Language and Problems of Knowledge

Every serious approach to the study of language departs from common sense usage, replacing it by some technical concept. The general practice has been to define "language" as extensional and externalized (E-language). However, such a concept of language and its variants raises numerous problems and it is argued in this paper the E-language is an artifact with no status in a theory of language. A better move would be to consider "language" as intensional and internalized (I-language). Bearing this conception in mind, the approach to the knowledge of language as knowledge of an ability--very common among those philosophers influenced by Wittgenstein--is examined and rejected as a philosopher's pipe dream.