Though it isn’t exactly recent, this video of Dan Sperber describing his theory of mind and communication at Edge.orgis an excellent way to spend 12 minutes. In addition to the
Are they “living” culture, making inferences, replicating memes, or sending & receiving code?
video, the page has an extended and lightly edited transcript of Sperber’s short talk that makes it very easy to see the differences between Sperber’s theory of mind and communication, that of Dawkins’, and what are, for some in argumentation theory, perhaps the more familiar semiological approaches. The video will also be of interest to those working on these topics from philosophical starting points.
If often find myself wishing that there were more discussion about these issues in argumentation theory and informal logic than there often seems to be. Perhaps Sperber’s work, including not just his talk here but last year’s release of Meaning and Relevance (an extension of the classic Relevance, also co-written with Deirdre Wilson), and the argument theory of reasoning he and Hugo Mercier have developed, will be just the stimulus we need to see our investigations afresh.
RAIL 