History and Philosophy of Linguistics Reading group Next meeting: Monday, June 7, 46pm, Woolley N408
Reading: Thomas Bontly 2005. Modified Occam¹s Razor: Parsimony, Pragmatics, and the Acquisition of Word Meaning. Mind & Language 20 : 288312 Abstract: Advocates of linguistic pragmatics often appeal to a principle which Paul Grice called Modified Occam¹s Razor: Senses are not to be multiplied beyond necessity¹. Superficially, Grice¹s principle seems a routine application of the principle of parsimony (Entities are not to be multiplied beyond necessity¹). But parsimony arguments, though common in science, are notoriously problematic, and their use by Griceans faces numerous objections. This paper argues that Modified Occam¹s Razor makes considerably more sense in light of certain assumptions about the processes involved in language acquisition, and it describes recent empirical findings that bear these assumptions out. The resulting account solves several difficulties that otherwise confront Grice¹s principle, and it draws attention to problematic assumptions involved in using parsimony to argue for pragmatic accounts of linguistic phenomena. Reading and more information at http://groups.google.com.au/group/HPLinguistics. Enquiries: Nick Riemer ([email protected]) All welcome!
_______________________________________________ SydPhil mailing list: http://sydphil.info 950 subscribers now served. To UNSUBSCRIBE, change your MEMBERSHIP OPTIONS, find ANSWERS TO COMMON PROBLEMS, or visit our ONLINE ARCHIVES, please go to the LIST INFORMATION PAGE: http://sydphil.info
