Much philosophical attention has been devoted to the truth predicates of natural language and their logic. However, lexical truth predicates are neither necessary nor sufficient for a truth-attribution to occur, which warrants closer attention to the grammar of truth attribution. A unified analysis of five constructions is offered here, in two of which the lexical truth predicate occurs (It's true that John left and That John left is true), while in the three remaining, it does not (John left; It seems (...) that John left; and It's that John left). This analysis is philosophically significant for four reasons. First, it explains why speakers of natural language find standard instances of Tarski-inspired equivalences (e.g. That John left is true iff John left) intuitively compelling. Second, it derives the widespread ‘deflationist’ intuition that truth has no substantive content. Third, insofar as the deflationist sees insights on truth as flowing from understanding our practice of truth attribution, it furthers the deflationist agenda through a new analysis of such attributions. Finally, it advances the philosophical project of the ‘naturalization’ of truth by reducing our understanding of truth to our competence in the grammar of truth, as an aspect of our biological endowment. (shrink)

The possibility and extent of thought without language have been subject to much controversy. Insight from non- or minimally verbal humans can inform this debate empirically. Since most such individuals are on the autism spectrum, of which they make up a sizable 25–30%, an important connection between language and autism transpires. Here we propose a model which makes sense of this link and explains why the non-verbal human mind, as present evidence suggests, represents a fundamentally different cognitive phenotype. This model (...) views the relevant part of the autism spectrum as reflecting the breakdown of a cognitive phenotype of which language is an inherent element and which will manifest principled limitations in the latter's absence. (shrink)

Traditional arguments against the identification of the language of thought with natural language assume a picture of natural language which is largely inconsistent with that suggested by contemporary linguistic theory. This has led certain philosophers and linguists to suggest that this identification is not as implausible as it once seemed. In this paper, I discuss the prospects for such an identification in light of these developments in linguistic theory. I raise a new challenge against the identification thesis: the existence of (...) ungrammatical but acceptable expressions seems to require a gap between thought and language. I consider what must be the case in order for this objection to be dealt with. (shrink)