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The Role Of Psychology In The Philosophy Of Language, Robert J. Stainton

Robert J. Stainton

Are psychological facts relevant to philosophy of language; and, in particular, does scientific psychology have a legitimate role to play? For example, is it methodologically permissible for philosophers of language to rely upon evidence from neurological development, experiments about processing, brain scans, clinical case histories, longitudinal studies, questionnaires, etc.? If so, why? These two questions are the focus of this survey. I address them in two stages. Psychology may seem obviously relevant. I thus begin by introducing arguments against relevance, to motivate the discussion. I will urge that these ultimately fail, and that the appearance of relevance should be taken …