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Can Carey answer Quine?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 May 2011

Christopher S. Hill
Christopher S. Hill
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, Brown University, Providence, RI 02912. Christopher_Hill@brown.edu
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Abstract

In order to defend her claim that the concept object is biologically determined, Carey must answer Quine's gavagai argument, which purports to show that mastery of any concept with determinate reference presupposes a substantial repertoire of logical concepts. I maintain that the gavagai argument withstands the experimental data that Carey provides, but that it yields to an a priori argument.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 34 , Issue 3 , June 2011 , pp. 132 - 133
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

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References

Baillargeon, R., Spelke, E. S. & Wasserman, S. (1985) Object permanence in five-month-old infants. Cognition 20:191–208.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
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Quine, W. V. O. (1960) Word and object. MIT Press.Google Scholar
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