Que peut le bon sens comparé à ce que peut peut-être la connaissance scientifique ? Noam Chomsky a rappelé que le progrès des sciences a amené à se rendre compte que le bon sens, ou sens commun, pouvait se tromper de façon spectaculaire. La même chose n’est-elle pas susceptible de se passer en matière morale et politique ? Après tout, le sens commun un peu éduqué ne peut-il suffire pour nous procurer les lumières dont nous avons besoin pour l’action (...) ? Pierre Bourdieu était évidemment convaincu que la connaissance procurée par les sciences sociales est finalement la seule qui soit susceptible de nous permettre de comprendre réellement les mécanismes qui engendrent l’inégalité, l’injustice, l’oppression, etc. [Jacques Bouveresse se souvient] d’avoir pris la défense de Noam Chomsky, au moins une fois, devant Bourdieu, parce que Chomsky avait écrit que comprendre comment opèrent ces mécanismes d’assujettissement et d’oppression qui engendrent l’inégalité et l’injustice n’est pas très difficile ; il suffit d’un peu de bon sens, de psychologie – et de cynisme, ajoutait-il. (shrink)

Noam Chomsky is one of the leading intellectual figures of modern times. He has had a major influence on linguistics, psychology and philosophy, and a significant effect on many other disciplines, from anthropology to mathematics, education to literary criticism. In this rigorous yet accessible account of Chomsky's work and influence, Neil Smith analyses Chomsky's key contributions to the study of language and the study of mind. He gives a detailed exposition of Chomsky's linguistic theorizing, discusses the (...) psychological and philosophical implications of Chomsky's work, and argues that he has fundamentally changed the way we think of ourselves, gaining a position in the history of ideas on a par with that of Darwin or Descartes. This second edition has been thoroughly updated to account for Chomsky's most recent work, including his continued contributions to linguistics, his further discussion on evolution, and his extensive work on the events of September 11th, 2001. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Introduction Chomsky's Challenge Methodological Physicalism.

This chapter contains section titled: Introduction Chomsky's Commitment to CRTT Prospects and Problems of CRTT Technical Notions? Does Chomsky Need Intentionality? Chomsky's Dilemma.

In this work, McGilvray explains Noam Chomsky's rationalist view of human nature.

Noam Chomsky, “evrensel dil” düşüncesini içeren önemli dil kuramıyla zihin felsefesi ve bilişsel bilim alanında yeni bir yaklaşımın doğmasını sağlamıştır. Chomsky, Kartezyen felsefeyi temel alan dilbilim kuramı çerçevesinde, dil yetisini insana özgü olan zihinsel bir başarı olarak görmektedir. Bu bakımdan Chomsky, dil-zihin ilişkisi konusunda kendisinden önceki filozoflardan oldukça farklı bir yaklaşıma sahiptir. Dolayısıyla bu çalışma, Chomsky’nin dilbilim kuramı çerçevesinde dil ile zihin arasında nasıl bir bağ kurduğunu ve bu bağın yeryüzünde farklı diller konuşan farklı kültürden insanların (...) bir arada yaşamalarını mümkün kılması bakımından önemini sorgulamayı konu edinmektedir. Bu bağlamda çalışmada Chomsky’nin düşüncelerinden hareketle, dilin insanın zihinsel süreçlerine ne türden katkılar sağladığını açıklığa kavuşturmak amaçlanmaktadır. Bu amaç doğrultusunda felsefe tarihinde tartışılagelmiş dil-zihin sorunlarına ilişkin Chomsky’nin düşünceleri deneyci görüşler ve düalist yaklaşımlarla karşılaştırılarak irdelenecektir. (shrink)

Chomsky's “revolution” and the revolution in sign language linguistics began around the same time, but they did not directly affect each other for a while. This chapter focuses on Chomsky‐inspired research on sign language grammar and the ways that the study of sign languages connects to theories of innateness, the two main ways that Chomsky's impact has been felt in sign linguistics. Chomsky's linguistic legacy has two primary arms: one in theories of syntax, and the other (...) in theories of language acquisition. Chomsky's strong claim is that the input provided to young children acquiring their native language is too poor to constitute a complete inductive basis for general cognitive learning principles to succeed. Specifying the content of the “language acquisition device” has been a central concern of Chomskian linguistics. (shrink)

Noam Chomsky has made major contributions to three fields: political history and analysis, linguistics, and the philosophies of mind, language, and human nature. In this thoroughly revised and updated volume, James McGilvray provides a critical introduction to Chomsky's work in these three key areas and assesses their continuing importance and relevance for today. In an incisive and comprehensive analysis, McGilvray argues that Chomsky’s work can be seen as a unified intellectual project. He shows how Chomsky adapts (...) the tools of natural science to the study of mind and of language in particular and explains why Chomsky's "rationalist" approach to the mind continues to be opposed by the majority of contemporary cognitive scientists. The book also discusses some of Chomsky’s central political themes in depth, examining how Chomsky's view of the good life and the ideal form of social organization is related to and in part dependent on his biologically based account of human nature and the place of language within it. As in the first edition, McGilvray emphasizes the distinction between common sense and science and the difference between rationalist and empiricist approaches to the mind, making clear the importance of these themes for understanding Chomsky's work and showing that they are based on elementary observations that are accessible to everyone. This edition has been extensively re-written to emphasize Chomsky's recent work, which increasingly 'biologizes' the study of language and mind and - by implication - the study of human nature. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of philosophy, linguistics, and politics, as well as to all those keen to develop a critical understanding of one of the most controversial and important thinkers writing today. (shrink)

Noam Chomsky is among the most influential contemporary thinkers. Peter Wilkin looks in particular at the philosophical basis of his social and political thought, especially his ideal about power, knowledge and human nature. He shows how Chomsky's ideas can help to defend naturalism as in social and political thought. Chomsky's critical writings of social inquiry and his normative ideas on libertarian socialism and human emancipation are interpreted as synthesising a number of important ideas and approaches at a (...) time when these ideas have fallen out of favour. (shrink)

Chomsky's arguments for the existence of pre-experiential knowledge, and for the existence of sub-personal cognition, are clearly stated and shown to be cogent.

Noam Chomsky and Frances Egan argue that David Marr.

Paul Horwich; V*—Chomsky versus Quine on the Analytic-Synthetic Distinction, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 92, Issue 1, 1 June 1992, Pages 95–.

In his Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language , Saul Kripke presents his influential reading of Wittgenstein’s later writings on language. One of the largely unexplored features of that reading is that Kripke makes a small number of suggestive remarks concerning the possible threat that Wittgenstein’s arguments pose for Chomsky’s linguistic project. In this paper, we attempt to characterise the relevance of Wittgenstein’s later work on meaning and rule-following for transformational linguistics, and in particular to identify the potentially negative (...) impact it has on that project. Although we use Kripke’s remarks to articulate some of the pertinent issues, we return to Wittgenstein’s later writings to address them. We argue that Wittgenstein’s main target in the relevant sections of the Philosophical Investigations is the notion of ‘logical compulsion’, which involves assuming that there is more to applying a word or rule than how we are naturally or “psychologically” compelled to apply. We characterise two of the main lines of argument in the Investigations in terms of the rejection of logical compulsion. We thus propose to address the relevance of Wittgenstein’s writings for Chomsky by considering whether Chomsky’s linguistics presupposes the targeted notion of logical compulsion. We argue that Chomsky’s conception of linguistic competence in terms of successive states of the “language faculty” (containing the principles of universal grammar) does presuppose this problematic notion. Chomsky responded to Kripke by devoting a chapter of his Knowledge of Language to defending this conception of linguistic competence against the Wittgensteinian arguments. We evaluate his response and argue that he has misidentified the threat to his linguistic project as consisting in the attack on its ‘individual psychology’ standpoint, rather than its commitment to logical compulsion. We conclude by arguing that Chomsky’s attempts at defending his individualist or non-communitarian standpoint are undermined by his inability to give a decisive response to Wittgenstein’s attack on logical compulsion. (shrink)

The philosopher Jerry Fodor was a key figure alongside Noam Chomsky in the revolution that led to the renaissance of the cognitive sciences from around 1960. This chapter describes key difference between Chomsky and Fodor. It focuses on Chomsky's and Fodor's conceptions of modularity. The chapter discusses two ways of understanding Chomsky's proposal, in particular how it claims an underlying faculty is related to processing and performance. Chomsky is largely agnostic on this question; the commitments (...) of his programme are to be found elsewhere. The most persuasive evidence for Fodorian modules, as for Chomskyan faculties, comes from dissociations. The chapter also reviews the evidential foundation of all versions of modularity: double dissociation (impairments of one or more mental abilities caused by accidents or other pathology which leave other abilities intact). (shrink)

This chapter describes some basic, often puzzling features of intentionality, with an eye to its role not so much in ordinary folk ascriptions but in serious psychological explanations, especially in many of Noam Chomsky's own presentations of his theory. It then considers Chomsky's censure of the notion, leading him to deny what would seem to be the explicit intentionalisms on which he seems to rely. Implicit in Chomsky's treatment of grammar is the idea that the positing of (...) the language faculty offers an “abstract” perspective on a physical system (the human brain) that implements the relevant features of the abstracta in ways we currently don’t understand. Two initial problems might be raised for this picture, one regarding inference and the other, generalization. The proposed model is effectively saying that theorists track states and generalizations of the linguistic system in an explicitly representational format, but what the theory is true of need not have such representational properties. (shrink)

Pragmatic processes crucially rely on background or contextual information supplied by the hearer, which may significantly affect the outcome of the comprehension process. Construed as a branch of cognitive psychology, pragmatics is the study of the cognitive systems apart from the I‐language and the parser which enable speaker and hearer (or communicator and audience) to co‐ordinate on the intended interpretation, and this is how we propose to treat it here. This chapter considers some of Noam Chomsky's suggestions about how (...) the cognitive systems underlying human abilities might be investigated. It discusses his reasons and consider how far this skepticism may be due to his particular conception of pragmatics. The chapter outlines an approach to pragmatics that seems to be compatible with his general methodology and is based on an alternative conception of pragmatics that we sketch out. (shrink)

This article examines the critique of materialism in the work of Noam Chomsky which treats the doctrine as lacking in any clear content. It is argued that Chomsky’s critique is a coherent one drawing on an understanding of the Newtonian revolution in science, on a modular conception of the mind, and on the related conception of epistemic boundedness. The article also seeks to demonstrate the limits of Chomsky’s position by drawing attention to his use of the third-person (...) point of view in considering the mental and his resulting failure to make good sense of consciousness. Finally, a dual-aspect theory is recommended which would incorporate Chomsky’s agnosticism about the nature of matter. (shrink)

Chomsky and Deconstruction responds to Noam Chomsky’s criticisms of deconstructive theorists by exploring the historical dimensions of Chomsky’s own philosophy of language. Wise suggests that the Cartesian basis of the linguist’s own thought complicates his claims to have escaped the ancient problems of metaphysics. This book offers a measured response to Chomsky’s criticisms of deconstructive and empiricist theorists of language like Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Martin Heidegger, and Jacques Lacan and reveals the shared philosophical basis between (...) linguistic theories and politics. (shrink)

(1) In the first part of this paper, I review Chomsky's meandering journey from the formalism/mentalism of Syntactic Structures, through several methodological positions, to the minimalist theory of his latest work. Infected with mentalism from first to last, each and every position vitiates Chomsky's repeated claims that his theories will provide useful guidance to later theories in such fields as cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience. With the guidance of his insights, he claims, psychologists and neuroscientists will be able (...) to avoid costly dead-end lines of research. -/- (2) This never happened. As I have shown, this never could have happened. (See Johnston, 2018). What has happened, instead, is that current neurolinguistic research (with the arguable exception of the now-dated Lemma Model of Willem Levelt) proceeds without reference to Chomsky. It also wholeheartedly rejects the mentalism of the associated Language of Thought theory of Jerry Fodor. (See Johnston, 2018). -/- (3) I make this argument in the first part of this paper. I would also like to point out that most of my argument was developed in 1972, when I was a graduate student. I know of no other sustained criticisms of Chomsky at that time, and certainly none along the lines I had developed back then. -/- (4) In the second part of this paper, I present my own account of the methodology of science. When I was a graduate student, philosophy of science was dominated by an attempt to describe a methodology common to all the specific sciences, i.e. Hempel’s deductive-nomological model. These days, Hempel’s emphasis on the methodological unity of science has been rejected by such “dis-unity” philosophers of science as Ian Hacking, Patrick Suppes and Nancy Cartwright (see Cat, 2021). -/- (5) I view this change as the swing of a pendulum or, to change the metaphor, a journey from one end point of a continuum to another. As the level of abstraction at which one tries to describe scientific method is raised, the descriptions become increasingly general. Whether or not unity-of-science theories become so general as to be vacuous, is ultimately a subjective judgment. And so I expect that philosophers will eventually become tired of increasingly specific “close to the workbench” descriptions of how scientists work, and begin to turn back to methodological “big pictures”, finding in them powerful abstractions rather than empty irrelevancies. -/- (6) In the second part of this paper, I present my own account of the methodology of science, which I would situate somewhere between the “unity” and “dis-unity” accounts. However, I am not a scientist. My own views about scientific method have three origins: -/- (6a) my work as a graduate student from 1966 until I passed my comprehensive exams in 1973 (at a different university); -/- (6b) reading every issue of Scientific American from 1972 until nearly 2000, (at which point I continued to read it only sporadically, since I concluded that, around that time, it had evolved from a serious science magazine to a popular science magazine); and -/- (6c) my three-year immersion in the cognitive neuroscience of language after I retired, based on repeated study of and note-taking for (Banesh & Compton, 2018), (Kemmerer, 2015), several other books and, finally, numerous articles not hidden behind a paywall. -/- So, as always with my writings: caveat emptor. (shrink)

This chapter attempts to unravel the differences, whether real or merely apparent, between Chomsky's linguistics and usage‐based linguistics (UBL). The principal alternative to generative grammar in the world today is a broad umbrella of approaches that fall under the general heading of UBL. UBL is the successor to a Piagetian approach to language acquisition, where experience and general learning principles shape the acquisition process. Functionalism takes the position that properties of grammatical systems are explicable in terms of properties of (...) systems that lie outside of grammar per se. The chapter discusses that the few direct references Chomsky has made to usage‐based linguistics. It presents the most important issues, one‐by‐one, that separate Chomsky's views from those of UBLists. They are the explananda of linguistic theory, grammar design and architecture, semantics, language acquisition and innately‐provided linguistic constructs, functional explanation, and the sources of data on which a linguistic theory might be constructed. (shrink)

Noam Chomsky pursues a methodology in linguistics that abstracts from substantial amounts of data about actual language use in a way that has met considerable resistance from many other linguists. This chapter argues that Chomsky's observation in fact accords with good explanatory practice elsewhere in science, but it does conflict with a traditional methodology in linguistics. It's striking that the main features of Chomsky's Galilean style are independently taken to be rather obvious features of scientific method in (...) contemporary philosophy of science. The chapter first looks in more detail at the roles that idealization plays in contemporary generative grammar. It then proceeds to explore the congruence between the Galilean style in linguistics and aspects of good scientific methodology. Finally, the chapter sets out and responds briefly to some of the arguments that have been raised against the Galilean style. (shrink)

Noam Chomsky's engagement with contemporary philosophy from the 1960s onwards has involved lengthy discussion with critics and others on the significance of linguistics for traditional and contemporary philosophy. This chapter draws the background to generative linguistics and shows how Chomsky's real philosophical achievement in this area was to pose an explanatory question that had previously been neglected. Generative grammar as a research field was initiated by Chomsky in the 1950s. Chomsky's cognitive turn was revolutionary, not least (...) because it went against the philosophical grain vis‐a‐vis the role of formalism or logical analysis. P. Strawson had suggested that there is a Homeric struggle between those who favor a formal approach to natural language and those who favor a communicationintention approach. For Chomsky, the proper role of formalism in the realm of natural language is the framing of structural constraints on the consumption and production of language, both of which are cognitive capacities. (shrink)

Noam Chomsky often appeals to the distinction between problems and mysteries. This chapter explains and evaluates Chomsky's remarks on these topics scattered throughout numerous texts. Next, it explains the p/m distinction via Chomsky's analogy of science with language. The chapter briefly discusses the topic of linguistic creativity. It focuses on the distinction itself, not what might fall under it. The chapter critically evaluates Chomsky's considerations in favor of the conception of the p/m distinction. A further suggestion (...) from Chomsky is that convergence is a key signature of a science‐forming faculty. Convergence on scientific theories requires explanation, for that there is convergence at all appears not to follow from the observational data, still less the socio‐cultural facts of scientific practice. (shrink)

Noam Chomsky offered a fruitful conception of the languages that children regularly acquire and use in human speech. In discussions of meaning, Chomsky often emphasizes complexities of usage and warns against theories that identify word meanings with sets of things that the words are allegedly “true of.” While syntactic structure plays an important role in determining the conditions on reference that complex expressions impose, Chomsky denied that the semantic role of syntax is adequately characterized as a mapping (...) from syntactic structures and extensions of lexical items to extensions of complex expressions. Chomsky began by describing languages as sets of sentences, with sentences described as strings of “formatives.” This familiar simplification was pedagogically useful. It let Chomsky distinguish importantly different kinds of recursive procedures, without yet discussing homophony. (shrink)

This chapter provides a flavor of Chomsky's ideas relevant to linguistic diversity, and what can be taken away from them in the contemporary scene. The chapter also focuses on a variety of topics in syntactic theory and English syntax, a few in some detail, several quite superficially, and none exhaustively. Chomsky's focus on English seemed like a retrenchment. Chomsky is famous for his views about Universal Grammar, which have evolved over the years. Chomsky's early seeming neglect (...) of crosslinguistic diversity was a tactical move that has served the study of linguistic diversity very well. Lectures on Government and Binding has comments on all these developments, as Chomsky's vision burgeoned outward toward a fuller engagement with language diversity. The chapter concludes with some brief discussion of how the most recent phase of Chomsky's research, inaugurated by The Minimalist Program, affects his legacy in the study of linguistic diversity. (shrink)

Semanticists will often casually remark that Noam Chomsky rejects semantics. Chomsky has frequently noted how poorly understood some aspects of semantics are, and has shown little inclination to grant the status of reasonably well‐developed science to many parts of semantics. One specific reason Chomsky has often voiced skepticism about semantics is that he saw the wrong kinds of appeals to semantics in the wrong places. The arguments for the autonomy of syntax in Chomsky's early writing have (...) been described as part of an extended argument for the “existence of syntax”. Semantics for Chomsky must be part of I‐language: the part that provides useful information from the Language Faculty to the Conceptual‐Intentional system. There are many traditions in semantics, and many current research programs in sematics are embedded in firmly anti‐Chomskyan views of language in general. Chomsky's skepticism about truth‐conditional semantics has been, and remains strong. (shrink)

The classification of grammars that became known as the Chomsky hierarchy was an exploration of what kinds of regularities could arise from grammars that had various conditions imposed on their structure. Intersubstitutability is closely related to the way different levels on the Chomsky hierarchy correspond to different kinds of memory. This chapter deals with the general concept of a string‐rewriting grammar, which provides the setting in which the Chomsky hierarchy can be formulated. An unrestricted rewriting grammar works (...) with a specified set of nonterminal symbols, and specified set of terminal symbols. From the very outset there were doubts about about whether context‐free grammars (CFGs) could form the basis of a theory of natural language syntax. The grammar's rewrite rules correspond to the automaton's transitions. Chomsky argued that even if the generative capacity of CFGs turned out to be sufficient for English, the resulting grammars would be unreasonably complex. (shrink)

Throughout the history of the study of man there has been a fundamental opposition between those who believe that progress is to be made by a rigorous observation of man's actual behavior and those who believe that such observations are interesting only in so far as they reveal to us hidden and possibly fairly mysterious underlying laws that only partially and in distorted form reveal themselves to us in behavior. Freud, for example, is in the latter class, most of American (...) social science in the former. (shrink)

Noam Chomsky applies a rational, scientific approach to disciplines as diverse as linguistics, ethics, and politics. His best-known innovations involve a groundbreaking theory of generative grammar, the revolution it initiated in cognitive science, and a radical encounter with political theory and practice. In _Chomsky Notebook_, Cedric Boeckx and Norbert Hornstein tackle the evolution of Chomsky's linguistic theory. Akeel Bilgrami revisits Chomsky's work on freedom and truth, and Pierre Jacob analyzes his naturalism. Chomsky's own contributions include an (...) interview with Jean Bricmont and an essay each on Edward Said and the natural world. Altogether, these works reveal the penetrating insight of a remarkable intellectual whose thought extends into a number of fields within and outside of academia. For the uninitiated reader and longtime fan, this anthology attests to the power of Chomsky's rationalism and the dexterity of his critical investigations. (shrink)

Barry C. Smith: Quine and Chomsky on the Ins and Outs of Language: W.V.O. Quine's thinking has had a profound and lasting influence on the philosophy of language despite the fact that he remained firmly at odds with the science of linguistics for over thirty years. His rejection of the cognitive revolution ushered in by Noam Chomsky's work on language was rooted in a deeply held philosophical conviction that language was a publicly observable medium. However, Quine's advocacy of (...) naturalized epistemology should have inclined him to defer to advances in empirical linguistics due to generative grammar. Chomsky's review of Skinner's Verbal Behavior provided a devastating critique of behaviorism in the study of language and led to a subsequent mentalism about linguistic phenomena. But Quine did not revise his view about the proper way to study language, or his attendant view about the nature of language. His reasons for resisting Chomsky's position are worth reconsidering since they are in the background to many philosophers' views about the nature of language. The question addressed here is whether the dispute between Quine and Chomsky was a purely philosophical one, or whether it could have been resolved had greater attention been paid to the empirical facts. (shrink)

L’article se propose d’explorer l’usage que Chomsky fait de la référence à la philosophie de Descartes. À partir des années 1950, le linguiste et philosophe Noam Chomsky remet l’innéisme sur le devant de la scène en défendant l’existence d’une faculté innée de langage. Comme l’indique sans équivoque le titre de son ouvrage paru en 1966, La linguistique cartésienne, Chomsky inscrit sa pensée dans la tradition cartésienne. Mais ce que Chomsky entend par « faculté innée » est-il (...) vraiment similaire à ce que Descartes nomme « idée innée »? L’usage que fait Chomsky de Descartes relève-t-il simplement d’un procédé rhétorique, comme le soutiennent certains commentateurs, ou est-il le signe d’une authentique proximité conceptuelle? Selon certains commentateurs, cet usage est purement rhétorique. D’une part, le tournant naturaliste opéré au XXe siècle a déplacé la réflexion sur l’esprit d’un plan métaphysique purement a priori à un plan scientifique purement empirique. D’autre part, le domaine où s’exerce prioritairement la pensée de Chomsky – le domaine linguistique – est un domaine largement ignoré par Descartes. Enfin, concevoir l'esprit comme contenant des facultés spécifiques innées paraît incompatible avec le caractère indifférencié et uniforme de l’esprit cartésien. L’article entend montrer au contraire que l’usage que fait Chomsky de Descartes révèle un véritable air de famille entre innéisme chomskyen et innéisme cartésien. D’une part, c’est bien le caractère a priori des principes que Chomsky postule qui fait écho aux idées innées cartésiennes. D’autre part, Chomsky dessine une tradition linguistique de type rationaliste qui pose l’universalité des structures grammaticales au nom de l’universalité même des caractères distinctifs fondamentaux de l’esprit que l’on trouve chez Descartes. Enfin, Descartes et Chomsky défendent tous deux un innéisme dispositionnel. En somme, l’article conclut que ce qui relie Chomsky à Descartes n’est pas la définition de la grammaire universelle innée, que ce dernier n’aurait, sans doute, pas acceptée ; c’est une manière similaire de poser le problème de l’acquisition de la connaissance, et partant de le résoudre. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: The Metaphysics of Reduction The Ordo Cognoscendi Computer Models Eliminative Materialism (and Connectionism) Mysteries.

Summary and conclusions As a new field, cognitivism began with the total rejection of the old, traditional views of language acquisition and of learning -- individual and collective alike. Chomsky was one of the pioneers in this respect, yet he clouds issues by excessive claim s for his originality and by not allowing the beginner in the art of the acquisition of language the use of learning by making hypotheses and testing them, though he acknowledges that researchers, himself included, (...) do use this method. (shrink)

El presente ensayo expone las principales ideas de Chomsky acerca de la Nueva Teoría de la Referencia. Contra dicha teoría, y específicamente contra propuestas bien conocidas de Kripke y Putnam, aduce Chomsky distintos argumentos. Las conclusiones de esos argumentos son las siguientes: que en los lenguajes naturales no hay nombres lógicamente puros; que no existe ninguna relación de referencia que conecte las palabras con las cosas; que los conceptos que maneja la así llamada teoría de la referencia no (...) responden a las exigencias metodológicas de la ciencia natural; y que el significado sí «está en la cabeza». Tratando de poner al descubierto los supuestos en que se fundan estas tesis, el ensayo identifica los siguientes cuatro:su naturalismo metodológico, su pragmatismo en materia de ontología, su perspectivismo conceptual y su racionalismo. (shrink)

It's often been said that Chomsky is to linguistics what Einstein is to physics. His 1957 treatise, Syntactic Structures, initiated the so-called Chomskyan Revolution; in that book, Chomsky proposed a new linguistic theory which defined language as an innate human faculty hard-wired into our brains. Consequently, in Chomsky's view, there is a kind of "universal grammar" underlying all languages. Imagine that an alien came to Earth and observed the way we humans communicate with each other. According to (...) Chomsky, this alien would perceive all languages on Earth as pretty much the same, with only superficial variations distinguishing, for example, English from Chinese. (shrink)

Nowadays, it is very debatable among philosophers, psychologists, linguists and artificial intelligence scientists that what mind actually is, where it exists and how it works? Chomsky, the great philosopher and the main exponent of cognitive revolution tries to sketch the description of mind, its nature, mental processes, its structure as well as its relation with its other cognitive modules. It also examines innate and acquired knowledge of mind. In this paper, I shall argue about the capacities of the mind, (...) why Chomsky called mind capacity as different from its ability and other faculties. This paper also describes the theories that are connected with the field of mind i.e, mind and language, linguistic mentalism, Modular mind, Cartesian mind, mind-body problem, Philosophical grammar, and thought processes like reasoning and perceptions. Firstly, I shall argue about, does Chomsky consider mind different from brain, consciousness and thought? Secondly, does Chomsky consider mind as a separate concept or he regards it as the constituent of language only? And thirdly, how Chomsky responds to rationalists and empiricists? (shrink)

Chomsky, meanwhile, has long expressed great reluctance even to recommend reading material to his audiences, let alone how they ought to vote, on the basis that they shouldn’t be substituting his judgment for their own. At the same time he has equally consistently maintained that elections are an elaborate PR charade unworthy of more than the briefest attention, a stance he somehow considers consistent with the petition’s call to put the presidential elections at the top of our list of (...) concerns this year. Fortunately, these two fine dissidents haven’t joined in the vilification of Nader that has become all the rage among Democrats and all-too-many progressives, at least not yet. (shrink)

This chapter is concerned with Noam Chomsky's influence on historical linguistics, one might also ask about the influence of historical linguistics on Chomskyan thought. It outlines the tension between Chomskyan generative grammar and historical linguistics and argues how both have been beneficial to each other. Generative grammar and historical linguistics can benefit from each other's insights. The chapter explains how there is a great deal of influence of Chomskyan, generative linguistics on historical linguistics, in particular syntax, and also shows (...) how Third Factor Principles shape language change. Chomsky's current focus on labeling as a Third Factor effect necessitated by the interfaces and unconnected to Merge makes it possible to see syntactic change in another way, namely as a resolution to labeling problems. Apart from labeling, there are other Third Factor Principles, such as the one to avoid indeterminacy in a derivation. (shrink)

Noam Chomsky (1928 – ) Noam Chomsky is an American linguist who has had a profound impact on philosophy. Chomsky’s linguistic work has been motivated by the observation that nearly all adult human beings have the ability to effortlessly produce and understand a potentially infinite number of sentences. For instance, it is very likely that … Continue reading Noam Chomsky →.

The most remarkable about the continuity in Chomsky's thought about language is that it takes place against a theoretical landscape in constant flux, the landscape of generative grammar. Chomsky introduced a central distinction between E‐languages and I‐language, the internalized knowledge of language that each speaker has and which is the result of the interaction between his or her language faculty and the (limited) experience that he or she had of his or her mother tongue during language acquisition. The (...) Faculty of Language narrowly understood corresponds to “the abstract linguistic computational system alone, independent of the other systems with which it interacts”. This chapter aims to follow the trail of Chomsky's strongly reiterated claim throughout the years that language is not primarily a tool for communication, but rather, a tool for thought. (shrink)

Noam Chomsky (1928 – ) Noam Chomsky is an American linguist who has had a profound impact on philosophy. Chomsky’s linguistic work has been motivated by the observation that nearly all adult human beings have the ability to effortlessly produce and understand a potentially infinite number of sentences. For instance, it is very likely that … Continue reading Noam Chomsky →.