Jesse Prinz: Beyond Reference – How Minds Make Categories

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Lecture given during The Shalem Center’s Psycho-ontology Conference, December, 2011.

Philosophers have often assumed that our thoughts correspond to a world of categories and objects whose boundaries exist independently of the mind, but a growing body of evidence suggests that our minds impose boundaries on the world, casting doubt on prevailing theories in semantics and ontology.

Jesse Prinz is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the City University of New York, Graduate Center. His research focuses on the perceptual, emotional, and cultural foundations of human psychology.

[Video and text source: TheShalemCenter YouTube channel]