When useful folk categories, like “trees” and “fish”, don’t line up with evolutionary taxonomies… (opens in new tab)

lingthusiasm:Imagine you’re in a field with someone whose language you don’t speak. A rabbit scurries by. The other person says “Gavagai!” You probably assumed they meant “rabbit” but they could have meant something else, like “scurrying” or even “lo! an undetatched rabbit-part!”We spent a whole episode getting enthusiastic about how we manage to understand each other when we’re learning new words, inspired by the famous “Gavagai” thought experiment from the philosopher of language WVO Quine....