Biolinguistics and Platonism: Contradictory or Consilient?

Abstract

It has been argued that language is a Platonic object, and therefore that a biolinguistic ontology is incoherent. In particular, the notion of language as a system of discrete infinity has been argued to be inconsistent with the assumption of a physical (finite) basis for language. These arguments are flawed. Here I demonstrate that biolinguistics and mathematical Platonism are not mutually exclusive and contradictory, but in fact mutually reinforcing and consilient in a coherent and compelling philosophy of language. This consilience is effected by Turing’s proof of the coherency of a finitely procedure generative of infinite sets.