Ruth G. Millikan, “Beyond Concepts: Unicepts, Language, and Natural Information” (Oxford UP, 2018)
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What is the central question Kant asked that frames the book?
Hi everyone, this is Marshall Poe. I'm the founder of the New Books Network, and I'm also a historian. I used to be a history professor, and I love maps. So I'm especially happy to tell you that this episode is sponsored by What's Your Map, which was the winner of the best education podcast at the 2025 British Podcast Awards. What's Your Map is hosted by historian and prize-winning author, Professor Jerry Broughton. In each episode, he invites a guest to share. A map close to their heart and unfurl the ideas, inspirations, and stories behind it. I can tell you I've listened and it's fascinating. The podcast is in its sixth series and is enjoyed by audiences around the globe. You can explore all the maps in the podcast at occulehyphenmundi.com while you listen.
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Hello and welcome to New Books and Philosophy, a podcast channel with the New Books Network. I'm Carrie Figdore, Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Iowa. I'm co host of the channel along with Robert Talise, Professor of Philosophy at Vanderbilt University. Together we bring you conversations with philosophers about their new books, drawing from a wide range of areas of contemporary philosophical inquiry. Today's interview is with Ruth Garrett Milliken, Distinguished Professor Emerita at the University of Connecticut. Her new book, Beyond Concepts, UNICEPS Language and Natural Information, is just out from Oxford University Press. Kant famously asked the question, How is knowledge possible?
In her new book, Millican responds to this question from her characteristic naturalistic and specifically evolutionary perspective. Milliken has long been a leading figure in theorizing about language and thought. Her latest work considers the clumpy world that organisms confront and the problem of how we recognize the same objects and properties again. as well as their kinds and categories. Our cognizing machinery includes unit trackers whose job it is to track these items and channel information of the same item. to one place. Which she calls a unicept. And while each of us has distinct unit trackers and uniceps, They can be attached to the same word in a public language, and words themselves are seen as lineages of reproduced signs.
There's plenty to talk about in the book. And there's plenty we talked about in the interview. So let's turn to the interview. Uh hello Ruth Milliken. Welcome to New Books in Philosophy. Hello, Carrie. Nice to be here. I'm very honored and pleased to be talking to you to you about your or with you about your new book, Beyond Concepts. Um before we get to the book itself, um I thought, you know, because you y many of our listeners will be to some extent, you know, certainly familiar with with who you are, to some extent uh also familiar with your work, at least in broad outline. Um We'd like to start with a a question about, you know, you the the interviewee themselves about, you know, how they got to philosophy and how they came to write this book.
And um, you know, despite the fact that many people will be familiar with with you and with your work, I think it would still be a Um an interesting uh way to begin to get um some idea of, you know, how you became attracted to philosophy and how you came to work on the particular topics that you have.
I guess I didn't even know there was such a thing in As philosophy until I went to college, I went to Oberlin College. And there it was required. Um you had to have a a course in philosophy.
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
What is the central question Kant asked that frames the book?
0:00–6:04
2
How did Ruth Millikan become interested in philosophy and language?
6:04–15:14
3
What are unit‑trackers and how do they help us recognize the same object over time?
15:14–23:40
4
How do unicepts differ from traditional concepts and why are they important?
23:40–34:51
5
How does language function as a natural sign that carries information?
34:51–48:18
6
What are the ‘strength of correlation’ and ‘reference class’ problems for infosigns?
48:18–58:05
7
How does Millikan’s view of perception differ from the classic reconstruction model?
58:05–1:03:05
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from New Books in Philosophy
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