Language without linguistics

Justin Leiber

pp. 193-211

in: Synthese 120 (2), 1999.

Abstract

Though Mr. Lin purports to attack “Chomsky's view of language” and to defend the “common sense view of language”, he in fact attacks “views” that are basic and common to linguists, psycholinguists, and developmental psychologists. Indeed, though he cites W. V. O. Quine, L. Wittgenstein, and J. L. Austin in his support, they all sharply part company from his views, Austin particularly. Lin's views are not common sense but a set of scholarly and philological prejudices that linguistics disparaged from its inception as an organized science a hundred years ago.

Cited authors

Wittgenstein Ludwig

Quine Willard Van Orman