Fiona Cowie is a contemporary analytic philosopher at the California Institute of Technology, best known for her sustained critique of linguistic nativism. Her work engages the intersection of philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, and cognitive science, particularly examining the empirical and conceptual foundations of Chomskyan claims about innate linguistic knowledge.
Authored 'What's Within? Nativism Reconsidered' (1999), a comprehensive critique of Chomskyan linguistic nativism
Challenged the poverty of the stimulus argument by questioning whether primary linguistic data genuinely underdetermines grammar learning
Defended empiricist alternatives to nativist accounts of language acquisition
Contributed to debates on the nature of innateness and its role in cognitive science