L'ontogenesi del significato e la filosofia del linguaggio

ABSTRACT: In the paper we claim that the theme of ontogeny of meaning is closely connected to two philosophical questions: the problem of the relation- ship between language, thought and reality and the problem of human nature. Realist theorists think that the world is intrinsically organized by genres and species and human knowledge must reflect this organization. Human nature must be of a reflective essence. Nativist theorists such as Fodor and Pinker re- tain that human nature consists of a series of innate skills and concepts that enable human beings to construct basic concepts that represent natural genres as well as their own thoughts (Theory of mind). From this perspective the de- velopment of meaning would consist of a simple naming of concepts which are already at hand. Here we want to propose a different point of view: phys- ical reality is very complex and it is possible to interpret it in many different ways. Human nature enables us to investigate the world through its flexibility and creativity. Children can thus construct a plurality of concepts through a se- lection of relevant traits in relation to success in their actions in the physical world as well as their communicative praxis in the social world. These two processes unite to become one in the ontogeny of meaning: children become able to select the semantic properties that identify the meanings of their own languages. The fixing of concepts of the words permits the process to refer to itself. This makes it possible for the construction of concepts which are avail- able to reflection. In this way the capacity for meta–representation can be de- veloped. We follow the proposals described by Rizzolatti, Deacon and Tomasello. We can offer the hypothesis that the natural basis of these devel- opments would be in pre–motor and pre–frontal areas of brain. In this case these would be even the phylogenetic basis of human semiosis.