Course Plan

It seems that both votes are equally divided among the three options (with one person suggesting two topics).1 I suggest then that we begin with a deep read of Chomsky’s “Explaining Language Use,” before moving on to an overview of MDL. Although both MDL and Attribute Grammars received a vote each, I think that there is more synergy involved in the department with the topic of MDL.

Chomksy’s article appears in an issue of a philosophical journal dedicated to the philosophy of Hilary Putnam (one of the most important philosophers of the 20th century). The first part (pages 1-6) of the article are primarily focussed on an argument of Putnam’s that Chomsky formulates at the top of the second page of the article, to the effect that:

  1. language does not fall within the domain of scientific inquiry
  2. nothing can be learned about meaning from studying the brain

I suggest we start by reading pages 1-6 of the article. I will submit a post about these pages in a few days, and I invite you to post comments and questions in the discussion forum. For non-philosophers, I suggest you read these pages a few times, the first time just skimming over it, and trying to get a general overall feel for what is being talked about. On later readings, you can try to engage with it critically.

  1. Thank you both for your input!!! ↩︎