ABSTRACT In my (2020) I defended an intentionalist understanding of Chomskyan linguistics whereby standard linguistic entities (“SLEs”) such as words, phrases and phonemes don’t exist, but are “intentional inexistents” merely represented in our brains. Reviewers complained this was in tension with “externalist” theories of representation that require externalia as causes of internal representations. I argue that this requirement can be met by the kind of idealization to which Chomskyan theories appeal, which, like the idealized dispositions that regularly appear in physical sciences, can be understood along the lines of Quine’s (1960) invocation of Weierstrass’s “delta-epsilon” strategy for defining a limit in calculus. Where such a strategy is available in a domain, it would seem to render the externalist/internalist distinction there explanatorily otiose.
ABSTRACT Noam Chomsky’s contributions to the study of language span over seven decades. His work is often attributed the status of scientific revolution (Miller 2003). He is especially accredited with resetting the agenda in theoretical linguistics towards the investigation of an idealised state of the mind/brain (Chomsky 1965) interpreted as an innate, internalised system or an I-language (Chomsky 1986). Chomsky’s philosophical defence of this view has generally been along naturalistic lines, i.e., the most tractable scientific way to study language involves treating it as a domain-specific state of the human brain (Chomsky 2000). In this article, I explore an alternative interpretation of Chomsky’s philosophical contributions to language in terms of the emerging field of conceptual engineering. First, I distinguish between naturalism and conceptual engineering. Even though the two approaches can be complementary, I suggest that the latter involves an overt ameliorative or normative element (Cappelen 2020; Haslanger 2000). I then show that certain aspects of Chomsky’s oeuvre are better suited for a conceptual engineering interpretation (i.e., I-language) while others align more closely with his naturalism (i.e., biolinguistics).
ABSTRACT Noam Chomsky and his colleagues have proposed that human languages are basically designed for construction of inner thoughts so that individual humans can plan ahead, thus giving selectional advantage to the species. The sound part of language in this view is ancillary, it is meant only for the externalization of thought. Call it a ‘thought-only’ view of language. We challenge this view by showing that the thought-only conception of language cannot accommodate the referential function of languages. We probe the issue with a focus on what philosophers call Singular Terms that enable a language-user to pick out, identify, and draw attention to an individual object. The presence of singular terms in a human language not only gives a shape to human thoughts about individuals, it ensures that such thoughts are shared between conspecifics. Since such sharing cannot be accomplished without explicit articulation, the sound of singular terms is essential for human language, it is not ‘ancillary.’
Abstract The long-running disputes between Chomsky and Quine were manifold—sometimes deep and important, but other times, it seems, involving misunderstanding. They are both ‘theorists of language’, but I suggest that Quine came to cede some ground—or could have ceded some ground—without conceding the role he thinks is played by language in Naturalized Epistemology, which is perhaps the fundamental Quinean project. Very roughly: Chomsky is interested in psychology, namely the psychology of how humans manage to speak (or rather to become linguistically competent); Quine can cede that territory to Chomsky, for he is interested ultimately in certain aspects of the finished product, namely those aspects of language which embody knowledge.
ABSTRACT This paper examines Wittgenstein’s rule-following argument in relation to Chomskyan generative grammar, focusing on selectional restrictions. While Wittgenstein views meaning determining rules as context-dependent and socially embedded, Chomsky treats linguistic rules as computational and internal to the mind. I argue that Wittgenstein’s critique does not apply to most syntactic rules but poses a challenge for selectional restrictions, which rely on world knowledge. If lexical features depend on external factors, selectional restrictions cannot be purely internalist. To preserve internalist semantics, I propose a modification of Pietroski’s (2018) model in which meaning rules function automatically, eliminating interpretative choice. This approach reconciles internalism with linguistic flexibility while maintaining its explanatory power within a generative framework.
