Conventions, Intuitions and Linguistic Inexistents: A Reply to Devitt
Conventions, Intuitions and Linguistic Inexistents: A Reply to Devitt

Summary/Abstract: Elsewhere I have argued that standard theories of linguistic competence are committed to taking seriously talk of “representations of” standard linguistic entities (“SLEs”), such as NPs, VPs, morphemes, phonemes, syntactic and phonetic features. However, it is very doubtful there are tokens of these “things” in space and time. Moreover, even if were, their existence would be completely inessential to the needs of either commu-nication or serious linguistic theory. Their existence is an illusion: an extremely stable perceptual state we regularly enter as a result of being stimulated by the wave forms we regularly produce when we execute our intentions to utter such tokens (a view I call “Folieism”). In his Ignorance of Language, Michael Devitt objects to this view, arguing that, “On Rey’s view, communication seems to rest on miraculous guesses.” I argue here that my view is not prey to his objections, and actually affords a scientifi -cally more plausible view than his “empiricist” alternative. Specifi cally, I reply to his objections that my view couldn’t explain the conventionality of language and success of communication (§2.1), that I am faced with intractable diffi culties surrounding the identity of intentional inexistents (§2.2), and that, contrary to my view, SLEs can be relationally defi ned (§2.3). Not only can Folieism survive Devitt’s objections, but (§3) it also provides a more satisfactory account of the role of linguistic intuitions than the “empirical” account on which he insists.

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