Concepts in the Light of Evolution Reza Maleeh Institute of Cognitive Science University of Osnabrück [email protected] University of Osnabrueck1.

Concepts in the Light of Evolution

Reza MaleehInstitute of Cognitive Science

University of Osnabrü[email protected]

University of Osnabrueck 1

Four Influential Books

Chalmers, D. J. (1996) The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Baggott, J. (2004) Beyond Measure: Modern Physics, Philosophy, and the Meaning of Quantum Theory. New York: Oxford University Press.

Roederer, J.G. (2005) Information and Its Role in Nature. Berlin Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag.

Hurford, J. R. (2007) The Origins of Meaning: Language in the Light of Evolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press.


The Message of the Book Is:

The continuity between non-human animals and humans as far as ‘concepts’ and ‘propositions’ are concerned

The same as Darwin’s The Descent of Man


The Message of the Book Is:

Much that can be reasonably labelled ‘propositional’ and ‘conceptual’ existed before modern public language.


What is a ‘Language’?


Meaning Vocal Sounds&

Manual Signs

Language

Semantics/Pragmatics

Phonetic

Both Ends Were Already There Even before Language

In the Beginning Was:

the Word (St John in his gospel) the Sense or Meaning (Faust, at first) the Act (Faust, Finally)


In the Beginning Was:


Faust: Action Meaning Word

Hurford: Action

MeaningWord

University of Osnabrueck

The Goal of This Course

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But some of what goes on in our heads when doing everyday tasks is naturally solipsistic, even primitive, using mechanisms that preceded the emergence of our societies. We share this kind of mental activity with (non-human) animals. Fitch (2005, p. 206) writes of ‘rich cognitive abilities in non-human primates’ showing them as ‘having quite complex minds, particularly in the social realm, but lacking a communicative mechanism capable of expressing most of this mental activity’ (Hurford, 2007, p. 2).


The Goal of This Course

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The first Part tries to sketch out the elements of a kind of animal thought about the world before communication with others began to trim thinking in newer ways.

After exploring the kinds of mental structures that animals can build up for purely non-social ends, part II deals with the social aspect of meaning.

Evolutionary Succession: From Proto-Concepts to Linguistic Concepts

Regular and systematic behaviour in connection with a thing

Sufficientcondition

Possession of Language

Sufficientcondition

A cat has a proto-concept of its habitual prey

Example

GeneralizationFree access and control over mental states

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Necessarycondition

Necessarycondition Proto-Concepts Pre-Linguistic

ConceptsLinguistic Concepts

Generalization and abstraction

Generalization over reflex actions Generalization over more heterogeneous

stimuli◦Example 1: Swallows◦Example 2: Omnivorous animals

Even more complex generalizations◦Semantic hierarchy: rhesus monkeys◦Classification of paintings: pigeons

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PicassoBraque&Matisse

MonetCezanne&Renoir

Relational Concepts

Premack and Premack (1983): Match-to-Sample; MTS

Thompson (1997): relation between relations

Pedderberg (2000): second-order judgments

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Alex, the Einstein of Parrots

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Free Will or Metacognition

Uncertainty-monitoring: Capacity to recognize how sure or unsure one is in making a judgment

Uncertainty-monitoring reveals a degree of awareness, or metacognition

The capacity for metacognition involves the ability to take different attitudes to the content of propositions.

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Evidence Giving alarm calls

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Evolutionary Succession: From Proto-Concepts to Linguistic Concepts

Regular and systematic behaviour in connection with a thing

Sufficientcondition

Possession of Language

Sufficientcondition

A cat has a proto-concept of its habitual prey

Example

GeneralizationFree access and control over mental states

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Necessarycondition

Necessarycondition Proto-Concepts Pre-Linguistic

ConceptsLinguistic Concepts

Some References


Some References


Some References


Some References


Contents of the Book


Some Colleagues


Evolution

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What is a ‘Language’?


Meaning Vocal Sounds&

Manual Signs

Language

Semantics/Pragmatics

Phonetic

Both Ends Were Already There Even before Language

Charles Sanders Peirce defined what he termed “semiotics” as the “quasi-necessary, or formal doctrine of signs” (Peirce, 1932, paragraph 227).

Charles Morris defined semiotics as grouping the triad syntax, semantics, and pragmatics (Morris, 1938).


Semantics and Pragmatics (Orthodox)

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Syntax studies the interrelation of the signs, without regard to meaning.

Semantics studies the relation between the signs and the objects to which they apply.

Pragmatics studies the relation between the sign system and its human (or animal) user.


Semantics and Pragmatics (orthodox)

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Semantics and Pragmatics (Orthodox)

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Semantics: Language World

Pragmatics: Language User World

(e.g. Russell 1905; Wittgenstein 1922; Carnap 1942; Montague 1970)


Semantics: Modern & Evolutionary

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Mental Representation

Semantics: Language WorldOrthodoxSemantics: Meaning WorldModern


Semantics: Modern & Evolutionary

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Semantics: Language Mind World


Semantics and Pragmatics (Modern & Evolutionary)

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Semantics: Ideational Meaning (reflective) (Halliday, 1985)

Pragmatics: Interpersonal Meaning (active) (Halliday, 1985)

To understand the environment (representation)

To act on others (representation and action)


So:

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A natural evolutionary approach pushes one towards a more specific position, namely that mental representations of things and events in the world came before any corresponding expressions in language; the mental representations were phylogenetically prior to words and sentences (Hurford, 2007, p. 5)


So:

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Both ontologically and in order of explanation, the intentionality of the propositional attitudes is prior to the intentionality of natural languages; and both ontologically and in order of explanation, the intentionality of mental representations is prior to the intentionality of propositional attitudes (Fodor, 1998, p. 7).


So:

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Mental Representation

Propositional Attitude

Natural Language

Intentionality

Intentionality

Intentionality

Wittgenstein: ‘The limits of my language is the limits of my world’. (Wittgenstein 1922, p. 6).

This would imply that a languageless creature has no world.

This is as opposed to Wittgenstein’s idea


But:


We can reasonably attribute beliefs and desires to non-human animals closely related to us. ‘Many animals other than humans, especially mammals and birds, possess well developed knowledge-of-the-world (declarative memory) systems, and are capable of acquiring vast amounts of flexibly expressible information’ (Tulving and Markowitsch 1998, p. 202).

But:


Animals remember, and thus can be in mental states relating to past circumstances. There are many studies, in laboratories and in the wild, of memory for places and things in animals who cache food for later retrieval, or who parasitize the nests of other birds. These include studies of scrub jays (Griffiths et al. 1999), cowbirds (Clayton et al. 1997), and tits (Healy and Suhonen 1996).

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Animals remember, and thus can be in mental states relating to past circumstances. There are many studies, in laboratories and in the wild, of memory for places and things in animals who cache food for later retrieval, or who parasitize the nests of other birds. These include studies of scrub jays (Griffiths et al. 1999), cowbirds (Clayton et al. 1997), and tits (Healy and Suhonen 1996).

But:


The neural basis for memory even in species quite distantly related to humans, such as birds, is very similar, with substantial involvement of the hippocampus in all cases (Reboreda et al. 1996; Clayton et al. 1997).

Hippocampus


The hippocampus is a major component of the brains of humans and other mammals. It belongs to the limbic system and plays important roles in the consolidation of information from short-term memory to long-term memory and spatial navigation.

Perception & Intentionality


1. These two mental aspects of the mind can be studied separately. Wilfrid Sellars (1956), Gilbert Ryle (1949), Wittgenstein (1953),

Putnam (1975), Fodor (1991), and Donald Davidson (1983, 1986)

2. This group contains those who try to analyze consciousness totally in terms of intentionality.

David Rosenthal, Peter Carruthers, Fred Dretske and Michael Tye.

3. This group grounds intentionality in consciousness. John Searle

A Quote from John Searle


“Only a being that could have conscious intentional states could have intentional states at all, and every unconscious intentional state is at least potentially conscious […]. There is a conceptual connection between consciousness and intentionality that had the consequence that a complete theory of intentionality requires an account of consciousness.” (Searle, 1992, p. 132)

Perception & Intentionality


Concepts

Learned Innate: e. g. Instinctive fear of snakes and spiders

Experience

Perception

It is through repeatedly perceiving salient objects and states of affairs of certain types, that the animal comes to have regular patterns of learned behaviour in relation to them.

It seems reasonable to suppose that (apart from any innate concepts) an animal only has concepts of those types of things that it has at some time perceived (and only some of those).

Evolutionary accidents

Products of natural selection

Concepts in the Light of Evolution Reza Maleeh Institute of Cognitive Science University of Osnabrück [email protected] University of Osnabrueck1.

Documents

language slide

food slide

university of osnabrueck5

university of osnabrueck24

oxford university press

proto concepts

linguistic concepts

relational concepts