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"Biolinguistics and Systems Biology: A Complex Systems Analysis of Language"
Ryan Nefdt
University of Cape Town
Abstract
In their recent book, Ladyman and Wiesner (2020) delineate a recent interdisciplinary field called ‘complexity science’. In that work, they provide examples of generally accepted complex systems and common features which these systems possess to varying degrees. In this talk, I plan to extend their list to include the formal study of natural language, i.e. linguistics. In fact, I will argue that language exhibits many of the hallmarks of a complex system, specifically a complex biological system. Thus, my aim is to advocate, contra the ‘Galilean strategy’ traditionally favoured by Chomskyans and the Minimalist program (Chomsky 1995) which motivates simple underlying mechanisms (i.e. Merge) as constitutive, that linguistics should embrace a ‘Maximalist Program’ in which multiple subfields contribute component explanations to an emerging whole.
\Dr. Ryan Nefdt is a senior lecturer at the University of Cape Town and a fellow at MIT's Linguistics and Philosophy Department. He mostly works on the philosophy of science, with a special focus on linguistics but also has interests in AI and African Philosophy. He is currently writing a book with OUP on the philosophy of linguistics and structural realism.
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