Language

Ruth Millikan presents a revolutionary perspective on language, viewing it as a biological phenomenon shaped by natural selection rather than by prescriptive rules. Through a collection of essays, she challenges conventional assumptions in linguistics and philosophy, proposing that the regularities of language are akin to biological norms. This approach leads to significant insights into public linguistic meaning, language comprehension, and child language acquisition, as well as the semantics/pragmatics distinction, offering a fresh lens for understanding these complex processes.