Theo Todman's Web Page - Paper Abstracts

Author’s Abstract

1. A phenomenon "emerges" when a concept is instantiated for the first time: hence, emergence is relative to a set of concepts. Propositional thought and language emerge together. It is proposed that the degree of complexity of an object language relative to a given metalanguage can be gauged by the number of ways it can be translated into that metalanguage: in analogy with other forms of measurement, the more ways the object language can be translated into the metalanguage, the less powerful the conceptual resources of the object language.
2. This chapter₁ is concerned with the cognitive development of the pre-conceptual mental life of an infant through to the psychologically fully equipped mind of a child or adult. Davidson argues that known natural languages do not possess the linguistic potential to describe this development, mainly because our current vocabularies are impotent for the task at hand. Furthermore, Davidson argues, it is not clear what would satisfy the felt need for such a vocabulary.