In Search of a Language for the Mind-Brain

by Saleemi, Anjum P.; Bohn, Ocke-Schewn; Gjedde, Albert

• ISBN13: 9788779340053
• ISBN10: 8779340059
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-12-30
• Publisher: Aarhus Universitetsforlag

Summary

What is human nature? How is language related to thought -- and should the connection be investigated socially or scientifically? Is external reality coherent or fragmented? What are the foundations of rationality, and how trustworthy are they? Such questions have bedevilled thinkers for millennia. Contemporary scholars have harnessed enormous resources to find answers, yet their inquiry is invariably constrained by the tunnel vision of academic specialisation. This issue of The Dolphin seeks to establish common ground among the disciplines examining the mindChr(45)brain continuum. Among those meeting the editors' challenge to think outside the disciplinary box are Noam Chomsky, John Searle and Steven Pinker, as well as a dozen others from the fields of neuroscience, linguistics, philosophy, cognitive science, English, computer science and ethnography. The implicit framework that results should help researchers in all fields locate the diversity of human knowing within a joint ontological perspective.

Table of Contents

Preface	10	(2)
The Editors
Introduction: The Enigma of Unification	12	(28)
Anjum P. Saleemi
Language and Mind: Current Thoughts on Ancient Problems	40	(41)
Noam Chomsky
Consciousness	81	(31)
John R. Searle
Reverse-Engineering the Psyche	112	(31)
Steven Pinker
Language and the Brain	143	(28)
Noam Chomsky
Subjectivity and the Self: The Neurobiology of Consciousness	171	(29)
Albert Gjedde
Minimalist Visions	200	(85)
Martin Atkinson
A Fond Farewell to the Critical Period Hypothesis for Non-primary Language Acquisition	285	(26)
Ocke-Schwen Bohn
Biology, Culture and the Emergence and Elaboration of Symbolization	311	(25)
Chris Sinha
A Simple Vocabulary for Planning and Deliberation: Risk, Complexity and Knightian Uncertainty	336	(25)
Jamsheed Shorish
Literary Language and the Scientific Description of Consciousness	361	(13)
Dominic Rainsford
On Pain of Irrationality: Refuting Relativistic Challenges to the Unifiability of Knowledge	374	(25)
Anjum P. Saleemi
Contributors	399