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Natural Language and Possible Minds
How Language Uncovers the Cognitive Landscape of Nature
Series: - Value Inquiry Book Series, Volume: 303
- Value Inquiry Book Series Online, Volume: 303
- Cognitive Science, Volume: 303
Author:
In Natural Language and Possible Minds: How Language Uncovers the Cognitive Landscape of Nature Prakash Mondal attempts to demonstrate that language can reveal the hidden logical texture of diverse types of mentality in non-humans, contrary to popular belief. The widely held assumption in mainstream cognitive science is that language being humanly unique introduces an anthropomorphic bias in investigations into the nature of other possible minds. This book turns this around by formulating a lattice of mental structures distilled from linguistic structures constituting the cognitive building blocks of an ensemble of biological entities/beings. This turns out to have surprising consequences for machine cognition as well. Challenging mainstream views, this book will appeal to cognitive scientists, philosophers of mind, linguists and also cognitive ethologists.
Prakash Mondal, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor of Linguistics and Cognitive Science at the Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad. He is the author of Language, Mind and Computation (Palgrave, 2014) and Language and Cognitive Structures of Emotion (Palgrave, 2016) and Language, Biology and Cognition (completed).
Preface
Acknowledgements
1 Introduction
â1.1âOn Minds and Mental Structures
â1.2âA Note on the Methodology
â1.3âWhy Natural Language?
â1.4âSummary
2 Natural Language and the Linguistic Foundations of Mind
â2.1âLanguage as a Window onto Thought and Reasoning
â2.2âLanguage as Conceptualization
â2.3âLanguage as a Mental Tool
â2.4âThe Expressive Power of Natural Language and Ineffability
â2.5âSummary
3 Possible Minds from Natural Language
â3.1âLinguistic Structures and Mental Structures
â3.2âMental Structures and the Forms of Possible Minds
â3.3âSummary
4 Natural Language, Machines and Minds
â4.1âMachines and Minds
â4.2âComputation and Natural Language
â4.3âSummary
5 Possible Minds and the Cognitive
â5.1âSummary
6 Conclusion
References
Index
Acknowledgements
1 Introduction
â1.1âOn Minds and Mental Structures
â1.2âA Note on the Methodology
â1.3âWhy Natural Language?
â1.4âSummary
2 Natural Language and the Linguistic Foundations of Mind
â2.1âLanguage as a Window onto Thought and Reasoning
â2.2âLanguage as Conceptualization
â2.3âLanguage as a Mental Tool
â2.4âThe Expressive Power of Natural Language and Ineffability
â2.5âSummary
3 Possible Minds from Natural Language
â3.1âLinguistic Structures and Mental Structures
â3.2âMental Structures and the Forms of Possible Minds
â3.3âSummary
4 Natural Language, Machines and Minds
â4.1âMachines and Minds
â4.2âComputation and Natural Language
â4.3âSummary
5 Possible Minds and the Cognitive
â5.1âSummary
6 Conclusion
References
Index
This book would be invaluable to theoretical cognitive scientists, linguists, philosophers of mind, cognitive ethologists, theoretical biologists, and to anyone who ponders how language illuminates the nature of minds.