Creations of the Mind Theories of Artifacts and Their Representation

by Margolis, Eric; Laurence, Stephen

• ISBN13: 9780199250981
• ISBN10: 0199250987
• eBook ISBN(s): 9780191530623
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2007-08-02
• Publisher: Clarendon Press
• More Book Details

Summary

Creations of the Mind presents sixteen original essays by theorists from a wide variety of disciplines who have a shared interest in the nature of artifacts and their implications for the human mind. All the papers are written specially for this volume, and they cover a broad range of topics concerned with the metaphysics of artifacts, our concepts of artifacts and the categories that they represent, the emergence of an understanding of artifacts in infants' cognitive development, as well as the evolution of artifacts and the use of tools by non-human animals. This volume will be a fascinating resource for philosophers, cognitive scientists, and psychologists, and the starting point for future research in the study of artifacts and their role in human understanding, development, and behavior. Contributors: John R. Searle, Richard E. Grandy, Crawford L. Elder, Amie L. Thomasson, Jerrold Levinson, Barbara C. Malt, Steven A. Sloman, Dan Sperber, Hilary Kornblith, Paul Bloom, Bradford Z. Mahon, Alfonso Caramazza, Jean M. Mandler, Deborah Kelemen, Susan Carey, Frank C. Keil, Marissa L. Greif, Rebekkah S. Kerner, James L. Gould, Marc D. Hauser, Laurie R. Santos, and Steven Mithen.

Table of Contents

List of Contributors	p. vii
Introduction	p. ix
Metaphysics
Social Ontology and the Philosophy of Society	p. 3
Artifacts: Parts and Principles	p. 18
On the Place of Artifacts in Ontology	p. 33
Artifacts and Human Concepts	p. 52
Artworks as Artifacts	p. 74
Concepts and Categories
Artifact Categorization: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly	p. 85
Seedless Grapes: Nature and Culture	p. 124
How to Refer to Artifacts	p. 138
Water as an Artifact Kind	p. 150
The Organization and Representation of Conceptual Knowledge in the Brain: Living Kinds and Artifacts	p. 157
Cognitive Development
The Conceptual Foundations of Animals and Artifacts	p. 191
The Essence of Artifacts: Developing the Design Stance	p. 212
A World Apart: How Concepts of the Constructed World Are Different in Representation and in Development	p. 231
Evolution
Animal Artifacts	p. 249
The Evolutionary Ancestry of Our Knowledge of Tools: From Percepts To Concepts	p. 267
Creations of Pre-Modern Human Minds: Stone Tool Manufacture and Use by Homo habilis, heidelbergensis, and neanderthalensis	p. 289
References	p. 312
Index	p. 347
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