A plea for diachronic necessity: the case of language acquisition

Abstract

According to a widespread reading of Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein’s conception of language relies on a substantial account of how language is actually learned by children.1 Originating from a set of papers written by Norman Malcolm (1954, 1982, 1989), this exegetical tradition has been prompted by several passages where Wittgenstein claims that our language is an “extension” and a “refinement” of our instinctive behaviours (PI §244, Z §454, CV p. 31, OC §538 and §204). Although Wittgenstein has always stressed the gulf lying between philosophical investigations and empirical sciences, these passages have moved a lot of scholars to draw the conclusion that Wittgenstein is actually committed to an implicit theory of language acquisition that should be taken into account in contemporary debates (HARRE & ROBINSON 1997, MOYAL-SHARROCK 2000). Among these ethologist readers of Wittgenstein, Canfield is probably the most radical: in a sequence of stimulating articles, he argues that ethological research should be conducted in accordance with Wittgenstein’s intuition about the learning language process (1993, 1995, 1996). This reading has, however, been seriously challenged for reasons that are mainly historical and exegetical (LOUGHLIN 2014, DROMM 2003, 2006). Among all objections encountered by the ethological reading of Wittgenstein, the most serious one is the fact that he states frequently that philosophy should not try to explain the genesis of concepts2 or to reco