The philosophy of biolinguistics: a perspectival approach

Abstract

In this paper, I present a philosophical analysis of Biolinguistics, including a number of proposals that point in the direction of its recognition as a full-fledged discipline or, perhaps, an interfield theory. My approach shall be a perspectival one, both in the spirit of Michela Massimi’s perspectival realism, but also following William Wimsatt’s investigation of complexity, where perspectivism also plays a key role, sometimes overlapping Massimi’s view. In doing so, I will focus on what today may be considered to be the two mainstream frameworks within Biolinguistics, namely Chomsky’s Minimalist Program and Kirby’s culturalist approach, in order to illustrate how an analysis in terms of perspectives seems to better carve the geography of the issues than other proposals. This will allow me to identify a number of additional perspectives that may concern anyone interested in the biolinguistic enterprise, which I put forth here to complement, qualify and, in some cases, replace the traditional questions that have so far driven research in linguistics and biolinguistics.