HiPhiS Seminar: “Can Language Be the Subject of a Science?”

Tuesday, April 25, 2017, from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.
, IAE (Building 29), Robert Reix Lecture Hall, Triolet Campus.
Inter-university Seminar on the History and Philosophy of Science, 2017 Cycle: “Causes, Foundations, Origins.”
Lecture presented by Alain Lecomte, logician and linguist, Professor Emeritus of Language Sciences, Paris-8 Saint-Denis University.

Abstract:

The Chomsky of the 1950s proposed a mathematization of syntax, following in the footsteps of the then-recent discoveries of logicians (Post, Turing, etc.); Montague went so far as to make no distinction between artificial languages and so-called “natural” languages. One might therefore have thought that we were on the path to establishing language as a scientific object, since mathematics could be applied to it. Nevertheless, Chomsky now emphasizes the biological nature of language. In our view, this does not necessarily place it in the realm of the non-mathematizable or non-computational, provided perhaps that we adopt Sylvain Auroux’s cherished hypothesis regarding the external nature of cognitive structures. In this case, we will focus more on the structures of interaction than on the productions of an isolated subject. The presentation will trace the stages of this recent history and will focus in particular on the question of the mathematization of the linguistic sciences.
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