The Brains Blog — Since 2005, a leading forum for work in the philosophy and science of mind

1. The Ontology, Epistemology, and Methodology of Linguistics

There are, broadly speaking, three competing frameworks for answering the foundational questions of linguistic theory—cognitivism (e.g., Chomsky 1995, 2000), platonism (e.g., Katz 1981, 2000), and nominalism (e.g., Devitt 2006, 2008). Platonism is the view that the subject matter of linguistics is an uncountable set of abstracta—entities that are located outside …

In Memoriam: Jerry Fodor (1935-2017)

Felipe De Brigard November 30, 2017 November 30, 2017 Academia

I just learned the sad news of Jerry Fodor’s death. Although I heard him lecture a few times, I talked to him directly only once, and it was probably one of the most important events of my life. I applied to grad school for the first time in 2001, when …

Psychosyntax: The Nature of Grammar and Its Place in the Mind (Intro)

David Pereplyotchik November 28, 2017 November 28, 2017 David Pereplotchik: Psychosyntax

In his groundbreaking Aspects of the Theory of Syntax (1965), Noam Chomsky first made explicit what is now arguably the dominant view concerning the aims and objects of linguistic inquiry. Rather than studying the sounds and inscriptions that we produce and comprehend, or the social conventions that govern linguistic usage, Chomsky …

Now Featured

John Schwenkler November 27, 2017 December 4, 2017 books

We are pleased to have David Pereplyotchik (Kent State University) blogging this week on his book Psychosyntax: The Nature of Grammar and its Place in the Mind (Springer, 2017).

To view his posts on a single page, click here.

CFP: Topoi Special Issue “Philosophical Perspectives on Confabulation”

Sarah Robins November 20, 2017 November 27, 2017 CFPs

Philosophical Perspectives on Confabulation TOPOI Special Issue – Call For Papers https://www.springer.com/philosophy/journal/11245 Guest editors Sophie Stammers and Lisa Bortolotti (University of Birmingham) Deadline for manuscript submission: 31 July 2018 Numerous psychological studies establish that we are unaware of information that is relevant to the occurrence of an event, but we …

Symposium on Pendaran Roberts, Keith Allen, and Kelly-Ann Schmidtke’s “Folk Intuitions about the Causal Theory of Perception”

Aaron Henry November 20, 2017 November 21, 2017 Ergo Symposia / Experimental Philosophy / perception

Welcome to our fourth Ergo symposium, featuring Pendaran Roberts (University of Warwick), Keith Allen (University of York), and Kelly-Ann Schmidtke’s (University of Warwick) “Folk Intuitions about the Causal Theory of Perception” with commentaries by Eugen Fischer (University of East Anglia) and John Schwenkler (Florida State University). I’d like to thank …

4. Conceptual Emergence and Neural Networks

Paul Humphreys November 16, 2017 November 16, 2017 AI / Neuroscience / Paul Humphreys: Emergence / Philosophy of Science

Conceptual emergence occurs when, in order to understand or effectively represent some phenomenon, a different representational apparatus must be introduced at the current working level. Such changes in representation are common in the sciences but it has usually been considered in connection with changes in synchronic representations. Here, I’ll consider …