Hand, Mind and Language

Colin McGinn (University of Miami)

We welcome you to the final session of this Autumn Term. Colin McGinn is Professor of Philosophy and Cooper Fellow at the University of Miami. He previously held teaching positions at the University of Oxford and Rutgers University.

Abstract: In what ways might the human hand have contributed to the evolution of the human mind and human language? To what extent do we have a "manual mind"? Could spoken language have had its origins in a gestural language based in the hand? This lecture will advance the thesis that ostension and prehension are connected and that the mind is a "grasping organ". This provides a new and acceptable form of biological naturalism about mind and language.