Ecological laws of perceiving and acting: In reply to Fodor and Pylyshyn (1981)

Abstract

In this paper I argue that the ecological-enactive approach can deal with the problem of reference by evading it. I do so by combining two ideas. First, language is a situated form of social behaviour that is best understood in terms of directing ecological attention. Language is not some ‘thing’ that needs to be connected to the world through reference, rather it is a form of co-action in the world. From an ecological-enactive perspective, instead of referring to things that are absent, language enables us to extend our current situation. Second, I argue that the theoretical concept ‘reference’ finds its origins what I call the words-for-things view. The words-for-things view is one way in which English speakers reflexively make sense of their everyday linguistic behaviour, for example by saying ‘I was referring to the one on the left’. Although these reflexive practices enable people to make sense of linguistic behaviour, I argue that they are best understood as ways of dealing with the inescapable indeterminacy of language that arises once we understand language in terms of situated action. They are normative, structuring practices that do not describe nor ground the reality of reference outside these reflexive practices. Combining the idea that language is a mode of social action for attracting attention with the reflexive roots of reference leads to a view where (i) there cannot be a general theory of reference, and (ii) that general theory of reference is superfluous as reference is not needed as an explanans for linguistic behaviour. The upshot of paper is that we can explain linguistic behaviour from a cognitive point of view without relying on the reference relation that obtains between words and things, while still acknowledging the role of the words-for-things view in everyday linguistic interaction.