A recent issue of Topics in Cognitive Science featured 11 thoughtful commentaries responding to our article “What happened to cognitive science?” (Núñez et al., 2019). Here, we identify several themes that arose in those commentaries and respond to each. Crucial to understanding our original article is the fundamental distinction between multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary endeavors: Cognitive science began (and has stayed) as multidisciplinary but has failed to move on to form a cohesive interdisciplinary field. We clarify and elaborate our original argument (...) and reiterate the importance of a data‐driven evaluation of the current status of the field, which exhibits a marked disciplinary imbalance, a lack of a coherent conceptual core, and a striking absence of a consistent curriculum in the institutions that grant degrees in this domain. Half a century after the creation of cognitive science, it may now be a good time to revisit goals and visions for how to best approach the ever‐fascinating scientific study of the mind(s). (shrink)

The Aymara of the Andes use absolute (cardinal) frames of reference for describing the relative position of ordinary objects. However, rather than encoding them in available absolute lexemes, they do it in lexemes that are intrinsic to the body: nayra (“front”) and qhipa (“back”), denoting east and west, respectively. Why? We use different but complementary ethnographic methods to investigate the nature of this encoding: (a) linguistic expressions and speech–gesture co-production, (b) linguistic patterns in the distinct regional Spanish-based variety Castellano Andino (...) (CA), (c) metaphorical extensions of CA’s spatial patterns to temporal ones, and (d) layouts of traditional houses. Findings indicate that, following fundamental principles of Aymara cosmology, people, objects, and land—as a whole—are conceived as having an implicit canonical orientation facing east, a primary landmark determined by the sunrise. The above bodily based lexicalizations are thus linguistic manifestations of a broader macro-cultural worldview and its psycho-cognitive reality. (shrink)

The canonical history of mathematics suggests that the late 19th-century “arithmetization” of calculus marked a shift away from spatial-dynamic intuitions, grounding concepts in static, rigorous definitions. Instead, we argue that mathematicians, both historically and currently, rely on dynamic conceptualizations of mathematical concepts like continuity, limits, and functions. In this article, we present two studies of the role of dynamic conceptual systems in expert proof. The first is an analysis of co-speech gesture produced by mathematics graduate students while proving a theorem, (...) which reveals a reliance on dynamic conceptual resources. The second is a cognitive-historical case study of an incident in 19th-century mathematics that suggests a functional role for such dynamism in the reasoning of the renowned mathematician Augustin Cauchy. Taken together, these two studies indicate that essential concepts in calculus that have been defined entirely in abstract, static terms are nevertheless conceptualized dynamically, in both contemporary and historical practice. (shrink)

What is the nature of number systems and arithmetic that we use in science for quantification, analysis, and modeling? I argue that number concepts and arithmetic are neither hardwired in the brain, nor do they exist out there in the universe. Innate subitizing and early cognitive preconditions for number— which we share with many other species—cannot provide the foundations for the precision, richness, and range of number concepts and simple arithmetic, let alone that of more complex mathematical concepts. Numbers and (...) arithmetic, and mathematics in general, have unique features—precision, objectivity, rigor, generalizability, stability, symbolizability, and applicability to the real world—that must be accounted for. They are sophisticated concepts that developed culturally only in recent human history. I suggest that numbers and arithmetic are realized through precise combinations of non-mathematical everyday cognitive mechanisms that make human imagination and abstraction possible. One such mechanism, conceptual metaphor, is a neurally instantiated inference-preserving cross-domain mapping that allows the conceptualization of abstract entities in terms of grounded bodily experience. I analyze how the inferential organization of the properties and “laws” of arithmetic emerge metaphorically from everyday meaningful actions. Numbers and arithmetic are thus—outside of natural selection—the product of the biologically constrained interaction of individuals with the appropriate cultural and historical phenotypic variation supported by language, writing systems, and education. (shrink)

While we often talk about time using spatial terms, experimental investigation of space-time associations has focused primarily on the space in front of the participant. This has had two consequences: the disregard of the space behind the participant and the creation of potential task demands produced by spatialized manual button-presses. We introduce and test a new paradigm that uses auditory stimuli and vocal responses to address these issues. Participants made temporal judgments about deictic or sequential relationships presented auditorily along a (...) body-centered sagittal or transversal axis. Results involving the transversal axis replicated previous work while sagittal axis results were surprising. Deictic judgments did not use the sagittal axis but sequential judgments did, in a previously undocumented way. Participants associated earlier judgments with the space in front of them and later judgments with the space behind them. These findings, using a new approach, p.. (shrink)

This article examines the primacy of real-world bodily experience for understanding the human mind. I defend the idea that the peculiarities of the living human brain and body, and the bodily experiences they sustain, are essential ingredients of human sense-making and conceptual systems. Conceptual systems are created, brought forth, understood and sustained, through very specific cognitive mechanisms ultimately grounded in bodily experience. They don't have a transcendental abstract logic independent of the species-specific bodily features. To defend this position, I focus (...) on a case study: the fundamental concept of time flow. Using tools of cognitive linguistics, I analyse the foundations of this concept, as it is manifested naturally in everyday language. I show that there is a precise conceptual metaphor whose inferential structure gives an account of a huge variety of linguistic expressions, semantic contents, and unconscious spontaneous gestures: Time Events Are Things In Space. I discuss various special cases of this conceptual metaphor. This mapping grounds its source domain in specific spatial bodily experiences and projects its inferential structure onto a target domain making inferences in that domain possible. This mechanism allows us to unconsciously, effortlessly, and precisely understand expressions such as ‘the year 2000 is approaching’ or ‘the days ahead of us’. The general form of the mapping seems to be universal. The analysis raises important issues which demand a deeper and richer understanding of cognition and the mind: a view that sees the mind as fully embodied. In order to avoid misunderstandings with a general notion of ‘embodiment’ which has become fashionable in contemporary cognitive science, I describe what I mean by ‘full embodiment’: an embodied-oriented approach that has an explicit commitment to all of cognition, not just to low-level aspects of cognition such as sensory-motor activity or locomotion . I take embodiment to be a living phenomenon in which the primacy of bodily grounded experience is inherently part of the very subject matter of the study of the mind. (shrink)

Traditional cognitive science is Cartesian in the sense that it takes as fundamental the distinction between the mental and the physical, the mind and the world. This leads to the claim that cognition is representational and best explained using models derived from AI and computational theory. The authors depart radically from this model.

Speakers of many languages around the world rely on body-based contrasts for spatial communication and cognition. Speakers of Yupno, a language of Papua New Guinea's mountainous interior, rely instead on an environment-based uphill/downhill contrast. Body-based contrasts are as easy to use indoors as outdoors, but environment-based contrasts may not be. Do Yupno speakers still use uphill/downhill contrasts indoors and, if so, how? We report three studies on spatial communication within the Yupno house. Even in this flat world, uphill/downhill contrasts are (...) pervasive. However, the terms are not used according to the slopes beyond the house's walls, as reported in other groups. Instead, the house is treated as a microworld, with a “conceptual topography” that is strikingly reminiscent of the physical topography of the Yupno valley. The phenomenon illustrates some of the distinctive properties of environment-based reference systems, as well as the universal power and plasticity of spatial contrasts. (shrink)

Speakers of many languages around the world rely on body‐based contrasts (e.g., left/right) for spatial communication and cognition. Speakers of Yupno, a language of Papua New Guinea's mountainous interior, rely instead on an environment‐based uphill/downhill contrast. Body‐based contrasts are as easy to use indoors as outdoors, but environment‐based contrasts may not be. Do Yupno speakers still use uphill/downhill contrasts indoors and, if so, how? We report three studies on spatial communication within the Yupno house. Even in this flat world, uphill/downhill (...) contrasts are pervasive. However, the terms are not used according to the slopes beyond the house's walls, as reported in other groups. Instead, the house is treated as a microworld, with a “conceptual topography” that is strikingly reminiscent of the physical topography of the Yupno valley. The phenomenon illustrates some of the distinctive properties of environment‐based reference systems, as well as the universal power and plasticity of spatial contrasts. (shrink)

Clarke and Beck's defense of the theoretical construct “approximate number system” is flawed in serious ways – from biological misconceptions to mathematical naïveté. The authors misunderstand behavioral/psychological technical concepts, such as numerosity and quantical cognition, which they disdain as “exotic.” Additionally, their characterization of rational numbers is blind to the essential role of symbolic reference in the emergence of number.

Pointing is a cornerstone of human communication, but does it take the same form in all cultures? Manual pointing with the index finger appears to be used universally, and it is often assumed to be universally preferred over other forms. Non-manual pointing with the head and face has also been widely attested, but it is usually considered of marginal significance, both empirically and theoretically. Here, we challenge this assumed marginality. Using a novel communication task, we investigated pointing preferences in the (...) Yupno of Papua New Guinea and in U.S. undergraduates. Speakers in both groups pointed at similar rates, but form preferences differed starkly: The Yupno participants used non-manual pointing numerically more often than manual pointing, whereas the U.S. participants stuck unwaveringly to index-finger pointing. The findings raise questions about why groups differ in their pointing preferences and, more broadly, about why humans communicate in the ways they do. (shrink)

Introduction to Special Issue on ‘Reclaiming Cognition: The Primacy of Action, Intention and Emotion’. Making sense of the mind is the human odyssey. Today, the cognitive sciences provide the vehicles and equipage. As do all culturally shaped activities, they manifest crystallized generalizations and ideological legacies, many of which go unquestioned for centuries. From time to time, these ideologies are successfully challenged, generating revisions and new forms of understanding. We believe that the cognitive sciences have reached a situation in which they (...) have been frozen into one narrow form by the machine metaphor. There is a need to thaw that form and move from a reductionist, atemporal, disembodied, static, rationalist, emotion- and culture-free view, to fundamentally richer understandings that include the primacy of action, intention, emotion, culture, real-time constraints, real-world opportunities, and the peculiarities of living bodies. These essays constitute an array of moves in that direction. (shrink)

Philosophers of mathematics often rely on the historical progress of mathematics in support of mathematical realism. These histories typically build on formal semantic tools to evaluate the changes in mathematics, and on these bases present later mathematical concepts as refined versions of earlier concepts which are taken to be vague. Claiming that this view does not apply to mathematical concepts in general, we present a case-study concerning projective geometry, for which we apply the tools of cognitive linguistics to analyse the (...) developmental trajectory of the domain. On the basis of this analysis, we argue for the existence of two conceptually incompatible inferential structures, occurring at distinct moments in history, both of which yield the same projective geometric theorems; the first invoked by the French mathematicians Girard Desargues (1591–1661) and Jean-Victor Poncelet (1788–1867), and the second characterising a specific modern mode. We demonstrate that neither of these inferential structures can be considered as a refinement of the other. This case of conceptual development presents an issue to the standard account of progress and its bearing on mathematical realism. Our analysis suggests that the features that distinguish the underlying conceptually incompatible inferential structures are invisible to the standard application of the tools of formal semantics. Thus this case-study stands as an example of the manner and necessity of linguistics—specifically cognitive linguistics—to inform the philosophy of mathematics. (shrink)

Mathematics is a unique body of knowledge. Among others, it is abstract, exact, efficient, symbolizable, and it provides astonishing applications to the real world. In the domain of philosophy of mathematics the study of the practice of mathematics has gradually become an important area of investigation. What aspects of the human body and mind make the peculiar practice of mathematics possible? In this article, I briefly review some cogntive dimensions that play a crucial role in the creation and consolidation of (...) mathematics. (shrink)

The recently celebrated division into ‘easy’ and ‘hard’ problems of consciousness is unfortunate and misleading. Built on functionalist grounds, it carves up the subject matter by declaring that the most elusive parts need a fundamentally and intrinsically different solution. What we have, rather, are ‘difficult’ problems of conscious experience, but problems that are not difficult per se. Their difficulty is relative, among other things, to the kind of solution one is looking for and the tools used to accomplish the task. (...) I argue that the study of conscious experience in our scientific and philosophical tradition is a very difficult problem because it has been addressed with inappropriate tools: with harmful long-lasting and inadequate dogmas that have dogged science for centuries. I describe five of these dogmas, which are: the existence of an objective reality independent of human understanding; the subordination of epistemology to ontology; the restricted view of the objectivist-subjectivist dichotomy; the exclusion of the body from the study of the mind; and the idea of explaining the mind in terms of the neurophysiological processes of individual brains. I claim that conscious experience is not a transcendental, paranatural, mystic or magic phenomenon. It is tractable and approachable with scientific methods. However, one must look not only for non-reductionist views to approach it, but also for views that avoid the dogmas here described. Conscious experience is a living phenomenon and it has to be understood as such. Accordingly, our understanding of it has to make sense at several levels, from evolution to morphophysiology, from neuroanatomy to language. I put forward an approach to conscious experience which is free of the dogmas that make the study of conscious experience so difficult. This view, called ecological naturalism, is a non-functionalist and non-reductive view that provides an naturalistic account of the mind. It also puts special emphasis on irreducible supra-individual biological processes that are essential in the realization of mental phenomena and therefore conscious experience. (shrink)

Early quantitative skills cannot be directly extended to provide the richness, precision, and sophistication of the concept of natural number. These skills must interact with top-down mathematical schemas, which can be explained by bodily grounded everyday mechanisms for abstraction and imagination (e.g., conceptual metaphor, blending) that are both biologically plausible and culturally shaped (established beyond the child's mind).

The neural realization of number in abstract form is implausible, but from this it doesn't follow that numbers are not abstract. Clear definitions of abstraction are needed so they can be applied homogenously to numerical and non-numerical cognition. To achieve a better understanding of the neural substrate of abstraction, productive cognition must be investigated.

The figure of the “double” or the other self is an important topic in the history of literature. Many centuries before Jean Paul Richter coined the term, “doppelgänger,” at the beginning of the Romantic Movement in the year 1796, it is possible to find the figure of the double in myths and legends. The issue of the double emphaszses the contradictory character of the human being and invokes a sinister dimension of the psychological world, what has been called in German (...) as “umheimlich.” However, does multiciplicity always involve pathology? Related to this figure in literary history, a new perspective from clinical psychology called “dialogical self” defines the self as a multi-voice reality. Along the same line, postmodernist psychology considers the self a discursive construction. From these perspectives, the “self” is situated a long way away from the classical essential conception of the self. In this paper, we review briefly some important landmarks of the figure of the double in the literature, and we compare the coincidences of the “double” experiencies described in literature with the experiences of our patients. Finally, we discuss how this literary tradition can help us to understand new psychological perspectives. (shrink)