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Mario Bunge: A Centenary Festschrift pp 717–733Cite as

Bunge’s Requirement of Neurological Plausibility for a Linguistic Theory

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Abstract

Mario Bunge claimed in many places that core hypotheses of mainstream linguistics have been contrasted with theoretical assumptions, but not with empirical evidence. Bunge’s criticism is not only correct for what was known in the middle-1980s, but it also remains valid today. First of all, the very distinction between “faculty of language in the broad sense” (FLB) and “faculty of language in the narrow sense” (FLN) is inconsistent, because it is sometimes presented as an empirical hypothesis and sometimes as a mere terminological or expository aid. Secondly, the Universal Grammar (UG) hypothesis, in any of its forms, is incompatible with biological evidence. Third, the hypothesis that language is a system capable of performing operations on some kind of objects is incompatible with basic neurological evidence, because it assumes (explicitly or implicitly) that the mind/brain is able to store and manipulate objects.

Linguistic theories are tested against theories of data rather than against actual data.

Bunge (1984, p. 154)

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Notes

  1. 1.

    See Hauser et al. (2002), Fitch et al. (2005), Chomsky (2005, 2006, 2016), and Berwick and Chomsky (2016).

  2. 2.

    See Jackendoff (1994, 2002), Pinker (1994, 1999), and Pinker and Jackendoff (2005).

  3. 3.

    See Herman (1980), Hermann (2008), Herman and Morrel-Samuels (1990), and Herman and Uyeyama (1999).

  4. 4.

    The foundational work of Pylyshyn (1984) can be consulted for an alternative formulation of the computational account of mind.

  5. 5.

    See Adaszewski et al. (2013), Bower (2013), and Friston et al. (2014).

  6. 6.

    See Chomsky (1986, 1995, 2000, 2005, 2006, 2013, 2016).

  7. 7.

    See Mountcastle (1957, 1997, 1998, 2005), Mountcastle et al. (1975), and Martin (2015).

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  1. CONICET & Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata, Mar del Plata, Argentina

    José María Gil

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  1. School of Education, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia

    Michael R. Matthews

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Gil, J.M. (2019). Bunge’s Requirement of Neurological Plausibility for a Linguistic Theory. In: Matthews, M.R. (eds) Mario Bunge: A Centenary Festschrift. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-16673-1_38

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