学会・研究会：Philosophy of Science Colloquium
発表者　　　：橋本敬
題目　　　　：On origin and evolution of language - significance of constructive approach
日時　　　　：2006年4月24日
場所　　　　：Budapest
HP	　　：http://philosophy.elte.hu/colloquium/2006/April/
概要：

As the starting point which clarifies the objective of the study of language origin and 
evolution, the relation between the biological concept of evolution defined as "hereditary 
variation" and the language evolution is examined. Since it seems to be difficult to 
directly apply this concept of evolution to language, we consider the following two means:
1) consider not "evolution of language" but "evolution of linguistic competence", 
2) adopt a different concept of evolution. If we take the first one, the object of the 
study serves as biological evolution of cognitive/physical ability relevant to language 
use. This is the question of "the origin of human language". As the second means, 
a concept of evolution is introduced here as "variation transmitted with path dependency 
or irreversibility." Then, we ask how human language comes to have the present structure 
from its initial state. This is the question of "the evolution of human language". 
The problem of the origin and the evolution of language is characterized by a double loop, 
i.e., biological evolution, individual learning, and cultural evolution make an 
interaction loop, and there is another loop also between learning and culture. 
This problem has the complexity that the adaptive dynamics in such different scales of 
space and time interact with each other. "The constructive approach" is a methodology 
for understanding such complex evolutionary phenomena through constructing an objective 
system abstractly and operating the system. In this talk, we argue the origin and the 
evolution of language, giving an example study using this methodology.