Faculty Disputes

Collins, John (2004) Faculty Disputes. Mind and Language, 19 (5). pp. 300-333. ISSN 0268-1064

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Abstract

Jerry Fodor, among others, has maintained that Chomsky's language faculty hypothesis is an epistemological proposal, i.e. the faculty comprises propositional structures known (cognized) by the speaker/hearer. Fodor contrasts this notion of a faculty with an architectural (directly causally efficacious) notion of a module. The paper offers an independent characterisation of the language faculty as an abstractly specified non-propositional structure of the mind/brain that mediates between sound and meaning—a function in intension that maps to a pair of structures that determine sound-meaning convergence. This conception will be elaborated and defended against a number of likely complaints deriving from Fodor's faculty/module distinction and other positions which seek to credit knowledge of language with an empirical or theoretical significance. A recent explicit argument from Fodor that Chomsky must share his conception will be diagnosed and the common appeal to implicit knowledge as a foundation for linguistic competence will be rejected.

Item Type:	Article
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Arts and Humanities > School of Philosophy (former - to 2014)
UEA Research Groups:	Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Research Groups > Philosophy
Depositing User:	EPrints Services
Date Deposited:	01 Oct 2010 13:56
Last Modified:	21 Jul 2023 09:28
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/9139
DOI:	10.1111/j.0268-1064.2004.00270.x

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