Fiona Cowie *94

Fiona died Dec. 9, 2018, of cancer at the age of 55.

She was born in Sydney, Australia. At Princeton she earned a Ph.D. in philosophy in 1994.

She joined the philosophy faculty of the California Institute of Technology in 1992 and was promoted to professor in 2010. Fiona’s research explored the evolution of the human mind and philosophical questions about language. She was a proponent of the theory that language is not an innate product of the human brain but is instead a technological innovation.

Her book What’s Within? Nativism Reconsidered contends that many aspects of the human mind are acquired through learning rather than inborn. The book earned Fiona the Gustave O. Arlt Award in the Humanities in 1999.

She was awarded an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation New Directions Fellowship for Study of Neuroscience and Genetics.

Fiona’s approach differed from that of almost everyone who works on the evolution of language. In an interview she said, “I think that language arose initially through mutation and natural selection.” She viewed language “more as an invention, or technological advance, rather than as if it were some extra limb that grew as a result of selection on genetic mutations.”

Graduate memorials are prepared by the APGA.