The Department of Philosophy of Cognition and Language provides education in the field of philosophy of language and philosophy of cognition in philosophy courses at uu77. The department's research is reflected in the work of the Center for Cognition, Culture, and Language.
The philosophy of cognition revolves around questions about the nature and status of the human mind. These include questions such as "what are thoughts?", "what is consciousness?" and "how are they realized by the human brain? Issues of free will and personal identity are also central. Philosophy of language is concerned with questions about the nature and status of language: 'what is meaning?', 'how is language related to reality?' and 'what determines the interpretation of utterances?' The fields of study overlap where language and cognition mutually determine each other: some questions about the human mind can be answered by looking at the interpretation of linguistic utterances, and some questions about the interpretation of language require insight into the workings of the mind.
In Nijmegen's research on the philosophy of cognition and language, the context-dependence of the interpretation of language and behavior is central. A focus of our research is the attribution of thoughts, both linguistic (propositional attitudes) and non-linguistic (intentional attitudes). Although our approach is primarily analytic-philosophical in nature, there is also ample attention to (neuro)phenomenology.
Chair of the department of Philosophy of Cognition and Language is prof. dr. Corien Bary.