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CHAIR'S STATEMENT FACULTY GRADUATE STUDENTS COLLOQUIUM CALENDAR UNDERGRADUATE PROGRAM GRADUATE PROGRAM GRADUATE PLACEMENT MASTER SCHEDULE UNDERGRADUATE BULLETIN GRADUATE BULLETIN ACADEMIC CALENDARS USC LIBRARIES CAS COMPUTING & IT USC COMPUTER SERVICES ABOUT COLUMBIA SC RESTRICTED ACCESS: Faculty | Graduate Students Search USC   THIS SITE		COLLOQUIA & CONFERENCES DYNAMIC PARTITIONING AND THE CONVENTIONALITY OF KINDS   Jeffrey A. Barrett Department of Logic and Philosophy of Science University of California, Irvine   April 27, 2007 Friday, 3:30pm-5:00pm Nursing, Room 127   Lewis sender-receiver games illustrate how a meaningful term language might evolve from initially meaningless random signals (Lewis 1969, Skyrms 2006). Here we will consider how a meaningful language with a primitive grammar might evolve in a somewhat more subtle sort of game. The evolution of such a language involves the co-evolution of partitions of the physical world into what may seem, at least from the perspective of someone using the language, to correspond to canonical natural kinds. But while the evolved language may allow for the sort of precise representation of physical states that is required for successful coordinated action, the apparent natural kinds reflected in its structure need not correspond to genuine physical kinds. This has both positive and negative implications for the limits of naturalized metaphysics.
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