THE PRIMACY OF NON-COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE

Abstract

How is it possible for symbols to be used to refer to or describe things? I shall approach this question indirectly by criticising a collection of widely held views of which the central one is that meaning is essentially concerned with communication. A consequence of this view is that anything which could be reasonably described as a language is essentially concerned with communication. I shall try to show that widely known facts, for instance facts about the behaviour of animals, and facts about human language learning and use, suggest that this belief, and closely related assumptions (see A1 to A3, below) are false. Support for an alternative framework of assumptions is beginning to emerge from work in Artificial Intelligence, work concerned not only with language but also with perception, learning, problem-solving and other mental processes. The subject has not yet matured sufficiently for the new paradigm to be clearly articulated. The aim of this paper is to help to formulate a new framework of assumptions, synthesising ideas from Artificial Intelligence and Philosophy of Science and Mathematics. The rival frameworks can be briefly over-stated thus:

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