Mateusz Hohol

Mateusz Hohol holds PhD in philosophy of cognitive science and is an assistant professor at the Pontifical University of John Paul II, as well as a member of the Copernicus Center for Interdisciplinary Studies. He is the author or co-author of 2 books, including Wyjaśnić umysł. Struktura teorii neurokognitywnych (Explaining the Mind. The Structure of Neurocognitive Theories). His research focuses on neuroscience, cognitive science, philosophy and the relationships between them.

Issue: 4:2 (The fourth issue)

In this paper it has been argued that the theory of conceptual maps developed recently by Paul M. Churchland provides support for Wittgenstein’s claim that language is a tool for acting in the world. The role of language is to coordinate and shape the conceptual maps of the members of the given language community, reducing the cross-individual cognitive idiosyncrasies and paving the way for joint cognitive enterprises. Moreover, Churchland’s theory also explains our tendency to speak of language as consisting of concepts which correspond to things we encounter in the world. The puzzle of common sense reference is no longer a puzzle: while at the fundamental level language remains a tool for orchestrating conceptual maps, the fact that the maps encode some communally shared categorization of experience fuels our talk of concepts capturing the essences of things, natural kinds, prototypes, etc.