Mind Design And Minimal Syntax

by Hinzen, Wolfram

• ISBN13: 9780199274413
• ISBN10: 019927441X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-04-27
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

This book introduces generative grammar as an area of study and asks what it tells us about the human mind. Wolfram Hinzen lays the foundation for the unification of modern generative linguistics with the philosophies of mind and language. He introduces Chomsky's program of a 'minimalist'syntax as a novel explanatory vision of the human mind. He explains how the Minimalist Program originated in work in cognitive science, biology, linguistics, and philosophy, and examines its implications for work in these fields. He considers the way the human mind is designed when seen as anarrangement of structural patterns in nature, and argues that its design is the product not so much of adaptive evolutionary history as of principles and processes that are ahistorical and internalist in character. Linguistic meaning, he suggests, arises in the mind as a consequence of structuresemerging on formal rather than functional grounds. From this he substantiates an unexpected and deeply unfashionable notion of human nature. Clearly written in nontechnical language and assuming a limited knowledge of the fields it examines and links, Minimal Mind Design will appeal to a wide range of scholars in linguistics, philosophy, and cognitive science. It also provides an exceptionally clear insight into the nature and aims ofChomsky's Minimalist Program.

Author Biography

Wolfram Hinzen is a senior lecturer at the Institute for Logic, Language, and Computation and a member of the Cognitive Science Center at the University of Amsterdam. He was previously at the Institute for Philosophy, University of Regensburg. He is the co-editor with Hans Rott of Belief and Meaning: Essays at the Interface (Berlin: Hansel-Hohenhausen, 2002) and the author of The Semantic Foundations of Anti-Realism (Berlin: Logos 1998). His next book An Essay on Naming and Truth will be published by OUP in October 2006.

Table of Contents

Preface	ix
Acknowledgements	xv
Part I: Naturally Human
Introduction	3	(52)
Humans as natural objects	3	(8)
The study of human nature	11	(13)
Human design	24	(8)
The fate of human nature in the twentieth century	32	(23)
Against metaphysical naturalism	55	(34)
From methodological to metaphysical naturalism	55	(11)
Rationalist method from Galileo to Chomsky	66	(13)
Double standards	79	(10)
Biological internalism	89	(28)
Biology before unification	89	(6)
Mind as function: A critique	95	(10)
God or natural selection or . . .?	105	(5)
Epilogue on explanation and necessity	110	(7)
Part II: Deducing Variation
Prior to function	117	(33)
Language growth	117	(11)
Language and communication	128	(11)
Language as a social construct	139	(11)
Beyond the autonomy of syntax	150	(89)
What is syntax?	150	(11)
Explanation in linguistic theory	161	(9)
Human phrase structure	170	(24)
Transforming the phrase	194	(14)
Why is there movement?	208	(12)
The proper interpretation of LF/SEM	220	(19)
Part III: Rational Mind
Good Design!	239	(33)
Phases and cascades: Beyond LF	239	(11)
Epistemology for mental organs	250	(22)
Conclusions	272	(6)
References	278	(17)
Index	295