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Philosophical Psychology
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The Philosophy of Generative

Linguistics
Andrei Nasta

University of East Anglia, School of Philosophy , 14 Needham

Place, St. Stephen's Square, Norwich , Norfolk , NR1 3SD , UK
Published online: 03 May 2013.

To cite this article: Andrei Nasta , Philosophical Psychology (2013): The Philosophy of Generative
Linguistics, Philosophical Psychology, DOI: 10.1080/09515089.2013.791746
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09515089.2013.791746

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Book Review
The Philosophy of Generative Linguistics
Peter Ludlow
New York: Oxford University Press, 2011
240 pages, $55.00, ISBN: 0199258538 (hbk)
The work under review develops numerous traditional philosophical themes such as
externalism, skepticism, color, and simplicity as they arise in theoretical linguistics,
especially in linguistic syntax and semantics. With an important exception
(the externalist metaphysics), the thrustperhaps the strengthof the book is
broadly methodological. The book purports to motivate the generative linguistic
enterprise and to fight some potential misconceptions such as the claim that linguistic
intuitions are unreliable sources of data or that certain linguistic proposals are lacking in
formal rigor or simplicity. In the present review, I shall focus on two important themes
of the work, one pertaining to the metaphysics of linguistics (covered in chapters 5
and 6) and the other pertaining to the methodology of linguistics (treated in chapter 7).
After dealing with certain worries about linguistic intuitions (chapters 2 and 3),
Ludlow discusses two types of skeptical claims that linguistics is faced with. The first one
is inspired by Quines indeterminacy of translation argument. The worry is roughly that
grammar, i.e., the competence system mentally realized by competent speakers, is
underdetermined by the data. The second worry is that grammar is a system of rules
whose explanatory status is problematic because, as Kripke (1982) argued in developing
a Wittgensteinian line, there is no fact of the matter as to which rule is being followed.
Let us focus on the so-called determination question of the Kripke Wittgenstein
skeptical argument. Kripkes skeptic invites us to assume the intuitive view that we
know the rule of addition and that we have a past history of successful additions (or of
addition rule following). Then he asks us to invoke a fact that determines that what we
took to be addition in the past is actually addition and not an anomalous operation
that resembles addition on a given domain (of past applications) but differs from it on
an arbitrary extension of that domain (the domain of future applications). But, the
skeptic argues, no matter what fact we invokedispositions to add, platonic entities,
addition machinesthere is still a way in which we didnt determine the rule of
addition. Therefore, rule following is problematic. Since generative linguistics assumes
that linguistic structures are generated by applications of rules (cognitively realized),
generative linguistics has a foundational problem.
Ludlow endorses an argument (due to Soames, 1998) according to which the
skeptical reasoning is not sound. The mistake is that the skeptic equivocates between

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Book Review

an epistemic and a metaphysical understanding of determination (see pp. 115 117 for
details). Ludlow further suggests that the anti-skeptical solution supports externalism
about the individuation of (linguistic) syntactic facts. However, it is not clear to me
that anti-skepticism supports externalism, since the internalist may avail herself of the
same anti-skeptical strategy.
Syntactic externalism is the thesis that the environment partly determines the
syntactic (and computational) structure of linguistic utterances via a causal link
(pp. 117 118; see also pp. 47 48). Ludlow proposes that syntactic externalism has a
useful application to the problem of empty proper names. Empty proper names are a
vexed problem in philosophy of language: utterances containing such names do not
seem to have truth-conditions, because there is no object serving as semantic value for
empty names. Since truth-conditions are the basis for assigning meaning to such
utterances, it follows that they are meaningless. But we can avoid this problematic
consequence. Pace Ludlow, if syntax supervenes in part on the environmental
conditions, it is plausible that the missing bit of syntax, which contributes in part the
needed truth-conditions of utterances containing empty names, is determined by the
environment. Thus, whether the speaker/hearer realizes it or not, the environment
determines the syntactic structure of a definite description in the logical form of the
utterances containing empty names. The utterances of non-empty names will have the
simpler syntax specific to referential expressions.
Now this kind of externalism, Ludlow acknowledges, is an extremely bold thesis
(several objections are answered on p. 117). I shall mention two additional worries.
I find the account of the syntax of empty names problematic on two counts. First, it
implies that the syntactic structure of expressions of the same type (i.e., what we
usually call proper names) can be realized in two ways, internally in the grammar,
and externally by the intervention of the environment. But, after all, we can make the
(syntactic) distinction between names and definite descriptions on independent
grounds, and this presumably is not due to the environment (otherwise any bit of
syntactic structure would depend on the environment). Why should the syntax of
names and descriptions supervene sometimes on external facts and sometimes on
internal facts? Instead of accepting this complication in the account of grammatical
competence, it would be more plausible to adopt another solution to the empty names
problem, a solution that assumes a uniformly realized grammar and gets the truthconditions right at the same time. Ludlow mentions two such plausible solutions: the
gappy proposition view and the non-existent objects view.
Second, and more importantly, the problem with syntactic externalism is its lack of
empirical motivation. Ludlow mentions that the syntactic distinction between empty
proper names and non-empty ones may affect the predictions about entailment
relations, the modal profile of these sentences (p. 125) that an omniscient agent may
have access to. However, no linguistic argument has been provided for the claim that
sentences involving proper names have the special syntactic modal profile postulated
by syntactic externalism. Its worth stressing that the problem is not about extragrammatical factors having effects on grammar. Indeed, the claim that there is some
sort of dependence of logical forms on extra-syntactic factors is not new to linguistics

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Book Review

(see especially work within the Minimalist Program: Chomsky, 1995; Reinhart, 2006).
The trouble with syntactic externalism is that no linguistic phenomenon seems to
support it. So, what has yet to be shown is that the (externalist) syntax of proper names
can be tracked by the usual linguistic tests.
Let us turn next to the methodological discussion, whose aim is to formulate adequate
theory choice criteria for linguistics. I shall focus on simplicity. The absolute notion of
simplicity, I take it, is something akin to the less is more principle, paired with the
claim that there are objective ways of determining what less means (i.e., what is the
quantity to be minimized). Ludlow argues (p. 152) that the usage of the absolute notion
of simplicity, also cast as aiming to reduce the theoretical machinery, is hopelessly
indeterminate and context sensitive. Simply put, a reduction (of the theoretical
machinery) in one part of the theory may lead to an augmentation in another part. Then,
depending on how we fix the background of evaluation, simplicity will recommend
contradictory decisions about the preferable linguistic hypothesis. In contrast, Ludlow
argues, the notion of simplicity as ease of use is less restrictive than the absolute one,
and less prone to misfire. Rephrasing somewhat Ludlows characterization of simplicity
(pp. 161162), we may state his more liberal notion as follows:
Ease of Use Simplicity: Simplicity varies both with the theorist or research
community and with time. Rational theorists will gravitate towards simpler theories
because they are easier to use (formulate, calculate, understand, and communicate).

Thus stated, the notion seems to be fairly commonsensical. But it is also pretty
indeterminate for theoretical purposes. In particular, this notion makes it obscure what
simplicity is and in which ways it can play a normative role in theory choice. This may be
consistent with Ludlows intent, since he seems to think that there is no way to spell out a
useful principle of simplicity that normatively guides theory construction and theory
choice. Otherwise put, there is no interesting theoretical notion of simplicity beyond the
liberal one. Note that it is this latter assumption (argued for on p. 152) that is
inconsistent with the notion of absolute simplicity, not the liberal ease of use notion.
A more serious worry is that ease of use notion has a relativist flavor. For various
psychological and sociological reasons, the theory that a scientist uses at a certain
moment may be classified as the easiest to use and thus the simplest, even if the theory
may otherwise be unnecessarily complicated. It is only the assumption of rationality
built into the liberal notion of simplicity that rules out such a possibility. But then the
notion turns out to be trivial. In either case, the ease of use notion of simplicity misses
(or simply glosses over) the normative aspect of simplicity, which seems essential to a
theoretical virtue. Let me sketch a perspective that does not have this problem. The
absolute notion of simplicity, seen as a function that minimizes some quantity (e.g.,
axioms, strings of symbols, etc.) gives us a concrete way to think about simplicity. In
particular, it makes it clear why we should prefer a theory to another in certain cases.
It is true that the assessment of simplicity (i) may change with what we contextually
take to be the relevant quantity, and that (ii) assessing the simplicity of whole theories
is very often intractable. However, beginning with (ii), the relevance of the notion of

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Book Review

simplicity does not depend only on the tractability of inter-theoretical comparisons.

The apparent intractability does not mean that efforts to reach simpler theories are not
legitimate, or, further, that they are not causally efficient in determining simple results,
over time. On the liberal view, simplicity is something to be found over time, without
seeking for it, as if by magic. Moreover, regarding (i), context sensitivity is a problem
only if we assume that linguistic hypotheses should be simple in all respects; but this
should not be so: a hypothesis can be simple in some respects important to the scientist,
and it can be absolutely so, even if it is not simple in other respects. Thus the relevant
background of evaluation of absolute simplicity may also be fixed relative to the
theorist (for an attempt to capture the normativity of simplicity within the general
philosophy of science see Kelly, 2007; for a different take on simplicity within the
philosophy of linguistics see Collins, 2012).
In closing, I hasten to mention that the book contains several other interesting
themes: the epistemic role of linguistic intuitions, the externalist semantics, and the
notion of formal rigor are cases in point. There are many novel discussions (like the one
on the normativity of grammar). I found Ludlows epistemological discussion (not
touched on here) particularly convincing. However, I think that Ludlows syntactic
externalist thesis suffers from lack of empirical motivation. Finally, the discussion of
theory choice criteria made a prima facie case for a liberal understanding of simplicity
and formal rigor in linguistics that further studies should build on or compete with. In
conclusion, I think this is a valuable addition to the philosophy of linguistics literature,
and philosophers interested in linguistics would surely benefit from reading it.
References
Chomsky, N. (1995). The minimalist program. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Collins, J. (2012). The unity of linguistic meaning. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kelly, K. (2007). A new solution to the puzzle of simplicity. Philosophy of Science, 74(5), 561 573.
Kripke, K. (1982). Wittgenstein on rules and private language. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press.
Reinhart, T. (2006). Interface strategies. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Soames, S. (1998). Skepticism about meaning: Indeterminacy, normativity, and the rule-following
paradox. In A. Kazmi (Ed.), Canadian Journal of Philosophy: Suppl. Vol. 23. Meaning and
reference (pp. 211 250). Calgary: University of Calgary Press.

Andrei Nasta
University of East Anglia, School of Philosophy
14 Needham Place, St. Stephens Square, Norwich
Norfolk NR1 3SD, UK
Email: A.Nasta@uea.ac.uk
q 2013 Andrei Nasta
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09515089.2013.791746