Graduate Student, Department of Philosophy
Ustinov College
Thesis Title: The Status of Grammar in Davidson's Philosophy of Language
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Wolfram Hinzen
Jan Westerhoff |
About
It is commonly assumed in philosophy that the only function of language is that it enables us to express thoughts. The interdisciplinary and international project Un-Cartesian Linguistics, within which I am employed, tries to assess arguments in favour of the alternative hypothesis that thought is inherently linguistic. If this hypothesis is correct, the grammar of natural languages may turn out to structure and give rise to not only our linguistic utterances and scribbles but also our way of thinking propositionally. The relation between syntax and semantics then is not arbitrary but motivated.
One of the few analytic philosophers who argued in favour of a tight relation between language and thought is Donald Davidson. However, he merely assumes that propositional thought is not possible without language and vice versa. In my thesis, I aim to assess philosophical consequences of the stronger thesis that they in addition share a structure, using Davidson’s theory as the point of departure. A central one of these consequences is that ontological categories like objects, events, propositions etc. are primarily grammatical and belong to our ways of cognizing the world. And this in turn has implications for ontological commitments, the possibility of an extensional theory of meaning, and radical interpretation.
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