The Innate Mind: Volume 3: Foundations and the Future (Evolution and Cognition Series) - Hardcover

Carruthers, Peter; Laurence, Stephen; Stich, Stephen

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0195332830 ISBN 13: 9780195332834

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2008

Synopsis

This is the third volume of a three-volume set on The Innate Mind. The extent to which cognitive structures, processes, and contents are innate is one of the central questions concerning the nature of the mind, with important implications for debates throughout the human sciences. By bringing together the top nativist scholars in philosophy, psychology, and allied disciplines these volumes provide a comprehensive assessment of nativist thought and a definitive reference point for future nativist inquiry. The Innate Mind: Volume 3: Foundations and the Future, concerns a variety of foundational issues as well as questions about the direction of future nativist research. It addresses such questions as: What is innateness? Is it a confused notion? What is at stake in debates between nativists and empiricists? What is the relationship between genes and innateness? How do innate structures and learned information interact to produce adult forms of cognition, e.g. about number, and how does such learning take place? What innate abilities underlie the creative aspect of language, and of creative cognition generally? What are the innate foundations of human motivation, and of human moral cognition? In the course of their discussions, many of the contributors pose the question (whether explicitly or implicitly): Where next for nativist research?

Together, these three volumes provide the most intensive and richly cross-disciplinary investigation of nativism ever undertaken. They point the way toward a synthesis of nativist work that promises to provide a powerful picture of our minds and their place in the natural order.

About this title

About the Author

Peter Carruthers is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Maryland. Stephen Laurence is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Sheffield. Stephen Stitch is a Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University.

Edition details

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2008
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0195332830
• ISBN 13: 9780195332834
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 456