The internalist (computational) account of cognition is questioned and the explanatory power of the biology of cognition in resolving epistemological issues is emphasized. It is argued that, far from being an autonomous activity within the brains of cognizers which generates input/output capacity and can be auditioned by the Turing Test, cognition is a function of living systems as unities of interactions that exist in an environment in structural coupling. Therefore, it is distributed.

Key words: autonomy, behavior, distributed cognition, environment, structural coupling.

It is argued that the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, epistemologically, finds proof in the renewed view of objectivity provided by U. Maturana’s theory of perception. In the context of the new epistemology of autopoiesis (biology of cognition) linguistic determinism becomes an inevitable consequence of structural determinism which defines humans as living systems.

Traditionally, writing is viewed as a code that stands in one-to-one correspondence to spoken language, which is therefore also viewed as a code. However,this is a delusion, which is shared by educators and has serious consequences for cognition, both on individual and on social levels. Natural linguistic signs characteristic for the activity of languaging and their symbolizations (graphic markings) are ontologically different phenomena; speech and writing belong to experiential domains of different dynamics. These dynamics impact differently the linguistic/behavioral strategies of individuals and communities, viewed as second- and third-order living systems operating in a consensual domain as structure-determined systems. Failure to acknowledge this contributes to the spread of functional illiteracy in modern societies, which may lead to cognitive/communicative dysfunction. Technology-enhanced new literacies challenge the value of traditional written culture, raising questions about the relationship between speech and writing and their roles in human evolution. This paper builds on and extends Maturana’s biology of cognition and language.

Building on and extending Maturana’s biology of cognition and language – the idea that humans are structure determined living systems operating in a consensual domain of interactions, and that language is a special dimension of human cognition with an identifiable biological function – this paper questions the presumptions standing behind such firmly established notions in conventional mainstream linguistics as “native speakers”, “mother tongue”, “linguistic fact”, “monoglot community”. While linguists routinely appeal to native speakers as “informants” in defining “facts” about a particular language spoken by a particular community, these “facts” then being used in identifying individual languages as separate semiotic systems governed by specific sets of rules, there do not seem to be clearly delineated grounds on which native speakers’ linguistic performance is viewed as “exemplary” for communication in a given tongue, thus serving as a kind of “standard” to be achieved by those whose mother tongue is different and whose cultural identity, for that reason, is also different. It is argued that the empirical value of “linguistic competence,” allegedly characteristic of native speakers, is insubstantial, and the concept of “monoglossia” ought to be radically revised.

A critique of the traditional dualistic view of grammar as linguistics is given, and an approach is suggested that emphasizes the relational nature of linguistic signs in the framework of the biology of cognition. Using the epistemological lining in the study of language provided by the biology of cognition, grammar studies should take into account the cognitive dynamics of languaging as consensual coordinations of consensual coordinations of behavior, or, semiosis.

Despite the focus of cognitivism on mental processes the concept of thought remains largely undetermined. Neuroscience can hardly lead to a major breakthrough until neuronal processes continue to be viewed as the property of the brain as their material substrate; understanding how the brain functions does not answer the question about the nature of thought. At the start, a much simpler question should be asked: How are humans as a biological species so radically different from any other species, and is it not this difference that accounts for the origin of human mind? The epistemology of external realism construes the function of mind as the representation of the world in terms of mental images which are stored in the mind (brain) as knowledge about the world and thus allow humans to cognize the world in the course of adaptively adequate human-world interactions. Operations on such mental images, so it seems, constitute the core of mental processes which are further externalized via linguistic representation. It follows that knowledge is represented in linguistic form as an object in external reality (the world), which tempts us to think that knowledge is a thing ‘out there’. This is a naive world view woven into the very fabric of our everyday language, and because ‘language is the house of being’, we take it for granted that language is a system of signs used as a tool for the transfer of thought; such transfer is believed to be at the basis of linguistic communication. Thus we push ourselves into an epistemological trap which precludes further progress in understanding the nature of language and mind. Progress in this direction is possible with an understanding of the biosocial function of language as a cognitive domain of coordinated interactions in the course of which individual minds form and develop; mind does not exist and may not be viewed outside of languaging, nor can it be opposed to it. Leaning on the biology of language and cognition, researchers should focus on how the relational dynamics of linguistic interactions triggers changes in the nervous system and in the organism as a whole, and how their reciprocal causality is distinguished and described by the speaking observer in terms of mind, intelligence, consciousness, and self-consciousness. To that end, the agenda of language sciences must be radically revised, beginning with a scientific definition of their subject matter and an unbiased analysis of the metalanguage of traditional linguistics.

Excerpt: Viewing grammar as a cognitive-semiotic mechanism grounded in perception, rather than a set of rules that govern the use of linguistic structures in writing, allows us − not only to better understand the mechanism itself, providing much more coherent explanations of grammatical categories as metasigns − but also to see analogies, unnoticed heretofore, between different languages. Guided by an understanding that language is an evolutionary extension of the human sensorium, linguistic research may become much more insightful by utilizing the cognitivesemiotic distinction “observed vs. known” in probing into the depths of natural language grammar. In particular, this categorization principle may serve as a lodestone in the studies of verbal aspect and related phenomena in different languages, freeing these studies from ungrounded speculations and helping linguists see the well-established grammatical “facts” in a new light. Most importantly, the approach to grammar outlined in this chapter may provide an empirically solid foundation for developing effective didactic techniques that would facilitate second and foreign language acquisition

Context: The key semiotic notion of interpretation as involving an organism’s adaptive response to the environment poses a problem for some biosemiotic theories. Code biology, or the study of “(organic) codes of life” - a theoretical framework developed by Marcello Barbieri - discards interpretation as irrelevant for semiosis, and views coding as the sole mechanism of semiosis in the organic world. Problem: This article offers a critique of such an approach, showing that the concept of “code” as a one-to-one correspondence between two sets of objects (sign vehicles) cannot explain living organization, which is based on relational dynamic properties. Method: The assumptions and metaphors employed by code biology are analyzed and critiqued. Results: When relational dynamic properties of living systems are seen as sets of arbitrary rules “selected” from a potentially unlimited number to “ensure” a specific correspondence between two “independent worlds of objects,” we are faced with a homuncular explanation in which lower-level components exhibit properties that are no simpler than those they are purported to explain. Implications: Rather than ignore the problem of interpretation, a comprehensive biosemiotic theory should approach it from a different perspective, focusing on its relational nature.

Key words: Semiosis, code biology, sign, information, interpretation, emergence, language, metaphor, epistemology.

Abstract: In my response, I focus on four major concepts that are at the center of discussion and traditionally evoke a lot of controversy in biosemiotics, linguistics, and cognitive science in general. Defending my radical constructivist position taken in the target article, I provide further arguments in support of my central premise that language matters in anything and everything we do as human beings, because language is our existential domain in which we happen and become what we are. To understand the nature of language is to understand the nature of humanness - not the other way around.