Philosophical Psychology, Volume 0, Issue 0, Page 1-5, Ahead of Print.

Conditional universals have always interested linguists more than unrestricted universals, which are often impossible to demonstrate empirically because categories cannot be defined in a cross-linguistically meaningful way. But deep dependencies have not been confirmed by more recent empirical research, and those universals with solid empirical support mostly relate to scalar patterns that can plausibly be related to processing cost.

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)

A distinguished group of linguists examine the present state of theoretic linguistics by looking to the past to see what has been accomplished, and to the future for requirements needed to frame a workable theory of language. The universals of language are taken from phonology, grammar, semantics and psycho-linguists. Uriel Weinreich's paper, "On the Semantic Structure of Language," should be of special interest to philosophers.--G. L. C.

Generative linguistics' search for linguistic universals (1) is not comparable to the vague explanatory suggestions of the article; (2) clearly merits a more central place than linguistic typology in cognitive science; (3) is fundamentally untouched by the article's empirical arguments; (4) best explains the important facts of linguistic diversity; and (5) illuminates the dominant component of language's nature: biology.

The controversies surrounding Daniel Everett's characterization of the Amazonian language Pirahã and the Evans and Levinson paper about "the myth of language universals" (2009) are just two recent manifestations of a debate about linguistic theory and methodology that is anything but new.

Natural languages vary in their quantity expressions, but the variation seems to be constrained by general properties, so-calleduniversals. Their explanations have been sought among constraints of human cognition, communication, complexity, and pragmatics. In this article, we apply a state-of-the-art language coordination model to the semantic domain of quantities to examine whether two quantity universals—monotonicity and convexity—arise as a result of coordination. Assuming precise number perception by the agents, we evolve communicatively usable quantity terminologies in two separate conditions: a numeric-based condition (...) in which agents communicate about a number of objects and a quotient-based condition in which agents communicate about the proportions. We find out that both universals take off in all conditions but only convexity almost entirely dominates the emergent languages. Additionally, we examine whether the perceptual constraints of the agents can contribute to the further development of universals. We compare the degrees of convexity and monotonicity of languages evolving in populations of agents with precise and approximate number sense. The results suggest that approximate number sense significantly reinforces monotonicity and leads to further enhancement of convexity. Last but not least, we show that the properties of the evolved quantifiers match certain invariance properties from generalized quantifier theory. (shrink)

Since the publication of Brent Berlin and Paul Kay's Basic color terms in 1969 there has been continuing debate as to whether or not there are linguistic universals in the restricted domain of color naming. In this paper I am primarily concerned with the attempt to explain the existence of basic color terms in languages. That project utilizes psychological and ultimately physiological generalizations in the explanation of linguistic regularities. The main problem with this strategy is that it cannot account for (...) a particular subset of basic color words: words that the Berlin-Kay tradition calls “composite”. The existence of such words does not compromise the claim that there are basic color words. It does suggest that such words—and basic terms in general—require a more complex type of explanatory strategy than much contemporary work on color naming supposes. It is my main contention that the central problems with the Berlin-Kay tradition arise from the difficulty of linking conceptually and empirically disparate domains: linguistic, psychological, physiological. What is needed is not an attempt to reduce color naming to biology or to culture but, rather, an adequate conceptual account of how people may come to have and use basic color terms—an account which stands between the biological and the cultural. (shrink)

This collection of articles and review essays, including many hard to find pieces, comprises the most important and fundamental studies of Indian logic and linguistics ever undertaken. Frits Staal is concerned with four basic questions: Are there universals of logic that transcend culture and time? Are there universals of language and linguistics? What is the nature of Indian logic? And what is the nature of Indian linguistics? By addressing these questions, Staal demonstrates that, contrary to the general assumption among Western (...) philosophers, the classical philosophers of India were rationalists, attentive to arguments. They were in this respect unlike contemporary Western thinkers inspired by existentialism or hermeneutics, and like the ancient Chinese, Greeks, and many medieval European schoolmen, only--as Staal says--more so. Universals establishes that Asia's contributions are not only compatible with what has been produced in the West, but a necessary ingredient and an essential component of any future human science. (shrink)

Christiansen & Chater (C&C) have taken the interactionist approach to linguistic universals to an extreme, adopting the metaphor of language as an organism. This metaphor adds no insights to five decades of analyzing language universals as the result of interaction of linguistically unique and general cognitive systems. This metaphor is also based on an outmoded view of classical Darwinian evolution and has no clear basis in biology or cognition.

It is the aim of the present study to introduce the reader to the ways of thinking of those contemporary philosophers who apply the tools of symbolic logic to classical philosophical problems. Unlike the "conti nental" reader for whom this work was originally written, the English speaking reader will be more familiar with most of the philosophers dis cussed in this book, and he will in general not be tempted to dismiss them indiscriminately as "positivists" and "nominalists". But the English (...) version of this study may help to redress the balance in another respect. In view of the present emphasis on ordinary language and the wide spread tendency to leave the mathematical logicians alone with their technicalities, it seems not without merit to revive the interest in formal ontology and the construction of formal systems. A closer look at the historical account which will be given here, may convince the reader that there are several points in the historical develop ment whose consequences have not yet been fully assessed: I mention, e. g., the shift from the traditional three-level semantics of sense and deno tation to the contemporary two-level semantics of representation; the relation of extensional structure and intensional content in the extensional systems of Wittgenstein and Carnap; the confusing changes in labelling the different kinds of analytic and apriori true sentences; etc. Among the philosophically interesting tools of symbolic logic Lesniewski's calculus of names deserves special attention. (shrink)

This paper offers a review of research on demonstratives from an interdisciplinary perspective. In particular, we consider the role of demonstratives in current research on language universals, language evolution, language acquisition, multimodal communication, signed language, language and perception, language in interaction, spatial imagery, and discourse processing. Traditionally, demonstratives are analyzed as a particular class of spatial deictics. Yet, a number of recent studies have argued that space is largely irrelevant to deixis and that demonstratives are primarily used for social and (...) interactive purposes. Synthesizing findings in the literature, we conclude that demonstratives are a very special class of linguistic items that are foundational to both spatial and social aspects of language and cognition. (shrink)

Word Order Universals is a detailed account of word order universals and their role in theories of historical change. The starting point is the Greenberg data set, which is comprised of a sample of 142 languages for certain limited co-occurrences of basic word orders, and a 30-language sample for more detailed information. In the Language Index, the 142 have been expanded to some 350 languages. Using the original Greenberg samples and the Expanded Sample, an alternative set of descriptive word order (...) statements is provided. Comprised of eight chapters, this book begins with an introduction to the theory of word order universals, encompassing topics such as word order variation across languages and theories of universal grammar. The reader is then introduced to the work of Joseph Greenberg and Theo Vennemann on word order universals; implicational universals in Greenberg's data and the Expanded Sample; and the predictions made by implicational and distributional universals for word order change. Reformulated universals for historical reconstruction are also discussed, along with some laws of reconstruction derived from synchronic universals. The final chapter is devoted to the Expanded Sample, with particular reference to its quantities as well as its typological and genetic classification. This monograph will be a useful resource for specialists in grammar and linguistics. (shrink)

We began by distinguishing Tarskian and Fitchean notions of universality in such a way that the claim that no language is universal in the sense of Tarski is compatible with accepting Fitchean universality. Then we examined a proposal involving two truth concepts — one that fit the Fitchean notion and another that followed Tarski's views on truth — finding little advantage in such generosity. We attempted a reformulation of Herzberger's argument for the negative view — the view that no (...) language is universal in Tarski's sense — but found it unsuccessful when the language of the argument's formulation was brought under consideration. A more persuasive argument for EI was found, free of the defect of the previous one. EI was then shown to have unsettling consequences, prompting us to inquire about avoiding it. We found this possible, noting that EI is itself a solution to the semantic paradoxes, to which there are alternatives that avoid the unwelcome aspects of EI. However, whether any such alternative is ultimately preferable to EI remains to be seen. (shrink)

If language change is constrained by grammatical structure, then synchronic assumptions have diachronic consequences. Theories of grammar can then in principle contribute to explaining properties of change, or conversely be falsified by historical evidence. This has been the main stimulus for incorporating historical linguistics into generative theorizing.

Many people have argued that the evolution of the human language faculty cannot be explained by Darwinian natural selection. Chomsky and Gould have suggested that language may have evolved as the by-product of selection for other abilities or as a consequence of as-yet unknown laws of growth and form. Others have argued that a biological specialization for grammar is incompatible with every tenet of Darwinian theory – that it shows no genetic variation, could not exist in any intermediate forms, confers (...) no selective advantage, and would require more evolutionary time and genomic space than is available. We examine these arguments and show that they depend on inaccurate assumptions about biology or language or both. Evolutionary theory offers clear criteria for when a trait should be attributed to natural selection: complex design for some function, and the absence of alternative processes capable of explaining such complexity. Human language meets these criteria: Grammar is a complex mechanism tailored to the transmission of propositional structures through a serial interface. Autonomous and arbitrary grammatical phenomena have been offered as counterexamples to the position that language is an adaptation, but this reasoning is unsound: Communication protocols depend on arbitrary conventions that are adaptive as long as they are shared. Consequently, language acquisition in the child should systematically differ from language evolution in the species, and attempts to analogize them are misleading. Reviewing other arguments and data, we conclude that there is every reason to believe that a specialization for grammar evolved by a conventional neo-Darwinian process. (shrink)

In this work, I consider Aristotle's theory of universals in the Organon. I argue that, according to Aristotle, demonstrative knowledge presupposes the existence of real universals, and I defend a mereological interpretation of Aristotelian real universals. ;The work is divided into three parts. First, I demonstrate that Aristotle's theory of demonstrative knowledge presupposes the existence of universals and argue that the ontological status of universals cannot be determined from Aristotle's explications of his concept of a universal. Second, I reconstruct (...) Aristotle's semantics for universal affirmative premises and demonstrate that, according to Aristotle, every true universal affirmative premise involves a universal term that primarily signifies a universal concept and secondarily signifies either a real essence or a real genus. Third, I argue that real essences and genera are real universals and that real universals are wholes, each of the parts of which is a real particular. ;In chapter 1, I reconstruct two arguments from the Posterior Analytics that reveal important connections between Aristotle's theory of demonstrative knowledge, his philosophy of language, and his ontology in the Organon. In chapter 2, I argue that the ontological status of universals is underdetermined by the various explications of the concept of a universal $\lbrack\tau\`o\ \kappa\alpha\theta\'o\lambda o\upsilon\rbrack$ presented by Aristotle in the Organon. In chapter 3, the syntax of simple statements as presented in De Interpretatione is investigated. In chapter 4, I argue the semantic scheme for simple statements presented by Aristotle in De Interpretatione in conjunction with his excursus on concept acquisition in APst. B 19 provide the semantic grounds for the syntactic distinctions among simple statements. I establish the extensional features of Aristotle's semantics in chapter 5. In chapter 6, I present my interpretation of Aristotelian real universals, focusing solely on primary and secondary substances. I argue that, according to Aristotle, there are real universals that are wholes having for parts the essences or the parts of the essences of primary substances. (shrink)

One of the great successes of the application of generalized quantifiers to natural language has been the ability to formulate robust semantic universals. When such a universal is attested, the question arises as to the source of the universal. In this paper, we explore the hypothesis that many semantic universals arise because expressions satisfying the universal are easier to learn than those that do not. While the idea that learnability explains universals is not new, explicit accounts of (...) learning that can make good on this hypothesis are few and far between. We propose a model of learning — back-propagation through a recurrent neural network — which can make good on this promise. In particular, we discuss the universals of monotonicity, quantity, and conservativity and perform computational experiments of training such a network to learn to verify quantifiers. Our results are able to explain monotonicity and quantity quite well. We suggest that conservativity may have a different source than the other universals. (shrink)

My goal in this paper is to defend the plausibility of a particular version of collectivism – understood as the evolutionary claim that individual-level cognition is systematically biased in favor of aggregate-level regularities – in the domain of language. Chomsky's (1986) methodological promotion of I-language (speaker-internal knowledge) and the corresponding demotion of E-language (aggregate output of a population of speakers) has led mainstream cognitive science to view language essentially as a property of individual minds/brains whose evolution is best explained as (...) a result of the natural selection of an innate language faculty (Pinker 1994). Such a framework is largely oblivious to the linguistic dynamics arising from iterated learning, i.e. the fact that linguistic information must be periodically mapped from its I-linguistic into its E-linguistic medium and back in order to persist over time. Recent expression/induction models of language evolution, which are heavily inspired by the simulation-based methodology of Artificial Life, suggest that linguistic universals, such as compositional and recursive structure, can emerge from cultural selection alone (Brighton et al. 2005). I will conclude that there is both a biological and a cultural route towards collectivism. (shrink)

The medieval version of the problem of universals centres around propositions such as ?man is a species? and ?animalis a genus?. One of C. Lejewski's analyses of such propositions shows the semantic status of their terms by means of Ajdukiewicz-style categorical indices having participial or infinitive forms as their natural-language counterparts. Some medievals certainly used such forms in their corresponding analyses, thus avoiding the alleged referential demands generated by nominally-termed propositions. Boethius the Consul exemplifies the confusion which may still arise (...) from the traditional definition of universal in terms of predication of many. Unnecessary adherence to nominally-termed analyses not only grounded a tendency towards nominalism and Platonism, but also towards the moderns? ?way of ideas? (shrink)

Evans & Levinson's (E&L's) major point is that human languages are intriguingly diverse rather than (like animal communication systems) uniform within the species. This does not establish a about language universals, or advance the ill-framed pseudo-debate over universal grammar. The target article does, however, repeat a troublesome myth about Fitch and Hauser's (2004) work on pattern learning in cotton-top tamarins.

Conceptual primitives and semantic universals are the cornerstones of a semantic theory which Anna Wierzbicka has been developing for many years. Semantics: Primes and Universals is a major synthesis of her work, presenting a full and systematic exposition of that theory in a non-technical and readable way. It delineates a full set of universal concepts, as they have emerged from large-scale investigations across a wide range of languages undertaken by the author and her colleagues. On the basis of empirical (...) cross-linguistic studies it vindicates the old notion of the "psychic unity of mankind", while at the same time offering a framework for the rigorous description of different languages and cultures. (shrink)

This book examines linguistic expressions of emotion in intensional contexts and offers a formally elegant account of the relationship between language and emotion. The author presents a compelling case for the view that there exist, contrary to popular belief, logical universals at the intersection of language and emotive content. This book shows that emotive structures in the mind that are widely assumed to be not only subjectively or socio-culturally variable but also irrelevant to a general theory of cognition offer an (...) unusually suitable ground for a formal theory of emotive representations, allowing for surprising logical and cognitive consequences for a theory of cognition. Challenging mainstream assumptions in cognitive science and in linguistics, this book will appeal to linguists, philosophers of the mind, linguistic anthropologists, psychologists and cognitive scientists of all persuasions. Prakash Mondal is Assistant Professor of Linguistics and Cognitive Science at the Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad. He is the author of Language, Mind and Computation (2014), Natural Language and Possible Minds (2016) and Language, Biology and Cognition (completed). (shrink)

Epstein et al. attribute second language learning to the forces of transfer and language universals. They show that transfer is minimally involved in certain types of learning and therefore conclude that universals are involved. However, they forget to consider the important role of learning in second language acquisition.

Can one hold both that universals exist in the strongest sense (i.e., neither in language nor in thought, nor in their instances) and that they exist contingently—and still make sense? Edmund Husserl thought so. In this paper I present a version of his view regimented in terms of modal logic cum possible-world semantics. Crucial to the picture is the distinction between two accessibility relations with different structural properties. These relations are cashed out in terms of two Husserlian notions of imagination: (...) world-bound and free. After briefly presenting the Husserlian framework—his intentionalism, idealism and how universals figure in them—I set up my modal machinery, model the target view, and show that, depending on the chosen accessibility relation, the necessary or the contingent existence of universals can be derived. Importantly, since for Husserl both relations are bona fide, both derivations are legitimate. In Husserl’s philosophy, then, there is room for both necessary and contingent universals. (shrink)

This work is typical of the cautious approach to metaphysical problems by the new breed of Oxonian analysts. Unlike Wittgenstein and his early followers, they do not believe metaphysics deals solely with pseudo-problems that will evaporate with a clearer understanding of how ordinary language functions. Rather they believe, as is the case with scientists evaluating various theoretical models, a cost/benefit analysis of the more meaningful solutions philosophers have given to important metaphysical problems will lead to a clarification of the merits (...) and weaknesses of each and hence lend some measure of probability to one's preferential options. This third approach by David Armstrong to the problem of universals falls in this literary genre. As a volume in the new "Focus Series," it is designed to provide case studies of this key philosophical problem for a special clientele or class of students--those advanced undergraduates or philosophy majors in schools where contemporary analytical writings in the Oxford tradition are still the basis of the curriculum. As such it is broader in scope than his two previous works, intended to introduce its readers to views other than his own. Since the neo-metaphysicians that draw their inspiration from Oxford are cautious about the lasting value of their work, still less will their writings be suitable for courses in the history of philosophy or useful for a core curriculum in schools where philosophical analysis is not the dominant orientation. But where that approach to philosophy still prevails, as at Armstrong's University of Sydney, or many other Anglo-American universities, this work will undoubtedly fill a needed gap not covered by other survey courses of a more general nature. (shrink)

For the last decade and more Noam Chomsky has been elaborating a skein of doctrines about language learning, linguistic universals, Empiricism and innate cognitive mechanisms. My aim in this paper is to pull apart some of the claims that Chomsky often defends collectively. In particular, I want to dissect out some contentions about the existence of linguistic universals. I shall argue that these claims, while they may be true, are logically independent from a cluster of claims Chomsky makes about Empiricism, (...) language learning and innate cognitive mechanisms. The latter claims are, on my view, significantly more plausible than the former. Failure to note the logical space between the two has had lamentable consequences both for Chomsky and for his critics. Chomsky has been rather too ready to accept the existence of linguistic universals, and in arguing that one or another specific feature of a grammar is universal, he has consistently invoked an argument form of dubious merit. The critics, for their part, have sometimes argued against Chomsky's attack on Empiricist learning theories by criticizing Chomsky's views on language universals. If, as I shall maintain, the two positions are quite independent, then the critics' skepticism about linguistic universals is largely irrelevant to the Chomskian critique of Empiricist theories of learning. (shrink)

We discuss a well-known puzzle about the lexicalization of logical operators in natural language, in particular connectives and quantifiers. Of the many logically possible operators, only few appear in the lexicon of natural languages: the connectives in English, for example, are conjunction _and_, disjunction _or_, and negated disjunction _nor_; the lexical quantifiers are _all, some_ and _no_. The logically possible nand (negated conjunction) and Nall (negated universal) are not expressed by lexical entries in English, nor in any natural language. (...) Moreover, the lexicalized operators are all upward or downward monotone, an observation known as the Monotonicity Universal. We propose a logical explanation of lexical gaps and of the Monotonicity Universal, based on the dynamic behaviour of connectives and quantifiers. We define update potentials for logical operators as procedures to modify the context, under the assumption that an update by \( \phi \) depends on the logical form of \( \phi \) and on the speech act performed: assertion or rejection. We conjecture that the adequacy of update potentials determines the limits of lexicalizability for logical operators in natural language. Finally, we show that on this framework the Monotonicity Universal follows from the logical properties of the updates that correspond to each operator. (shrink)

Universals are putative objects like wisdom, morality, redness, etc. Although we believe in properties (which, we argue, are not a kind of object), we do not believe in universals. However, a number of ordinary, natural language constructions seem to commit us to their existence. In this paper, we provide a fictionalist theory of universals, which allows us to speak as if universals existed, whilst denying that any really do.

Recent scholarship on the philosophy of time in pre-Qin Daoist thought has not yet produced a thorough examination of dao’s relationship to time. This essay resolves this omission through a systematic study of the concept heng 恒 in pre-Qin Daoist literature. While principally expressing the ‘constancy’ of dao, heng also significantly presupposes dao’s ability to change. This change is characterized in the texts as a cyclical movement of ‘return’ and identified with the universe’s circular metanarrative of generation and reintegration. The (...) essay turns to examine pre-Qin Daoist literature’s use of primal wu 無 metaphors to describe dao. It concludes that they present dao as undifferentiated infinitude, liberating dao as heng from the tense structure of past-present-future that divides life in time. These metaphors further associate the movement of dao with the flow of time, reformulating time’s relentless ever-greater advancement into an endless cycle of creative transformation. (shrink)

The Aristotelian view of universals, according to which each universal generically depends for its existence on its instantiations, has recently come under attack by a series of ground-theoretic arguments. The last such arguments, presented by Raven, promises to offer several significant improvements over its predecessors, such as avoiding commitment to the transitivity of ground and offering new reasons for the metaphysical priority of universals over their instantiations. In this paper, we argue that Raven's argument does not effectively avoid said (...) commitment and that Raven's new reasons fail. Moreover, we present a novel ground-theoretic interpretation of the Aristotelian view, referred to as strong immanence, and introduce a new argument against the Aristotelian view, intended to sidestep any commitment to the transitivity of ground. (shrink)

Languages are transmitted from person to person and generation to generation via a process of iterated learning: people learn a language from other people who once learned that language themselves. We analyze the consequences of iterated learning for learning algorithms based on the principles of Bayesian inference, assuming that learners compute a posterior distribution over languages by combining a prior (representing their inductive biases) with the evidence provided by linguistic data. We show that when learners sample languages from this posterior (...) distribution, iterated learning converges to a distribution over languages that is determined entirely by the prior. Under these conditions, iterated learning is a form of Gibbs sampling, a widely-used Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithm. The consequences of iterated learning are more complicated when learners choose the language with maximum posterior probability, being affected by both the prior of the learners and the amount of information transmitted between generations. We show that in this case, iterated learning corresponds to another statistical inference algorithm, a variant of the expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm. These results clarify the role of iterated learning in explanations of linguistic universals and provide a formal connection between constraints on language acquisition and the languages that come to be spoken, suggesting that information transmitted via iterated learning will ultimately come to mirror the minds of the learners. (shrink)

This article discusses language universality and language variation, and suggests that there is no feature variation in initial syntax, featural variation arising by metamorphosis under transfer from syntax to PF-morphology. In particular, it explores the Zero Hypothesis, stating that Universal Grammar, UG, only provides two building elements, Root Zero and Edge Feature Zero, zero, as they are purely structural/formal elements with no semantic content in UG. Their potential content is provided by the Concept Mine, a mind-internal but language-external department. (...) UG and narrow syntax has access to the Concept Mine, and this Syntax-Concept Access is unique to humans, a prerequisite for the evolution of language (Section 1). A related idea (also inSection 1) is coined the Generalized Edge Feature Approach, GEFA. It states that Merge always involves at least one edge feature, which precludes symmetric structures and enables Simplest Merge (no Pair-Merge, no Hilbert epsilon operator). The article advocates that there is no syntactic feature selection (Section 2), all syntactic features being universally accessible in the Concept Mine, via Root Zero and Edge Feature Zero. In contrast, there is feature selection in PF (including morphology), yielding variation (Section 3), Gender being a clear example (Section 4). However, there is a widely neglected syntax-to-PF-morphology metamorphosis (Section 5), such that morphological features like [past] are distinct from albeit related to syntactic features like Speech Time. Parameters operate on selected PF features, and not on purely syntactic features, so parameter setting is plausibly closely tied to the syntax-to-PF-morphology metamorphosis (the concludingSection 6). It is suggested that parameters are on the externalization side of language, part of or related to the sensory-motor system, facilitating motoric learning in language acquisition. (shrink)

This paper seeks to advance the horizon of Kwasi Wiredu’s philosophical defense of the compatibility of cultural universals and particulars. Wiredu reflects on language, biological identity, inter/intra cultural communication, as well as epistemic and moral fundamentals as cultural universals. In pursuing further Wiredu’s thesis on cultural universals, the present paper critically examines some of the inconsistencies implicit in Wiredu’s position. As a consequence, the paper extends the frontiers of the realm of universals by establishing the plausibility of causality as another (...) instance of a conceptual universal, transcending all cultural particularities. (shrink)

I will consider Armstrong's problems in trying to account for structural universals, i.e., a kind of complex universal whose instantiation by particulars involves different parts of those particulars instantiating several basic properties and relations, such as the property of being a molecule of methane. I present and criticise Armstrong's most recent attempt to explain structural properties by means of the identification of universals with types of states of affairs and I state my own solution to the problem by appealing (...) to formal relations holding between particulars. (shrink)

Human languages vary in many ways but also show striking cross-linguistic universals. Why do these universals exist? Recent theoretical results demonstrate that Bayesian learners transmitting language to each other through iterated learning will converge on a distribution of languages that depends only on their prior biases about language and the quantity of data transmitted at each point; the structure of the world being communicated about plays no role (Griffiths & Kalish, , ). We revisit these findings and show that when (...) certain assumptions about the relationship between language and the world are abandoned, learners will converge to languages that depend on the structure of the world as well as their prior biases. These theoretical results are supported with a series of experiments showing that when human learners acquire language through iterated learning, the ultimate structure of those languages is shaped by the structure of the meanings to be communicated. (shrink)

The problem of universals arises when philosophy attempts to give an account of the relationship mind and objects, between language and the world. How do words succeed in being about things? In this paper I show how the problem of universals arises out of a particular theory about the relationship of words to things and that when an alternative theory is accepted the notion of universal dissipates and is replaced by the concept of meaning. Meaning, however, has its own (...) problems. In the end I conclude that there are no universals. (shrink)