PHIL 311 - Seminar in Cognitive Science

Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)

The topic of the seminar varies regularly, but is always focused on some aspect of thought, language, perception, or action considered from the unique, synthetic perspective of cognitive science. The seminar is team-taught by faculty members in the program. May be repeated for credit if the topic has changed.

Topic for 2013/14a: Semantics and Pragmatics: Cognitive Science and Philosophy. (Same as COGS 311 ) When people use language to express their thoughts and communicate information, what pieces of information are expressed in virtue of the semantic content (or meaning) of the language, and what pieces of information are expressed in virtue of extra-linguistic features of the environment in which the language is used? This is the primary organizing question of the course, with a focus on evidence from the philosophy of language, linguistics, language acquisition, and both functional and neural aspects of language comprehension. Ms. Andrews and Mr. Lam.

Prerequisite(s): special permission of the instructor, and COGS 100 and either one Cognitive Science 200-level course or PHIL 222 or PHIL 230 .

One 3-hour period.