Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-fqc5m Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-19T02:04:29.407Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Putting Descartes before the horse (again!)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 May 2008

Brendan McGonigle
Affiliation:
Psychology Department, School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, EH8 9JZ, Scotland, United Kingdom. M.McGonigle@ed.ac.ukwww.psy.ed.ac.uk
Margaret Chalmers
Affiliation:
Psychology Department, School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, EH8 9JZ, Scotland, United Kingdom. M.McGonigle@ed.ac.ukwww.psy.ed.ac.uk

Abstract

The “rational bubble” stance espoused in the target article confounds cultural symbolic achievements with individual cognitive competences. With no explicit role for learning, the core rationale for claiming a major functional discontinuity between humans and other species rests on a hybrid formal model LISA (Learning and Inference with Schemas and Analogies) now overtaken by new models of cognitive growth and new empirical studies within an embodied systems stance.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Copyright
Copyright ©Cambridge University Press 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bloom, P. (2000) Language and thought: Does grammar makes us smart? Current Biology 10(14):R516–17.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Chalmers, M. & McGonigle, B. (1997) Capturing dynamic structuralism in the laboratory. In: Piaget, Vygotsky and beyond, ed. Smith, L., Dockrell, J. & Tomlinson, P., pp. 183200. Routledge.Google Scholar
Clark, H. H. (1969) Linguistic processes in deductive reasoning. Psychological Review 76(4):387404.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Corballis, M. C. (2002) From hand to mouth: The origins of language Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Donald, M. (1991) Origins of the modern mind: Three stages in the evolution of culture and cognition Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Griffiths, P. E. & Stotz, K. (2000) How the mind grows: A developmental perspective on the biology of cognition. Synthese 122:2951.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Halford, G. S. (1993) Children's understanding: The development of mental models. Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Hinzen, W. (in press) The successor function+LEX=language? In: InterPhases: Phase theoretic investigations of linguistic interfaces, ed. Grohmann, K.. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hunter, I. M. L. (1957) The solving of three-term series problems. British Journal of Psychology 48:286–98.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
McGonigle, B. & Chalmers, M. (2006) Ordering and executive functioning as a window on the evolution and development of cognitive systems. International Journal of Comparative Psychology 19:241–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McGonigle, B., Chalmers, M. & Dickinson, A. (2003) Concurrent disjoint and reciprocal classification by Cebus apella in seriation tasks: Evidence for hierarchical organization. Animal Cognition 6(3):185–97.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Piaget, J. (1970) Genetic epistemology. Columbia University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pinker, S. & Jackendoff, R. (2005) The faculty of language: What's special about it? Cognition 95:201–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Popper, K. R. (1972) Objective knowledge: An evolutionary approach Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Siegal, M., Varley, R. & Want, S. C. (2001) Mind over grammar: Reasoning in aphasia and development. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 5(7):296301.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Smith, L. B. & Breazeal, C. (2007) The dynamic lift of developmental process. Developmental Science 10(1):6168.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tallis, R. (2003) The hand: A philosophical enquiry into human being. Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Terrace, H. S. (2005b>) The simultaneous chain: A new approach to serial learning. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 9:202–10.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wundt, W. (1898) Lectures on human and animal psychology. Sonnenschein.Google Scholar