Fall 2016

  • ECOM hosted a talk by Ulrich Stegmann (Philosophy, Aberdeen) on December 12, 4PM: “Animal Signals, Acquisition Conditions and the Explanation of Behavior”. Click herefor more information and an abstract.
  • ECOM hosted its 3rd UConn workshop on December 2-3, titled What’s in a Word? The workshop explored the theoretical status of words in connection with issues such as the contrast between words and mere labels, or between one-word sentences and fully compositional sentences; words as expressive of concepts; and words as potential points of entry into language (both in the context of human language acquisition and in the context of trying to teach language to nonhuman animals).Invited speakers included: Elika Bergelson (Psychology, Duke), Laurence R. Horn (Linguistics, Yale), William G. Lycan (Philosophy, UConn), Ruth Millikan (Philosophy, UConn), Letitia Naigles (Psychology, UConn) and Irene Pepperberg (Harvard).

    Visit the workshop webpage by clicking here to find titles and abstracts.

  • ECOM hosted a reading group on Berwick and Chomsky’s Why Only Us: Language and Evolution.
  • ECOM director Dorit Bar-On represented ECOM at the first Seven Hills Workshop on Mind, Metaphysics, and Ethics, held at College of Holy Cross, Saturday November 5.