An Approach to the Origins of Language: The Retreat from Empiricism

by J.A. Smith

By extrapolating data from a wide array of disciplines this book attempts to demonstrate what an ethnographic account of the origins and subsequent evolution of language may have been qualitatively like to live. I argue that the evolution of language constitutes the evolution away from discourse tied to the empirical and toward the ability to conceptualise the world abstractly. This is based on neurological theories of human and animal consciousness and theories in the philosophy of language. By analysing these in tandem I have produced an account of subjectivity in relation to language from homo habilis through to present day humanity. At the centre of this is the attempt to place the notion of how we can conceptualise the impact language has on thought in an evolutionary context and how this may have interacted with natural selection. While arguing that earlier language was restricted to the purpose of communication it was not primarily valuable as a means of transmitting information. The evolution of language constitutes a retreat from empiricism.

38 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 12, 2014