jueves, 8 de septiembre de 2011

Is language the ultimate artefact?

Language Sciences
Volume 26, Issue 6 SPEC. ISS., November 2004, Pages 693-715
ISSN: 03880001
DOI: 10.1016/j.langsci.2004.09.011
Document Type: Article
Source Type: Journal

View at publisher|First author search in Scirus (Opens in a new window)|Locate full-text (Opens in a new window)|Revistas en Serials Solutions (Opens in a new window)|

Is language the ultimate artefact?


Department of Philosophy, University of Stirling, Stirling FK9 4LA, United Kingdom


Abstract

Andy Clark has argued that language is "in many ways the ultimate artefact" (Clark, 1997, p. 218). Fuelling this conclusion is a view according to which the human brain is essentially no more than a pattern-completing device, while language is an external resource which is adaptively fitted to the human brain in such a way that it enables that brain to exceed its unaided (pattern-completing) cognitive capacities, in much the same way as a pair of scissors enables us to "exploit our basic manipulative capacities to fulfil new ends" (Clark, 1997, pp. 193-194 ). How should we respond to this bold reconceptualization of our linguistic abilities? First we need to understand it properly. So I begin by identifying and unpacking (and making a small "Heideggerian" amendment to) Clark's main language-specific claims. That done I take a step back. Clark's approach to language is generated from a theoretical perspective which sees cognition as distributed over brain, body, and world. So I continue my investigation of Clark's incursion into linguistic territory by uncovering and illustrating those key ideas from the overall distributed cognition research programme which are particularly relevant in the present context. I then use this analysis as a spring-board from which to examine a crucial issue that arises for Clark's account of language, namely linguistic inner rehearsal. I argue that while there is much to recommend in Clark's treatment of this issue, some significant difficulties remain to be overcome. Via this critique of Clark's position, alongside some proposals for how the revealed problems might be addressed, I hope to edge us that bit closer to a full understanding of our linguistic abilities. © 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Language of original document

English

Author keywords

Distributed cognition; Inner rehearsal; Language

References (34) View in table layout


Atkinson, A.P., Wheeler, M.

The Grain of Domains: The Evolutionary-Psychological Case Against Domain-General Cognition
(2004) Mind and Language, 19 (2), pp. 147-176. Cited 15 times.
doi: 10.1111/j.1468-0017.2004.00252.x

Brighton, H.

Compositional syntax from cultural transmission.
(2002) Artificial life, 8 (1), pp. 25-54. Cited 35 times.

Brooks, R.A.

Intelligence without reason
(1991) Proceedings of the Twelfth Joint International Conference on Artificial Intelligence, pp. 569-595. Cited 362 times.
Morgan Kauffman San Mateo, CA

  • Locate full-text (Opens in a new window)
Chomsky, N.A.
(1986) Knowledge of Language. Cited 240 times.
New York: Praeger

  • Locate full-text (Opens in a new window)
Clark, A.
(1997) Being There: Putting Brain, Body, and World Together Again. Cited 929 times.
Cambridge, MA/London: MIT Press/Bradford Books

  • Locate full-text (Opens in a new window)
Clark, A.

Magic Words: How Language Augments Human Computation
(1998) Language and Thought: Interdisciplinary Themes, pp. 162-183. Cited 53 times.
P. Carruthers J. Boucher (Eds.) Cambridge University Press Cambridge

  • Locate full-text (Opens in a new window)
Clark, A.
(2001) Mindware: an Introduction to the Philosophy of Cognitive Science. Cited 89 times.
Oxford: Oxford University Press

  • Locate full-text (Opens in a new window)
Clark, A.
(2003) Natural-Born Cyborgs: Minds, Technologies, and the Future of Human Intelligence. Cited 215 times.
Oxford: Oxford University Press

  • Locate full-text (Opens in a new window)
Clark, A., Chalmers, D.

The extended mind
(1998) Analysis, 58 (1), pp. 7-19. Cited 336 times.

  • Locate full-text (Opens in a new window)
Dennett, D.C.
(1991) Consciousness Explained. Cited 1806 times.
Boston: Little, Brown & Co

  • Locate full-text (Opens in a new window)
Dreyfus, H.L.
(1991) Being-In-The-World: A Commentary on Heidegger's Being and Time, Division 1. Cited 338 times.
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press

  • Locate full-text (Opens in a new window)
Fodor, J.A.
(1975) The Language of Thought. Cited 781 times.
New York: Thomas Cromwell

  • Locate full-text (Opens in a new window)
Fodor, J.A.

Why there still has to be a Language of Thought
(1987) Psychosemantics: The Problem of Meaning in the Philosophy of Mind, pp. 135-167. Cited 7 times.
J.A. Fodor (Ed.) MIT Press Cambridge, MA

  • Locate full-text (Opens in a new window)
Fodor, J.A., Pylyshyn, Z.W.

Connectionism and cognitive architecture: A critical analysis
(1988) Cognition, 28 (1-2), pp. 3-71. Cited 513 times.

Franceschini, N., Pichon, J.-M., Blanes, C.

From Insect Vision to Robot Vision
(1992) Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 337, pp. 283-294. Cited 172 times.
Series B

Guignon, C.B.
(1983) Heidegger and the Problem of Knowledge. Cited 46 times.
Indiana: Hackett

  • Locate full-text (Opens in a new window)
Harvey, I., Husbands, P., Cliff, D.

Seeing the light: Artificial evolution, real vision
(1994) From Animals to Animats 3: Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Simulation of Adaptive Behavior, pp. 392-401. Cited 70 times.
D. Cliff P. Husbands J.-A. Meyer S.W. Wilson (Eds.) MIT Press/ Bradford Books Cambridge, MA

  • Locate full-text (Opens in a new window)
Haugeland, J.

Mind embodied and embedded
(1995) Having Thought: Essays in the Metaphysics of Mind, pp. 207-237. Cited 35 times.
J. Haugeland (Ed.) Having Harvard University Press Cambridge, MA

  • Locate full-text (Opens in a new window)
Heidegger, M.
(1926) Being and Time. Cited 3075 times.
Oxford: Basil Blackwell. J. Macquarrie and E. Robinson

  • Locate full-text (Opens in a new window)
Hurley, S.L.

Vehicles, contents, conceptual structure, and externalism
(1998) Analysis, 58 (1), pp. 1-6. Cited 15 times.

  • Locate full-text (Opens in a new window)
Husbands, P., Meyer, J.-A.
(1998) Evolutionary Robotics: Proceedings of the First European Workshop, EvoRobot98
(Eds.) vol. 1468 of Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Springer-Verlag, Berlin

  • Locate full-text (Opens in a new window)
Kirby, S.

Learning, Bottlenecks and the Evolution of Recursive Syntax
(2002) Linguistic Evolution Through Language Acquisition: Formal and Computational Models, pp. 173-204. Cited 52 times.
E. Briscoe (Ed.) Cambridge University Press Cambridge

Kirby, S., Christiensen, M.H.

From language learning to language evolution
(2003) Language Evolution, pp. 272-294. Cited 8 times.
M.H. Christiansen S. Kirby (Eds.) Oxford University Press Oxford

  • Locate full-text (Opens in a new window)
Nolfi, S., Floreano, D.
(2000) Evolutionary Robotics: The Biology, Intelligence, and Technology of Self-Organizing Machines. Cited 448 times.
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press

  • Locate full-text (Opens in a new window)
Rowlands, M.
(1999) The Body in Mind: Understanding Cognitive Processes. Cited 53 times.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

  • Locate full-text (Opens in a new window)
Rumelhart, D.E., Smolensky, P., McClelland, J.L., Hinton, G.

Schemata and sequential thought processes in PDP models
(1986) Parallel Distributed Processing: Explorations in the Microstructure of Cognition, Vol: 2 Psychological and Biological Models, pp. 7-57. Cited 169 times.
McClelland, J.L., Rumelhart, D. (Eds.) MIT Press, Cambridge, MA

  • Locate full-text (Opens in a new window)
Smith, K., Kirby, S., Brighton, H.

Iterated Learning: A Framework for the Emergence of Language
(2003) Artificial Life, 9 (4), pp. 371-386. Cited 45 times.
doi: 10.1162/106454603322694825

Wheeler, M.

Two threats to representation
(2001) Synthese, 129 (2), pp. 211-231. Cited 6 times.

Wheeler, M.

How to do things with (and without) representations
(2004) The Extended Mind
R. Menary (Ed.) John Benjamins Amsterdam

  • Locate full-text (Opens in a new window)
Wheeler, M.
(2004) Reconstructing The Cognitive World: The Next Step. Cited 86 times.
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press

  • View on Web (Opens in a new window)
  • Locate full-text (Opens in a new window)
Wheeler, M.

Friends reunited? Evolutionary robotics and representational explanation
(2004) Artificial Life

  • Locate full-text (Opens in a new window)
Wheeler, M., Clark, A.

Genic representation: Reconciling content and causal complexity
(1999) British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 50 (1), pp. 103-135. Cited 33 times.

Wheeler, M., Atkinson, A.P.

Domains, brains and evolution
(2001) Naturalism, Evolution and Mind, pp. 239-266. Cited 3 times.
D.M. Walsh (Ed.) Naturalism, Cambridge University Press Cambridge

  • Locate full-text (Opens in a new window)
Wittgenstein, L.
(1922) Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Cited 1407 times.
London: Routledge. C.K. Ogden

No hay comentarios:

Publicar un comentario

ciencia global al cuadrado...