ABSTRACT
John Turri* Philosophy Department, University of Waterloo, 200 University Avenue West, Waterloo,
ON N2L3G1, Canada (Received 18 October 2013; final version received 25 October 2013)
Thomas Reid distinguished between natural and artificial language and argued that natural language has a very specific sort of priority over artificial language. This paper critically interprets Reid’s discussion, extracts a Reidian explanatory argument for the priority of natural language, and places Reid’s thought in the broad tradition of Cartesian linguistics. Keywords: Thomas Reid; Noam Chomsky; artificial signs; natural signs; artificial language; natural language
1. Introduction Noam Chomsky’s work on human language reignited a dormant tradition of studying language as a way of revealing something important about human nature (Chomsky 1957). Chomsky traces the roots of his approach back throughWilhelm von Humboldt and Rene Descartes (Chomsky 1966). This tradition — what Chomsky callsCartesian linguistics-treats the creative human use of language as especially noteworthy, in two senses.On the onehand, the available evidence seems woefully inadequate to account for the linguistic competence humans acquire. On the other hand, humans routinely invent novel ways of expressing themselves, which other humans have little difficulty understanding, despite the novelty.
