Talk by Dr. Rajesh Kasturirangan
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"Pointing with Concepts: Explorations in the Embodiment of Knowledge" Abstract: What is it that one knows, when one knows a concept? What does a concept mean? These are some of the oldest questions in the Philosophy of Mind and some of the most intractable questions in Cognitive Science. In this talk, I will survey some of the attempts made within Cognitive Science to develop an adequate theory of concepts, such as concepts as definitions, concepts as prototypes etc and then show how these accounts of the nature of concepts all fail in some crucial way. Then, I will introduce a different way of thinking about concepts, where concepts are seen as * actions* in the broadest sense of that term. This action based theory of concepts draws upon recent work in "embodied cognition". Furthermore, in fleshing out the embodied account (both literally and figuratively), we will encounter puzzles and paradoxes related to the main claim of embodied cognitive science, namely, that the *mind is* *constituted by the body*.I will end the talk by speculating on directions of research that might help us resolve these paradoxes.
- What
- Meeting
- When
2006-08-29 from 16:00 to 18:00- Where
- CSCS
Created by teenaa
Last modified 2006-08-25 12:04 PM
Last modified 2006-08-25 12:04 PM