Representation of Language Philosophical Issues in a Chomskyan Linguistics

In Representation of Language Georges Rey offers a philosophical defense of Chomskyan theories of human language, according to which our linguistic competence is founded on an internal, innate computational system. Yet he also gives a critical examination of some of the ways in which Chomskyan views have been developed. He critiques, for instance, their assimilation to traditional Rationalism, and the supposed conflict between being innate and being learned. He shows that their associated ontology is often unclear, requiring what he calls a 'representational pretense', whereby linguists merely pretend for the sake of exposition that, for example, tokens of words are uttered. Most crucially, he takes a critical look at Chomsky's eliminativism about the role of intentionality not only in his own theories, but in any serious science at all. Ultimately, Rey shows how a theory as rich and promising as Chomskyan linguistics can continue to illuminate a range of issues relating to language and mind, not only in linguistics but in psychology and philosophy as well.

Georges Rey, University of Maryland

Georges Rey is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Maryland. He works primarily in the philosophy of mind and cognitive science, and has written numerous articles on problems surrounding (ir)rationality, concepts, linguistic competence, qualitative experience and consciousness, as well as a book, Contemporary Philosophy of Mind (Blackwell, 1997), where he defends a computational/representational theory of mind as a strategy for dealing with them.

I. The Core Linguistic Theory
1. The Core Galilean Idea and Some Crucial Data
2. The Basics of Generative Grammars
3. Competence/Performance: I- vs. E-languages
4. Knowledge and The Explanatory Project
II. Core Philosophical Views
5. Grades of Nativism: From Projectability to Brute Process
6. Resistence of Even Mental Realists and the Need of Representational Pretence
7. Linguistic Intuitions and the Voice of Competence
III. Intentionality
8. Chomsky and Intentionality
9. Linguistic Ontology
10. Linguo-Semantics
11. Psycho-Semantics of Perceptual Content