VOLUME 3 (1990), ISSUE 1
- Editorial:
- WILLIAM BECHTEL, editor
Contributions, symposia, and referee acknowledgements
Symposium: Animal Language
CHRISTOPHER GUAKER
How to Learn a Language Like a Chimpanzee
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Abstract:
This paper develops the hypothesis that languages may be learned by means of a kind of cause-effect analysis. This hypothesis is developed through an examination of E. Sue Savage-Rumbaugh's research on the abilities of chimpanzees to learn to use symbols. Savage-Rumbaugh herself tends to conceive of her work as aiming to demonstrate that chimpanzees are able to learn the "referential function" of symbols. Thus the paper begins with a critique of this way of viewing the chimpanzee's achievements. The hypothesis that Savage-Rumbaugh's chimpanzees learn to use symbols by means of cause-effect analysis is then supported through a detailed examination of the tasks they have learned to perform. Next, it is explained how language-learning in humans might be conceptualized along similar lines. The final section attempts to explain how the pertinent cause-effect analysis ought to be conceived.
E.S. SAVAGE-RUMBAUGH
Language asa cause-effect communication system
Manuscripts:
MAX VELMANS
Consciousness, brain, and physical world
EDWARD S. REED
The trapped infinity: Cartesian volition as conceptual nightmare
JOHN RUST
Delusions, irrationality, and cognitive science
Discussion: Folk Psychology and Explanations of Cognition
ANDY CLARK
Belief, opinion, and consciousness
JOHN TIENSON
Is this any way to be realist?
Book Reviews:
PAUL THAGARD
Review of HOWARD MARGOLIS's Patterns, thinking, and cognition: A theory of judgment