In the research field initiated by Lindblom & Liljencrants in 1972, we illustrate the possibility of giving substance to phonology, predicting the structure of phonological systems with nonphonological principles, be they listener-oriented (perceptual contrast and stability) or speaker-oriented (articulatory contrast and economy). We proposed for vowel systems the Dispersion-Focalisation Theory...

In Action in Perception Alva Noë develops and presents a sensorimotor account of vision and of visual consciousness. According to such an account seeing (and indeed perceiving more generally) is analysed as a kind of skilful bodily activity. Such a view is consistent with the emerging emphasis, in both philosophy and cognitive science, on the critical role of embodiment in the construction of i...

Descartes maintained that sensations of color and the like misrepresent the material world in normal circumstances. Some prominent scholars have argued that, to explain this Cartesian view, we must attribute to Descartes a causal account of sensory representation. I contend that neither the arguments motivating this reading nor the textual evidence offered in its support is sufficient to justif...

Contextualists of David Lewis’ stripe endorse the thesis that ‘know’ and its cognates are context dependent so as to heed their infallibilist intuitions while avoiding skepticism. I argue that the plausibility of infallibilism can be explained away as arising from two other intuitively known facts, i.e.: (KA) For any speaker, A, and proposition, p, if A asserts that p, then A incurs a commitmen...

DATA TYPE See DATA ABSTRACTION ABSTRACTION (The result of) a process of simplification, to describe something at a more general level than the level of detail seen from another point of view. This is often achieved by omitting details specific to individual cases or to methods of implementation. For example, a realtor’s description of a house may leave out architectural detail so that it is an ...

It is argued that the notion of Umwelt is relevant for contemporary discussions within theoretical biology, biosemiotics, the study of Artificial Life, Autonomous Systems Research and philosophy of biology. Focus is put on the question of whether an artificial creature can have a phenomenal world in the sense of the Umwelt notion of Jakob von Uexküll, one of the founding figures of biosemiotics...