as far back as Plato but generating fierce debates in contemporary philosophy and psychology. This book is a much-needed overview of this important problem.

In this paper we address the issue of grounding for experiential concepts. Given that perceptual demonstratives are a basic form of such concepts, we examine ways of fixing the referents of such demonstratives. To avoid ‘encodingism’, that is, relating representations to representations, we postulate that the process of reference fixing must be bottom-up and nonconceptual, so that it can break the circle of conceptual content and touch the world. For that purpose, an appropriate causal relation between representations and the world (...) is needed. We claim that this relation is provided by spatial and object-centered attention that leads to the formation of object files through the function of deictic acts. This entire causal process takes place at a pre-conceptual level, meeting the requirement for a solution to the grounding problem. Finally we claim that our account captures fundamental insights in Putnam’s and Kripke’s work on “new” reference. (shrink)

U poslednjih nekoliko dekada vise studija posvecenih percepciji novorodjencadi je ukazalo na to da cak i tek rodjena deca jesu osetljiva na nacin na koji se objekti pokrecu i na prirodu njihove interakcije. Da bi objasnili ranu pojavu ovakve osetljivosti na kauzalne odnose neki psiholozi zastupaju stanoviste da postoji urodjeno znanje vezano za objekte. Cilj ovog rada je da preispita ovakva nativisticka objasnjenja tako sto ce da preispita da li ova objasnjenja ispunjavaju uslove koji svaki mehanicisticki model mora da ispuni (...) da bi bio uspesan. Craver je razvio nekoliko takvih kriterijuma kao i distinkciju izmedju odgovarajuceg mehanicistickog modela i mehanicisticke skice. Moj cilj je da pokazem da nativisticki modeli razvoja ne ispunjavaju ove kriterijume. Prvo, ti modeli samo delimicno a ne u potpunosti opisuju fenomen. Drugo, nativisti ukljucuju u opis fenomena odredjenu teoriju percepcije koja zahteva dodatnu empirijsku evidenciju i ne moze biti bezrezervno prihvacena kao tacna. Ja cu takodje argumentovati da je urodjeno znanje dobar kandidat za ono sto Craver naziva?praznim terminom? i da ce najverovatnije biti napusten. Novija istrazivanja koja su ispitivala intersenzornu percepciju ukazuju na to da je mehanizam odgovoran za rano opazanje kauzalnih odnosa najverovatnije deo nase najosnovnije fiziologije i da kao takav ne ukljucuje sofisticirane kognitivne strukture niti urodjeno znanje. Takodje, ova istrazivanja ukazuju na to da je standardna debata izmedju nativista i empirista pogresno postavljena i da bi je trebalo napustiti. (shrink)

This volume introduces central issues in cognitive science by means of debates on key questions. The debates are written by renowned experts in the field. The debates cover the middle ground as well as the extremes Addresses topics such as the amount of innate knowledge, bounded rationality and the role of perception in action. Provides valuable overview of the field in a clear and easily comprehensible form.

This book explores issues at the core of modern linguistics and cognitive science. Why are all languages similar in some ways and in others utterly different? Why do languages change and change variably? How did the human capacity for language evolve, and how far did it do so as an innate ability? Simon Kirby looks at these questions from a broad perspective, arguing that they can be studied together. The author begins by examining how far the universal properties of language (...) may be explained by examining the way it is used, and how far by the way it is structured. He then considers what insights may be gained by combining functional and formal approaches. In doing so he develops a way of treating language as an adaptive system, in which its communicative and formal roles are both crucial and complementary. In order to test the effectiveness of competing theories and explanations, Simon Kirby develops computational models to show what universals emerge given a particular theory of language use or acquisition. He presents here both the methodology and the results. Function, Selection, and Innateness is important for its argument, its methodology, and its conclusions. It is a powerful demonstration of the value of looking at language as an adaptive system and goes to the heart of current debates on the evolution and nature of language. (shrink)

Is language somehow innate in the structure of the human brain, or is it completely learned? This debate is still at the heart of linguistics, especially as it intersects with psychology and cognitive science. In collecting papers which discuss the evidence and arguments regarding this difficult question, The Inheritance and Innateness of Grammars considers cases ranging from infants who are just beginning to learn the properties of a native language to language-impaired adults who will never learn one. These studies show (...) that, while precursors of language exist in other creatures, the abilities necessary for constructing full-fledged grammars are part of the biological endowment of human beings. The essays that comprise this volume test the range and specificity of that endowment, while also contributing to our understanding of the intricate and complex relationship between language and biology. (shrink)

I object to eliminativism about innateness and André Ariew’s identification of innateness with canalization, and I propose a new treatment of innateness. I first argue that the concept of innateness is serving a valuable function in a diverse set of research contexts, and in these contexts, claims about innateness are best understood as claims about the insensitivity of the appearance of a trait to certain variations in the environment. I then argue that innateness claims, like claims about canalization, should be (...) explicitly relativized to the specific range of environmental variations of interest to the scientist. My account characterizes an important way in which scientists are employing the concept and offers a way for scientists to carry on using the concept in their research while minimizing confusion and miscommunication. There is a fruitful research program, I claim, in which scientists employ the concept of innateness to help distinguish environmental factors of interest that have a causal influence on the appearance of a trait from those that do not. (shrink)

How is the human tendency and ability to collaborate acquired and how did it evolve? This paper explores the ontogeny and evolution of human collaboration using a combination of theoretical and empirical resources. We present a game theoretic model of the evolution of learning in the Stag Hunt game, which predicts the evolution of a built-in cooperative bias. We then survey recent empirical results on the ontogeny of collaboration in humans, which suggest the ability to collaborate is developmentally stable across (...) a range of environments. Lastly, we use an account of innateness developed by Ariew (Philos Sci 63:S19–S27, 1996) and Sober (Routledge encyclopedia of philosophy. Routledge, London, pp 794–797, 1998) to assess the extent that (1) the model predicts the fixation of innate collaboration and (2) the empirical studies show a human’s ability to collaborate to be innate. (shrink)

In _Realistic Rationalism_, Jerrold J. Katz develops a new philosophical position integrating realism and rationalism. Realism here means that the objects of study in mathematics and other formal sciences are abstract; rationalism means that our knowledge of them is not empirical. Katz uses this position to meet the principal challenges to realism. In exposing the flaws in criticisms of the antirealists, he shows that realists can explain knowledge of abstract objects without supposing we have causal contact with them, that numbers (...) are determinate objects, and that the standard counterexamples to the abstract/concrete distinction have no force. Generalizing the account of knowledge used to meet the challenges to realism, he develops a rationalist and non-naturalist account of philosophical knowledge and argues that it is preferable to contemporary naturalist and empiricist accounts. The book illuminates a wide range of philosophical issues, including the nature of necessity, the distinction between the formal and natural sciences, empiricist holism, the structure of ontology, and philosophical skepticism. Philosophers will use this fresh treatment of realism and rationalism as a starting point for new directions in their own research. (shrink)