Can Internalism and Externalism be Reconciled in a Biological Epistemology of Language?

Abstract

This paper is an attempt at exploring the possibility of reconciling the two interpretations of biolinguistics which have been recently projected by Koster (Biolinguistics 3(1):61-92, 2009). The two interpretations-trivial and nontrivial-can be roughly construed as non-internalist and internalist conceptions of biolinguistics respectively. The internalist approach boils down to a conception of language where language as a mental grammar in the form of I-language grows and functions like a biological organ. On the other hand, under such a construal consistent with Koster's (Biolinguistics 3(1):61-92, 2009), the non-internalist version does not necessarily have to be externalist in nature; rather it is a matter of mutual reinforcement of biology and culture under the rubric of a co-evolutionary dynamics. Here it will be argued that the apparent dichotomy between these two conceptions of biolinguistics can perhaps be resolved if we have a richer synthesis that accounts for both internalism and non-internalism.

Disunity with unity in cognition within the context of language–biology relations.

“…The symbolic/cognitive properties of language exist at the brain-world nexus not because of internally confined linguistic representations for they presuppose distancing from the outer world (see Shea, 2018) but because of humans knowing how to interact with others. Its importance for the present context is that this does not deny the role of biology in shaping interpersonal activities in language; rather, the cognitive properties of language are seen to owe their character to the extending in and out of the semiotic system of linguistic knowledge across the boundaries of the individual (see Mondal, 2012). Taken in this sense, this view in fact accords well with the notion of language as a linguistic capacity embodied and grounded in the sociocultural niche humans live in.…”

Advances in Biolinguistics

“…The fact that linguists have equated I-language with genetic endowment, on the one hand, and E-language with all things non-genetic, on the other, had the goal of circumscribing their object of study, but it has resulted only in dividing something that cannot be divided: both genes and development are crucial for the characterization of language, and the interaction of all kinds of factors is what creates the phenotypes that linguists attribute to genes (and to make matters worse, they do so in a simplistic and implausible fashion). There have been some recent attempts at reconciling internalism and externalism, suggesting that the two are mutually reinforced (Lassiter 2008, Mondal 2012 , but the I/E d istinction is undoubtedly a sharp one.…”