Language and human nature: from Chomsky to AI

CYCLE: On Human Nature. From Descartes to Artificial Cyborgs, via Darwin
SPEAKER: Valentina Cardella
DATE: Thursday, June 25, 6:00 PM

Language has always been at the center of reflections on human nature. Ever since the Classical age, philosophers have considered language to be one of the essential features that distinguish humans from other animals. Noam Chomsky stands firmly within this tradition; he has not only consistently claimed the specificity of human language but has also theorized that human intelligence is structured around language itself.
From this perspective, Artificial Intelligence serves as a decisive testing ground. In particular, Large Language Models (LLMs) are astonishing not only for their ability to generate language but because they exhibit behaviors that closely resemble unique human traits: lies, confabulations, and motivated reasoning. What can this tell us about the power of language? And what does it reveal about the boundary between the human and the non-human?

Valentina Cardella is Full Professor of Philosophy of Language in the Department of Cognitive Sciences at the University of Messina. Her research focuses on language in psychopathology, pathologies of belief and delusions, narratives and confabulations, and the philosophy of mind.
Her publications include: Language and Schizophrenia (Routledge, 2018), La logica della follia (Corisco, 2018), Psychopathology and Philosophy of Mind (with A. Gangemi, Routledge, 2021), and Reasoning in Psychopathology (with A. Gangemi, Routledge, 2023). For Mimesis, she edited the new Italian translation of Wittgenstein's Blue Book (2022).