@unpublished{cogprints1626,
title = {On the Virtues of Theft Over Honest Toil: Grounding Language and Thought in Sensorimotor Categories},
author = {Stevan Harnad},
year = {1996},
keywords = {language evolution, frame problem, symbol grounding, categorical perception, categorization, perceptual learning, menaing},
url = {http://cogprints.org/1626/},
abstract = {What language allows us to do is to steal categories through hearsay instead of having to
earn them through the honest toil of learning them from direct exposure and trial and error feedback
from the consequences of miscategorisation. To make us capable of theft, however, the
content-bearing symbols of language must ultimately be grounded in categories that have been earned
through honest toil (unless "prepared" by Darwinian theft); it cannot be linguistic theft all the way
down. Category names must be grounded in the capacity to sort, label and interact with the proximal
sensorimotor projections of their distal members in a way which coheres systematically with their
interpretations, singly, and strung together to express propositions.
}
}