A cognitive neuroscience, dual-systems approach to the sorites paradox

Abstract

Typical approaches to resolving the sorites paradox attempt to show, in one way or another, that the sorites argument is not paradoxical after all. However, if one can show that the sorites is not really paradoxical, the task remains of explaining why it appears to be a paradox. Our approach begins by addressing the appearance of paradox and then explores what this means for the paradox itself. We examine the sorites from the perspective of the various brain systems that are intuitively comfortable with the key features of the premises of the sorites argument. We suggest that the explicit and implicit cognitive systems are separately responsible for the initial plausibility of the categorical and inductive premises. The appearance of paradox is a function of our brain's architecture and arises from the conflicting interactions of neurologically distinct systems.

Keywords:

• sorites paradox
• implicit
• explicit systems

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank David Rosenthal and the CUNY Cognitive Science group, the Long Island Philosophical Society and the Workshop From Cognitive Science and Psychology to an Empirically Informed Philosophy of Logic 2010 for opportunities to present earlier incarnations of this paper, and David Pereplyotchik and an anonymous referee for helpful comments.

Notes

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Additional information

Notes on contributors

Leib Litman

1