Draft:Eric Margolis (philosopher)

Eric Margolis (born 1968) is an American/Canadian philosopher and professor at The University of British Columbia (UBC).

Education and career

Margolis earned his BA at the University of Maryland in 1990 and obtained his PhD at Rutgers University in 1995 under the direction of Jerry Fodor.

Prior to joining the faculty at UBC, he held appointments at Rice University, where he was the Director of the Cognitive Sciences Program, and The University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Philosophical work

Margolis specializes in the philosophy of mind and the philosophy of cognitive science. He is best known for his work on the nature of human concepts, how they are acquired, and what this can tell us about the fundamental structure of the mind.

He is the co-editor (with Stephen Laurence) of The Conceptual Mind: New Directions in the Study of Concepts (2015), which was named an Outstanding Academic Title (2016) by Choice Magazine.

His most recent book, The Building Blocks of Thought: A Rationalist Account of the Origins of Concepts (2024), co-authored with Stephen Laurence, is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. The book explores the longstanding debate between rationalist and empiricist views on the origins of concepts, a central issue in philosophy and cognitive science.

His research has been supported by Canada's Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.

Selected publications

• Margolis, E. & Laurence, S. (2024). The Building Blocks of Thought: A Rationalist Account of the Origins of Concepts. Oxford University Press.
• Margolis, E. & Laurence, S. (2023). Making Sense of Domain Specificity. Cognition, 240: 105583.
• Margolis, E., & Laurence, S. (2023). Concepts, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2023 Edition), Edward N. Zalta & Uri Nodelman (eds.).
• Margolis, E. (2020). The Small Number System. Philosophy of Science, 87.1, pp. 113-134.
• Margolis, E., & Laurence, S., eds. (2015). The Conceptual Mind: New Directions in the Study of Concepts. MIT Press.
• Laurence, S., & Margolis, E. (2015). Concept Nativism and Neural Plasticity. In E. Margolis & S. Laurence (eds.), The Conceptual Mind: New Directions in the Study of Concepts (MIT Press), pp. 117-147.
• Margolis, E., & Laurence, S. (2013). In Defense of Nativism. Philosophical Studies, 165:2, pp. 693-718.
• Margolis, E., R. Samuels, & Stich, S., eds. (2012). The Oxford Handbook of the Philosophy of Cognitive Science. Oxford University Press.
• Laurence, S., & Margolis, E. (2012). The Scope of the Conceptual. In E. Margolis et al. (eds.). The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Cognitive Science (Oxford University Press), pp. 291-317.
• Laurence, S., & Margolis, E. (2012). Abstraction and the Origin of General Ideas. Philosophers' Imprint, 12:19, pp. 1-22.
• Margolis, E., & Laurence, S. (2011). Learning Matters: The Role of Learning in Concept Acquisition. Mind & Language, 26:5, pp. 507-639.
• Barrett, H. C., Laurence, S., Margolis, E. (2008). Artifacts and Original Intent: A Cross-Cultural Perspective on the Design Stance. Journal of Cognition and Culture, 8, pp. 1-22.
• Margolis, E., & Laurence, S. (2008). How to Learn the Natural Numbers: Inductive Inference and the Acquisition of Number Concepts. Cognition, 106, pp. 924-939.
• Margolis, E., & Laurence, S., eds. (2007). Creations of the Mind: Theories of Artifacts and Their Representation. Oxford University Press.
• Margolis, E., & Laurence, S. (2007). The Ontology of Concepts: Abstract Objects or Mental Representations? Nous, 41:4, pp. 561-593.
• Laurence, S., Margolis, E. (2007). Linguistic Determinism and the Innate Basis of Number. In P. Carruthers et al. (eds.), The Innate Mind, vol. 3: Foundations and the Future (Oxford University Press), pp. 139-169.
• Laurence, S., Margolis, E. (2005). Number and Natural Language. In P. Carruthers et al. (eds.), The Innate Mind: Structure and Contents (Oxford University Press), pp. 216-235.
• Laurence, S., & Margolis, E. (2003). Concepts and Conceptual Analysis. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, LXVI, no. 2, pp. 253-282.
• Margolis, E., & Laurence, S. (2003). Should We Trust Our Intuitions? Deflationary Accounts of the Analytic Data. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 103.3 pp. 299-323.
• Laurence, S., & Margolis, E. (2002). Radical Concept Nativism. Cognition, 86, pp. 25-55.
• Margolis, E., & Laurence, S. (2002). Lewis' Strawman. The Philosophical Quarterly, 52:206, pp. 55-65.
• Margolis, E., & Laurence, S. (2001). Boghossian on Analyticity. Analysis, 61.4, pp. 293-302.
• Laurence, S., & Margolis, E. (2001). The Poverty of the Stimulus Argument. The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 52:206, pp. 217-276.
• Margolis, E., & Laurence, S., eds. (1999). Concepts: Core Readings. MIT Press.
• Laurence, S., & Margolis, E. (1999). Concepts and Cognitive Science, In Concepts: Core Readings, E. Margolis & S. Laurence (eds.), pp. 3-81.
• Margolis, E. (1998). How to Acquire a Concept. Mind & Language, 13:3, pp. 347-369.
• Laurence, S., & Margolis, E. (1997). Regress Arguments against the Language of Thought. Analysis, XCV, 57:1, pp. 60-66.
• Margolis, E. (1994). A Reassessment of the Shift from the Classical Theory of Concepts to Prototype Theory, Cognition, 51, pp. 73-89.

External links

• Philpeople Profile
• Personal Webpage
• ResearchGate Profile