Course Description

Cross-listed w/01:185:412:03

01 (P. Pietroski) The broad goal is to illustrate some foundational issues in cognitive science by focusing on some specific questions that quickly arise if one tries to study the spoken or signed languages that human children naturally acquire. What are these languages, and what is it to acquire one? In what sense, or senses, are these languages distinctly human? What kinds of cognitive resources do children need to acquire such languages? Noam Chomsky’s early work in linguistics will figure prominently in the course, as will Alan Turing’s notion of computation. But we will also be reading work by other cognitive scientists and philosophers, including Randy Gallistel, Plato, and David Lewis.