Thom Scott-Phillips
Before language, there was communication that shows it is communicating. From the parable of Mary and the wild strawberries to ostensive inference, relevance, mindreading and the ape comparison — Speaking Our Minds in ten articles.
Reading Speaking Our Minds — Before Language, There Was Showing Intent
Animal calls work by code. Human speech can't be explained by code alone. Thom Scott-Phillips argues that ostensive-inferential communication had to exist before language could. This feature reads the book's skeleton in five articles.
Mary and the Wild Strawberries — What Does It Mean to Show That You Are Communicating?
Merely eating a wild strawberry in front of someone can tell them it's safe. But eating it in an exaggerated way tells them more clearly. That difference is the doorway to ostensive communication.
From Code to Ostension — Why Combinatorial Signals Are Rare in Nature
There are three routes by which new signals arise: ritualization, sensory manipulation, and the direct route. Why is the combining of signals — a hallmark of language — so hard to get from the first two? Reading chapter 2 through the chicken-and-egg problem.
Relevance and Mindreading — The Mental Machinery Behind Ostensive Communication
"Where's Bill?" "There's a yellow Volkswagen outside Sue's house." It doesn't answer literally, so why does it work? From Grice's maxims to relevance theory and recursive mindreading — "he knows that I know that..." — reading chapter 3.
Do Great Apes Communicate Ostensively? — Comparison and the Social Brain
Chimpanzee gestures are intentional, the author argues, but not ostensive. Looking for why humans are special in the social brain hypothesis, and then to the threshold of how language evolves (the opening of chapter 5).
How Languages Get Assembled — Cultural Attraction and Languages That Decay
Culture is not copied like genes; it is rebuilt each time it passes on. What shapes colour terms, tone, and word structure through that rebuilding? Reading the second half of chapter 5, centred on a transmission-chain artificial-language experiment.
Is Language an Adaptation? — Pinker and Bloom, and Universal Grammar
Is the illusion called motion-induced blindness a flaw or an adaptation? After checking how adaptationism works, the first half of chapter 6 takes up Pinker and Bloom's claim that the language faculty evolved by natural selection, its relation to Universal Grammar, and what language is actually for.
Why Isn't Speech Full of Lies? — Vigilance, Reputation, the Handicap Principle, and the Conclusion
If lying paid, words would stop being believed and communication would collapse. Yet humans keep talking. Through epistemic vigilance, argumentation, the handicap principle, and the author's final answer, social reputation, to the book's conclusion.
Why Does "Fiddle with Her" Work? — The Code Model and the Ostensive-Inferential Model
Say "I'll dig her out and have a good old fiddle" at a party, then at a funeral. What is said and what the speaker means come apart. How two models explain that gap changes how we see the origin of language. Reading the preface and sections 1-1 to 1-4.
Language as a Weak Code — Natural and Conventional Codes, and Two Senses of "Meaning"
"Would you like to have dinner together?" "I've just eaten." Read as a code, this exchange tells us nothing, yet it works. Why is the linguistic code weak, and yet powerful? Natural and conventional codes, Grice's meaning, and ultimate versus proximate explanation.