What Is Un-Cartesian Linguistics?

Un-Cartesian linguistics is a research program with the aim of rethinking the nature of grammar as a domain of scientific inquiry, raising new questions about the constitutive role of grammar in the organization of our (rational) minds and selves. It reformulates the ‘Cartesian ’ foundations of the modern Universal Grammar project, shifting emphasis away from the study of a domain-specific ‘innate ’ module separate from thought, to the study of a sapiens-specific mode of cognition conditioned by both grammati-cal and lexical organization, and thus a particular cognitive phenotype, which is uniquely also a linguistic one. The purpose of this position paper is to introduce and motivate this new concept in its various dimensions and in accessible terms, and to define the ‘Un-Cartesian Hypothesis’: that the grammaticalization of the hominin brain in the evolutionary transition to our species uniquely explains why our cognitive mode involves a capacity for thought in a propositional format