Chapter 1
of Chomsky 1965 contains a seminal discussion of methodological and
epistemological issues, such as the competence-performance distinction, the
connection between explanatory adequacy and language acquisition, the place of
intuitions/judgments as a source of evidence and the nature and role of
abstraction and idealization in theorization. Chomsky 1980
has Chomsky's replies to criticisms posed by philosophers (among others),
including worries about innateness and about the "psychological
reality" of the posits of linguistic theory.
Chomsky 1986 is the locus classicus for the distinction between I-Language
and E-Language, and it also presents a very influential (and controversial)
characterization of linguistics as a "branch of cognitive
psychology". Katz 1980 is
a sustained critique of the Chomskyan perspective, and offers an alternative,
Platonic conception of linguistics as a non-empirical, formal discipline.
Soames 1984 and Higginbotham 1983, respectively, seek to combine an empirical view of
linguistic research with a Platonic ontology of its subject matter.
Katz 1985 is the first collection of papers to bear the title "Philosophy
of Linguistics", and it features many of the early key works. Chomsky & George 1989 includes
several influential papers dealing with the ontology and epistemology of
linguistics—notably George 1989 and Peacocke 1989. Devitt 2006
is an attack on several aspects of the Chomskyan conception, such as the
"psychological" view of linguistics and what Devitt calls the
"Cartesian view" of linguistic intuitions.
Ludlow 2011
is one of the most recent monograph-length treatments of the topics mentioned
above, and also contains discussions of issues such as normativity and
rule-following, simplicity and formalization, and the externalist-internalist
debate in semantics and in syntax. |