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    Essentialist approaches to language accept a thoroughgoin... — Carmelics
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    Home/Philosophy of Language
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    Essentialist approaches to language accept a thoroughgoing competence/performance distinction

    Consciousness & MindPhilosophy of Language
    ?Rate how convincing each reason is below to see the overall strength.
    1 reason for
    2 reasons against

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
    ?
    • 1.Essentialist approaches take the nature of language to be entirely independent of other human cognitive processes
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    • 2.A thoroughgoing competence/performance distinction requires idealizing away from limitations on linguistic processing and short-term memory
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    • 3.Emergentists and Externalists are unwilling to idealize away from limitations on linguistic processing and short-term memory
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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Chomsky's own competence/performance distinction was revised in the Minimalist Program to internalist 'I-language', blurring the clean idealization the claim assumes.
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    • 2.If competence is redefined as a real psychological state (I-language) rather than an abstract object, the distinction becomes gradational, not thoroughgoing.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Constructionist essentialists like Culicover and Jackendoff accept linguistic representations grounded partly in processing constraints, rejecting full performance idealization.
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    • 2.A thoroughgoing competence/performance distinction cannot be a defining feature of essentialism if prominent essentialists explicitly reject it.
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    Topics

    Philosophy of LanguageConsciousness & Mind

    Related

    A thoroughgoing competence/performance distinction cannot be a defining feature ...A thoroughgoing competence/performance distinction requires idealizing away from...Chomsky's own competence/performance distinction was revised in the Minimalist P...Constructionist essentialists like Culicover and Jackendoff accept linguistic re...
    +3 moreShow less
    Emergentists and Externalists are unwilling to idealize away from limitations on...Essentialist approaches take the nature of language to be entirely independent o...If competence is redefined as a real psychological state (I-language) rather tha...

    Similar

    A thoroughgoing competence/performance distinction requires idealizing...87%Essentialist approaches take the nature of language to be entirely ind...72%Mutual knowledge of a language L sufficient for communication is achie...72%Recognizing when indicative sentences encode commands or desires is it...72%

    Source

    AI-extracted1/3 agreementValid
    SEP: linguistics
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    However, every linguist accepts that some idealization away from the speech phenomena is necessary. Emergentists and Externalists are almost always happy to idealize away from sporadic speech errors. What they are not so keen to do is to idealize away from limitations on linguistic processing and the short-term memory on which it relies. Acceptance of a thoroughgoing competence/performance distinction thus tends to be a hallmark of Essentialist approaches, which take the nature of language to be
    Extraction notes

    Validity: Extracted via Max plan + API grounding/validity checks

    Details

    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (1 for, 2 against)
    Edits
    1 edit