Toward a Kantian Defense of Jackendoff's Psychologism

Terry Dartnall (2000) suggests that much cognitive modeling unwittingly commits a variant of psychologism – the fallacy of assimilating mathematical truth to psychological fact. The worry appears particularly acute for Ray Jackendoffs (2002) conceptual semantics (CS) – a naturalist, internalist, generative account of meaning and of the language faculty. Appearances are however deceptive. I argue that CS’s psychologism, while real, is benign. Jacken doff s theory of abstract objects can answer anti- psychologistic arguments if CS explicitly recognizes its Kantian leanings (cf. Falkenstein 1995). Furthermore, if this is correct, Jackendoff’s metaphysics gives grounds to reconsider whether sophisticated psychologism truly is a fallacy.