--- abstract: 'It is argued that cognitive capacities can be understood as the outcome of the collective action of a set of agents created by tools that explore possible behaviours and train the agents to behave in such appropriate ways as may be discovered. The coherence of the whole system is assured by a combination of vetting the performance of new agents and dealing appropriately with any faults that the whole system may develop. This picture is shown to account for a range of cognitive capacities, including language.' altloc: [] chapter: ~ commentary: ~ commref: ~ confdates: 'July 31 - August 4, 2000' conference: 'ECHO IV (Emergence, Complexity, Hierarchy, Organisation) conference' confloc: 'Odense, Denmark' contact_email: ~ creators_id: [] creators_name: - family: Josephson given: Brian D. honourific: '' lineage: '' date: 2000 date_type: published datestamp: 2000-07-04 department: ~ dir: disk0/00/00/01/50 edit_lock_since: ~ edit_lock_until: ~ edit_lock_user: ~ editors_id: [] editors_name: [] eprint_status: archive eprintid: 150 fileinfo: /style/images/fileicons/text_html.png;/150/1/echo4.html|/style/images/fileicons/application_pdf.png;/150/5/echo4.pdf full_text_status: public importid: ~ institution: ~ isbn: ~ ispublished: unpub issn: ~ item_issues_comment: [] item_issues_count: 0 item_issues_description: [] item_issues_id: [] item_issues_reported_by: [] item_issues_resolved_by: [] item_issues_status: [] item_issues_timestamp: [] item_issues_type: [] keywords: 'development, cognition, learning, agents, neural networks, modules, tools, paradigms, domain specificity, issue resolution, language.' lastmod: 2011-03-11 08:53:42 latitude: ~ longitude: ~ metadata_visibility: show note: ~ number: ~ pagerange: ~ pubdom: FALSE publication: ~ publisher: ~ refereed: FALSE referencetext: ~ relation_type: [] relation_uri: [] reportno: ~ rev_number: 14 series: ~ source: ~ status_changed: 2007-09-12 16:24:23 subjects: - bio-theory - cog-psy - comp-sci-complex-theory - comp-sci-lang - comp-sci-mach-learn - comp-sci-neural-nets - dev-psy - evol-psy - ling-learn - ling-sem - ling-syntax - neuro-mod - neuro-psy - phil-lang - phil-mind succeeds: ~ suggestions: ~ sword_depositor: ~ sword_slug: ~ thesistype: ~ title: Constructional Tools as the Origin of Cognitive Capacities type: confpaper userid: 196 volume: ~