Gricean Communication and Cognitive Development

On standard readings of Grice, Gricean communication requires (a) possession of a concept of belief, (b) the ability to make complex inferences about others’ goal-directed behaviour, and (c) the ability to entertain fourth order meta-representations. To the extent that these abilities are pre-requisites of Gricean communication they are inconsistent with the view that Gricean communication could play a role in their development. In this paper, I argue that a class of ‘minimally Gricean acts’ satisfy the intentional structure described by Grice, but require none of abilities (a)-(c). As a result, Gricean communicative abilities may indeed contribute to the development of (a)-(c) – in particular, by enabling language development. This conclusion has important implications for our theorising about cognitive development

Neuropsychologie et cognition sociale

La notion de cognition sociale fait référence à l’ensemble des aptitudes et expériences émotionnelles et sociales régulant les relations entre les individus et permettant d’expliquer les comportements humains individuels ou en groupe. Elle implique des connaissances sociales, la perception et le traitement de signaux sociaux, ainsi que la représentation des états mentaux. La notion de cognition sociale renvoie donc à de multiples aptitudes. Ce chapitre s\u27arrête sur plusieurs d\u27entre-elles, à savoir la théorie de l\u27esprit, l\u27empathie, le raisonnement et le jugement moral. Nous proposons une approche conceptuelle de chacune de ces aptitudes en nous appuyant, pour une large part, sur les travaux développés dans le champ de la neuropsychologie humaine. Nous nous arrêtons également sur les soubassements neuro-anatomiques de chacune de ces aptitudes

Meaning in Animal Communication: Varieties of meaning and their roles in explaining communication

Why explain the communicative behaviours of animals by invoking the information/meaning 'transmitted' by signals? Why not explain communication in purely causal/functional terms? This thesis addresses active controversy regarding the nature and role of concepts of information, content and meaning in the scientific explanation of animal communication. I defend the methodology of explaining animal communication by invoking the 'meaning' of signals, and responds to worries raised by sceptics of this methodology in the scientific and philosophical literature. This task involves: showing what facts about communication non-informational methodology leaves unexplained; constructing a well-defined theory of content (or 'natural meaning') for most animal signals; and getting clearer on what cognitive capacities, if any, attributing natural meaning to signals implies for senders and receivers. Second, it weighs into comparative debates on human-nonhuman continuity, arguing that there are, in fact, different notions of meaning applicable to human communication that have different consequences for how continuous key aspects of human communication are with other species