Abstract

Recent years have seen a surge of interest in the evolution of natural language, but most of that work is carried on in ethology, evolutionary biology, linguistics and computer modeling, and very little within philosophy. One aim of this paper is to reveal some of the rich issues that arise when philosophers engage with the aforementioned literature. Another aim is to develop conceptual machinery to aid progress in understanding language evolution. Many leading researchers concerned with language evolution (T. Fitch, M. Tomasello, D. Cheney, R. Seyfarth, etc.) assume that natural language can only evolve among creatures possessing a theory of mind, and take this requirement to be mandated by Grice’s notion of non-natural meaning. I will develop a notion of meaning--“organic meaning”--that sits between natural and non-natural meaning and can serve as a vehicle for the institution of semantics without requiring a theory of mind. A competitor is Millikan’s notion of an “intentional icon”, but I show organic meaning to be superior, not least because it fits naturally within the constraints of evolutionary game theory. Another competitor is Skyrms’ notion of a signal, which I show to be inadequately elaborated to bear explanatory weight. I close with an overview of how organic meaning can serve non only as an explanatory device for language evolution, but also as a framework for understanding aspects of human communication such as facial expression, vocal intonation, and conversational implicature.