Noam Chomsky on Language Evolution and Semantic Internalism | Episode 14

Noam Chomsky has been described as "the father of modern linguistics". He is one of the leading public intellectuals of the world, having authored over 100 books. Chomsky has made seminal contributions to multiple fields, including Linguistics, Philosophy, and Cognitive Science. At the moment, he is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 

Conversation Outline: 

00:00 Intro 
00:37 How did you manage to be so productive? 
01:07 What got you introduced to Linguistics and Philosophy? 
02:47 What were courses like Syntax back in the day before you revolutionised the field? 
04:42 What makes human languages different than other animal communication systems? 
08:12 The difference between your view on the evolution of language and Steven Pinker’s view
15:50 The human language faculty
20:18 Truth-Conditional Semantics
30:49 Semantic Internalism versus Externalism
36:08 Truth, Public Languages, and I-Languages
38:55 What is truth? 
40:18 Paradoxes of truth and vagueness
41:44 Zeno’s Paradox
45:31 Vagueness and The Sorites Paradox
50:47 The cognitive relationships between mathematical and linguistic abilities

Enjoy! 

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