Language is a “quite useless” tool: A rejoinder to Fedorenko, Piantadosi, and Gibson’s “Language is primarily a tool for communication rather than thought”

Abstract

Contrary to the prevailing assumption that language is “primarily a tool for communication rather than thought”, I argue that language is, to invoke Oscar Wilde, “quite useless”. Arguing from aesthetic philosophy and the minimalist program for linguistic theory, I conject that language, like art, is not “for” anything—it simply is, conforming to aesthetic rather than utilitarian principles. Of course, like art, language can be a powerful instrument of communication, but its function is not that of expressing thought; it creates thoughts, “primarily” for communicating with oneself, engaging in Popperian critical rationalism, making thoughts (e.g., sentences, constructive proofs) to match Platonic objects (e.g., propositions, classical proofs).