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    Pluralism about linguistic ontology is defensible because... — Carmelics
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    Home/Philosophy of Language
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    Pluralism about linguistic ontology is defensible because 'the linguistic' is a complex phenomenon whose parts belong to distinct ontological categories.

    Modality & PossibilityPhilosophy of Language
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    Reasons For

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    • 1.'The linguistic' is a complex phenomenon with parts that belong to distinct ontological categories.
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    • 2.Even 'the mathematical' spans multiple ontological categories without this being problematic: physical dogs instantiate arithmetic truths, mental operations of multiplication exist, and mental states about mathematical objects exist.
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    • 3.If a domain as well-established as mathematics can span multiple ontological categories, then spanning multiple categories is not a mark against pluralism about that domain.
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    Reasons Against

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    Reason against 1 of 2
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    • 1.Ontological pluralism about a domain is explanatorily idle unless it specifies principled unity conditions that make the domain one domain at all.
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    • 2.The mathematical analogy undermines rather than supports linguistic pluralism: philosophers like Benacerraf argue mathematics's cross-category span generates serious epistemic access problems, not vindication.
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    • 3.A pluralism that cannot explain why phonology, syntax, and speech acts constitute 'the linguistic' rather than three unrelated domains collapses into eliminativism about the category itself.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
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    • 1.Chomsky's internalist program, and Fodor's representationalist successor, demonstrate that apparently heterogeneous linguistic phenomena reduce to a single natural kind: I-language as a biological-computational state.
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    • 2.If a serious research program successfully unifies allegedly disparate linguistic phenomena under one ontological category, the pluralist bears the burden of showing why parsimony should be sacrificed.
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    • 3.Quine's criterion of ontological commitment entails that multiplying ontological categories is legitimate only when no single-category paraphrase preserves all explanatory work, a standard linguistic pluralism has not met.
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    Topics

    Philosophy of LanguageModality & Possibility

    Related

    'The linguistic' is a complex phenomenon with parts that belong to distinct onto...A pluralism that cannot explain why phonology, syntax, and speech acts constitut...Chomsky's internalist program, and Fodor's representationalist successor, demons...Even 'the mathematical' spans multiple ontological categories without this being...
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    If a domain as well-established as mathematics can span multiple ontological cat...If a serious research program successfully unifies allegedly disparate linguisti...Ontological pluralism about a domain is explanatorily idle unless it specifies p...Quine's criterion of ontological commitment entails that multiplying ontological...The mathematical analogy undermines rather than supports linguistic pluralism: p...

    Similar

    'The linguistic' is a complex phenomenon with parts that belong to dis...88%Each ontological perspective on language has ineliminable status79%Platonism about language is the correct ontological view to adopt79%The scientific concept of language should be defined as a union of var...78%

    Source

    AI-extracted1/3 agreementValid
    SEP: linguistics
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    There is an obvious rebuttal on behalf of pluralism, namely that “the linguistic” is a complex phenomenon with parts that belong to distinct ontological categories. This shouldn’t surprise, since even “the mathematical” is like this: Two wholly physical dogs plus two other wholly physical dogs yields four dogs; there certainly is the mental operation of multiplying 26 by 84, the mental state of thinking about the square root of 7, and so on. (2014: 5)
    Extraction notes

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

    Details

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