Nature and Nurture in Language and Cognition

Undergraduate / Graduate

One of the most interesting puzzles of human cognitive development, often called Plato's Problem, is how human beings are able to learn so much about the world on the basis of such little experience. To what extent are our cognitive faculties due to our genetic endowment, and to what extent are they the result of our experience of the world? In this class, we will explore, through in-class discussion and readings in psychology, philosophy, linguistics, and computer science, how humans acquire the capacity for language, concepts, spatial and moral reasoning, and much more.