# MOLYNEUX’S QUESTION AND COGNITIVE IMPENETRABILITY **Opening (not a real abstract):** Our understanding of the concepts we use in ordinary thought and talk often depends on our experience of the world. For instance, our understanding of words for the colours of objects seems to depend on our having had experience of the colours. It is a datum that someone who has never had colour experience will not know what the various colours are. Similarly, the ways in which we ordinarily understand words for the shapes objects commonly have, such as ‘sphere’ or ‘cube’, seem to depend on our having experienced shapes. A common picture of the structure of our cognitive lives makes a distinction between the level of conceptual thought – the use of concepts in ordinary thought and talk – and the level of information-processing content described by scientists studying the brain systems involved in perception. Much discussion of cognitive architecture has to