Colloque - Discourse Files - Gergely Csibra : Tracking Discourse Referents in Symbolic Depictions

Épisode de Philosophie du langage et de l'esprit - François Recanati par Collège de France · 31 mars 2026 · 1 h 19 min

François Recanati

Philosophie du langage et de l'esprit

Collège de France

Année 2024-2025

Colloque - Discourse Files

Tracking Discourse Referents in Symbolic Depictions

Gergely Csibra

Central European University, Vienne

Résumé

Scene constructions, or more broadly, episodic simulations, are internal representations of states, relations, and events in the spatial navigational system of the brain. These constructions serve various purposes, including action planning, imagination, and memory retrieval. The format of these constructions is hybrid: they arrange discrete elements (internal symbols of objects, agents, abstract entities) in analog space and time to represent relations among them iconically. Such constructions can also represent not inherently spatial relations and operate both in humans and in non-human species. However, humans also create external representations in a format analogous to scene constructions, which I call symbolic depictions. Symbolic depictions are composed of discrete elements (objects) that function as local physical symbols standing for their internally represented counterparts in scene constructions. The arrangement of these symbols in physical space and time depicts relations or events among the entities they stand for. When entities represented internally in a constructed scene are tied to object-symbols in external displays, I consider them functioning as discourse referents. I will outline the cognitive operations required to establish and track such discourse referents and argue that some of these operations are available in early ontogeny, even before capacities for tracking discourse referents linguistically emerge.

Gergely Csibra

Gergely Csibra is a professor at the Deparment of Cognitive Science at Central European University, Vienna, and a professor emeritus at Birkbeck, University of London.

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La chaire Philosophie du langage et de l'esprit héberge l'enseignement du titulaire, le Pr Recanati, ainsi que les colloques, séminaires et journées d'étude de la chaire, et les conférences des professeurs invités. Les domaines couverts par cet enseignement et ces manifestations relèvent de la…

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