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Fodor's nativism

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Conclusion

The upshot of all this is that very many lexical concepts arenot triggered. Not is triggering is a brute-causal, non cognitive process. Concepts, by and large, are not acquired through the inductive confirmation of definitions. I think Fodor is right about that. But the experience that leads to their acquisition is not arbitrary, and is cognitively processed. It's not just switching on a little cognitive machine already there, or kick-starting an endogenously controlled process.

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  1. Dept. of Philosophy, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, 2601, Canberra, ACT

    Kim Sterelny

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  1. Kim Sterelny
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Sterelny, K. Fodor's nativism. Philosophical Studies 55, 119–141 (1989). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00354184

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