It seems the theory of evolution is all the rage these days among philosophers.  I am not referring to those many philosophers who feel compelled to defend Darwin’s theory against the rantings of religious fanatics.  I am referring the apparent trend that has developed in the last few years that exploits Darwinian insights in order to clarify and perhaps even solve some philosophical problems.  Daniel Cloud’s The Domestication of Language is a recent example.  The 275-page book, divided into ten chapters and an index, is dedicated to making sense out of the deceptively complicated issue of where words come from.

Cloud puts the key question this way, “How did all the various things in the world get their names?” (1)  Human culture has yielded a number of answers to this question.  Think of the book of Genesis, for example.  Perhaps in order to set the stage for the philosophical lineage developed in the book Cloud starts things off with Plato’s answer to the question.  Plato considers whether language begins with some sort of agreement or convention among people, people of some authority perhaps.  Plato’s Socrates suggests that “the words of our existing languages were created by people he calls nomothetes, lawgivers or legislators” (2).  Jumping to the mid-twentieth century with the work of the influential W.V. Quine, who thought Plato’s answer “childish” (2), the work of The Domestication of Language begins in earnest.  According to Cloud, Plato and Quine “are in fact pointing to a philosophical puzzle we still face in almost the same form” (6).

Cloud acknowledges that is was the contemporary philosopher Daniel Dennett who inspired his own take on the puzzle of language’s origins.  He credits Dennett with considering Darwin’s notion of domestication as a possible piece of the puzzle.  As Cloud explains, “…domestication refers to humans’ cultivation of animals, plants, and other organisms.  In this sense, the critical feature of domestication is the human role in choosing which individuals will have offspring and which will not” (13).  Furthermore, says Cloud, by “analogy, any mutually beneficial interaction that becomes obligatory for one or both parties can be called domestication in the broadest possible sense of the word.” (14). Thus, the book’s “intention…is to defend the hypothesis that words in general are domesticated, in Darwin’s specific sense of the word domesticated” (16).  In other words, as Cloud puts it later in the book, “If culture can be thought of as domesticated, in Darwin’s sense of the word, if it is like a flock of sheep, then words…are the sheepdogs we use to manage it” (162).

Cloud then moves on to the work of David Lewis and Brian Skyrms, contemporary philosophers who also puzzle over the nature and origins of language, suggesting that their work (implicitly) suggests Darwinian domestication at the root of things.  Interestingly, this takes Cloud into the worlds occupied by chimpanzees, bees, and birds.  This move is an example of how many philosophers and scientists fertilize each other’s’ fields with their own work often coming up with novel yet plausible new understandings of old problems.  As Cloud says, “nearly everything I’ve said about birdsong may apply almost equally well to some aspects of the syntax and pronunciation of human languages” (112).

Cloud’s argumentative sweep is broad, incorporating theories of social learning, analyzing the meaning of meaning, explaining the role of conversation and even humor in human culture.  This multi-disciplinary work has a point of course.  “The message of my story,” says Cloud, “is right on the surface: that we have more agency in deciding what our language will be like than we might suppose and that we are all working on a shared project that benefits everyone all the time, even when our actions might seem futile or frivolous” (241).  In the end,The Domestication of Language concludes that human language is not something pre-programmed into our DNA such that we are simply “puppets dancing at the end of strings held by maladaptive memes” (249).  Nor do we simply make it up as we go along either.  “In the final analysis, we are not passive spectators, consumers, or victims of our culture.  We humans–we’re gardeners, domesticators and creator, the ambitious rivals of Nature itself” (249).

Cloud is indeed grappling with an intriguing problem.  I will leave it to the reader to trace the niceties of the argument structure that The Domestication of Language represents.  I only scratched the surface here.  The Domestication of Language is not an easy read.  It is clearly not aimed at a general reading audience.  It is meant for other philosophers and academics with some experience with the developments in evolutionary theory and some familiarity with academic philosophy.  In any case, the book is tightly argued.  It builds wonderfully on the work of others and offers realistic aspirations for further research agendas in various disciplines.  Not a bad set of accomplishments at all.

© 2015 Ben Mulvey

Ben Mulvey, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the College of Arts and Sciences of Nova Southeastern University.  He received his doctorate in philosophy from Michigan State University specializing in political theory and applied ethics.  He teaches philosophy at NSU and is a member of the board of advisors of the Florida Bioethics Network.