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Ignorance of Language Michael Devitt (City University of New York)

Ignorance of Language By Michael Devitt (City University of New York)

Ignorance of Language by Michael Devitt (City University of New York)


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Summary

The Chomskian revolution in linguistics gave rise to a new orthodoxy about mind and language. Michael Devitt throws down a provocative challenge to that orthodoxy. What is linguistics about? What role should linguistic intuitions play in constructing grammars? What is innate about language? Michael Devitt offers refreshingly original answers.

Ignorance of Language Summary

Ignorance of Language by Michael Devitt (City University of New York)

The Chomskian revolution in linguistics gave rise to a new orthodoxy about mind and language. Michael Devitt throws down a provocative challenge to that orthodoxy. What is linguistics about? What role should linguistic intuitions play in constructing grammars? What is innate about language? Is there a 'language faculty'? These questions are crucial to our developing understanding of ourselves; Michael Devitt offers refreshingly original answers. He argues that linguistics is about linguistic reality and is not part of psychology; that linguistic rules are not represented in the mind; that speakers are largely ignorant of their language; that speakers' intuitions do not reflect information supplied by the language faculty and are not the main evidence for grammars; that the rules of 'Universal Grammar' are largely, if not entirely, innate structure rules of thought; indeed, that there is little or nothing to the language faculty. Devitt's controversial theses will prove highly stimulating to anyone working on language and the mind

Ignorance of Language Reviews

Review from previous edition A wealth of careful distinctions and detailed arguments...an example of how serious philosophy of a very technical area may be conducted with thoroughness, lucidity, and elegance. * John Collins, Mind Journal *

About Michael Devitt (City University of New York)

Michael Devitt is a Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He taught at the University of Sydney from 1971 until 1987 and the University of Maryland from 1988 to 1999. His main research interests are in the philosophy of language and mind, and in issues of realism. He is the author of Designation (Columbia, 1981), Realism and Truth (2nd edn with Afterword, Princeton, 1997), Coming to Our Senses: A Naturalistic Program for Semantic Localism (Cambridge, 1996), and Language and Reality: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Language (with Kim Sterelny, 2nd edn, MIT, 1999).

Table of Contents

I. LINGUISTICS IS NOT PSYCHOLOGY; II. POSITIONS ON PSYCHOLOGICAL REALITY; III. 'PHILOSOPHICAL' ARGUMENTS FOR THE REPRESENTATIONAL THESIS; IV. THE RELATION OF LANGUAGE TO THOUGHT; V. LANGUAGE USE AND ACQUISITION

Additional information

NLS9780199250974
9780199250974
0199250979
Ignorance of Language by Michael Devitt (City University of New York)
New
Paperback
Oxford University Press
2008-04-10
320
N/A
Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
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