Abstract

The contemporary study in the philosophy of language concentrates extensively on a cluster of questions defining the problem of linguistic knowledge . What explains a speaker's language mastery? Is it knowledge that underwrites our linguistic abilities, and if so, what is the nature of this knowledge? Is rationality an intrinsic feature of language mastery, and if so, how does an account of linguistic knowledge accommodate the connection between language and rationality? While philosophers emphasize the importance of such questions for an account of language, the only systematic response to them has been based almost exclusively on research in psycho-linguistics, and in cognitive science, generally. And prominent cognitivists, such as Chomsky, use their view of linguistic knowledge to promote fervently the naturalistic ideal that the language researcher adhere faithfully to the methodology of the natural scientist, and to provide a thorough critique of any alternative approach to language . ;In the thesis, I respond to the negative side of cognitivism, and defend a non-naturalistic approach to linguistic knowledge which I call interpretivism. I argue that when applied to interpretivism the cognitivist's critique is rather inconclusive. And, by itself, the cognitivist's explanation of language does not imply that interpretivism is invalid, but rather leaves room for it. The cognitivist explicates linguistic knowledge either as a system of computational states or as a set of intentional states . And while under the computationalist construal the cognitivist cannot address the rationality of language, under the intentionalist construal he does not do full justice to it. The interest of interpretivism lies thus in its emphasis on the rational aspects of language, and on the related idea that linguistic knowledge is multifarious: not only intentional or computational, but also similar in kind to the capacity for thought. Following Sellars [1960/1963], I introduce a broad view of explanations of human behaviour within which both the cognitivist and the interpretivist model of explanation are tenable. I conclude that there is room and a need for a non-naturalistic approach to linguistic knowledge, and that naturalism cannot be the only defensible strategy in the study of language.