The Origin of Language - 18-3 - Steven Pinker 2 - Discussion
Channel: arisbe, a guess at the riddle
Date: 24/05/2022

David Tse-Chien Pan (UC Irivine) - The Origin of Language

This course will survey a centuries-old debate about whether language was invented by humans on their own or was granted to them. If humans cannot reason without language, how would a human ever be able to invent language? On the other hand, if language were granted to humans as a gift, how would humans be able to receive this gift without already possessing some faculty of reason and thus linguistic ability? In the 18th century, this debate centered around whether humans invented language or whether it was granted by God. In the 20th and 21st centuries, a similar debate considers whether language arose as a spontaneous mutation or as something that was gradually learned. In this course, you will learn methods of symbol-based logic and universal grammar as techniques for understanding the functioning of human language and apply these methods to answer the question of the origin of language. In reading works of philosophy, linguistics, biology, and literature, you will also learn how different disciplines approach the question of the origin of language.

Thomas Hobbes, William Warburton, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Charles Peirce, Hellen Keller, Johann Gottfried Herder, Stephen Pinker, Terrence Deacon