Some
background
The
1950s
In
the 1950s behaviourism/empiricism dominated philosophy, linguistics, psychology
and the social sciences generally. In linguistics in particular, a cluster of
theses dominated, with some variation:
(i)
Languages are infinitely various along
every dimension.
(ii) Languages are essentially systems of
habit/dispositions.
(iii)
Languages are learnt via experience (for Skinner and others,
conditioning.
(iv)
There is no component of the speaker/hearer’s psychology that is
specifically linguistic.
(v) Syntactic relations are ones of surface immediate
constituency.
(vi)
Linguistics is a descriptive/taxonomic science - there is nothing to
explain.
(It
is worth noting that Chomsky’s structuralist taxonomist contemporaries - e.g., Harris,
Jacobson, etc. - did not subscribe to (iii); indeed, they had nothing
whatsoever to say about acquisition. On the other hand, Bloomfield was a
professed behaviorist.)
In
the mid 1950s, Chomsky challenged all of these theses in his unpublished The Logical Structure of Linguistic Theory
(a massive book, eventually published in 1975, which was originally rejected by
MIT Press!). Syntactic Structures
(1957) presented the bare bones of LSLT,
along with a formal refutation of various simple (but popular) computational
models of language learning (finite-state machines). Together, the books showed
in detail how we could make progress in linguistics precisely by rejecting the
six theses. ((v) was refuted, making (ii) also false, and rendering (vi) empty;
the famous review of Skinner’s Linguistic
Behaviour (1959) refuted (iii).)
A
Change of Direction
Chomsky
is associated with the thesis that language is largely innate, and so unlearnt.
This thesis was not argued for by Chomsky in the ‘50s, not even in the Skinner
review. Chomsky’s early work was entirely devoted to the formal delineation of
‘general linguistic theory’ (what was to be christened Universal Grammar) and the specification of a transformational
grammar for English whose properties may be derived from the general theory
(early work was also done on Hebrew as Chomsky’s Ph.D. thesis). As indicated, this
essentially formal work sufficed to shatter the set of theses, but it was not
premised upon any nativist claim, nor were there any positive psychological
arguments.
The
nativist thesis came on line along with the language
acquisition device, the competence/performance
distinction, the descriptive/explanatory
adequacy distinction, and the appeal to a historical heritage, which
culminated in Cartesian Linguistics
(1966). This was a move from formalization alone, to the formalization being a
theory of the psychological endownment of the language acquiring child.
(1960/62)‘Explanatory
Models in linguistics’: LAD, nascent c/p and d/e.
(1962/64)
‘Current Issues in Linguistic Theory’: LAD, d/e, Descartes and/Humboldt on
creativity, nascent c/p.
(1965)
Aspects of a Theory of Syntax, Chp.1:
LAD, c/p, d/e, Descartes et al.,
nativism.
The
familiar picture of Aspects amounts
to a full dressed rejection of the six theses of the old linguistics, now
backed-up with an alternative theory, or, rather, just a theory, for there never
was an alternative explanatory account.
No
Change
This
move from the formal to the cognitive was not a radical break. The basis of the
Aspects framework was contained in LSLT. The problem for LSLT was how to understand the
generation of formal structures (descriptive adequacy) in a cognitive setting
(explanatory adequacy), as being acquired. This problem was in fact to remain
until the development of Principles and
Parameters in the late ‘70s which
essentially solved the acquisition problem.
This
‘no change’ claim is quite sensible, when it is considered that much of the
work against traditional linguistics and its behaviourist dogmas was achieved
independently of explicit cognitive theses. With the fall of
behaviourism/empiricism, thesis (iv) could be seriously doubted. In fact, since
the structure revealed couldn’t be learnt in the traditionally conceived way,
the negation of (iv) seems unavoidable. In turn, this leads to serious doubt of
(i), for the variation admitted by language would be a function of the
structure of the native capacity. Thus, it was natural to see the new
linguistics as presaging a novel (resuscitated!) cognitive account to replace
the refuted behaviourism.
We
may think of the tradition of ‘Cartesian linguistics’ as encouraging Chomsky to
push forward with the total overthrow of the old conception of linguistic
understanding. Chomsky has said that at the time of LSLT, such a nativist position was “too audacious”.
First
and Second Cognitive Revolutions
Chomsky
(e.g., Powers and Prospects, 1996) has
suggested that the so-called ‘cognitive revolution’, which his own work largely
initiated, would be more accurately descried as the ‘second cognitive revolution’. This is because the
work of the ‘50s and ‘60s was very much a rediscovery of the ‘Cartesain’ insights,
not only as regards a general mentalism as opposed to empiricism, but also in
the specifics of language and perception
No
more Cartesian Linguistics
1)
After 1966, Chomsky decided to do no more work on phonology, mathematical
linguistics or history of ideas. Issues around Vietnam were taking up too much
of his time. Chomsky had in fact been organising talks and protests since 1962,
when the Kennedy administration initiated the assault on the people of South
Vietnam.
2)
“I have been sort of put off by the field, frankly. For one thing, there is
such a fantastic amount of misrepresentation in the field that I kept quite
remote from it. I refuse invitations to conferences and so on. My own work has
been widely distorted, in the most amazing ways. For example, there is a whole
literature devoted to my distortions of Locke. I could hardly have distorted
Locke, since I did not discuss him at all, apart from a few innocuous and
uncontroversial references that have never been challenged… Work of this sort
is so ridiculous that it is hardly worth discussing. It is unfortunately rather
typical of the intellectual or, in a way, even moral level of the field.”
—
(1982) The Generative Enterprise,
pp.37-8.
(Chomsky
has brutally responded to some criticisms of CL: to George Lakoff in NYRB
(February 1973) and to Jonathan Barnes and John Searle in (1975) Reflections of Language - a chain-saw to a meringue.)
Politics
Chomsky
only briefly discusses politics/morality in Cartesian
Linguistics, with reference to Humboldt. The ideas are expanded, taking in
Rousseau, Marx and others, in (1970)
‘Language and Freedom’ and (1975) Reflections
on Language. For Chomsky, Behaviourist/empiricist doctrine is profoundly
anti-humanistic:
“If
in fact man is an indefinitely malleable, completely plastic being, with no
innate structures of mind and no intrinsic needs of a cultural or social
character, then he is a fit subject for the ‘shaping of behaviour’ by the state
authority, the corporate manger, the technocrat, or the central committee.”
In
contrast to the manipulative model of empiricism, Cartesian thought asserts the
dignity of the person in setting ultimate moral barriers to coercion and
manipulation, for there is an antecedent human nature which animates a person’s
actions, autonomous of external control, and characterised by free and novel
thought. Given the falsity of behaviourism/empiricism, one can understand its
prevalence as a concomitant of dominant ideology of authoritarian socialism and
state capitalism. The “empty organism” doctrine is a most natural one for the
class of technical intelligentsia, those who claim authority, special
knowledge, and a unique insight into what is best for those less enlightened.
At the time of Chomsky’s writing Cartesian Linguistics, the social and psychological sciences were busy devising ways to pacify the people of South Vietnam just as they had been integral to the development of the consumer ideology in post WWI America.
Why
Cartesian Linguistics?
For
Chomsky, we can hope for explanation of linguistic competence - the structures that constitute our capacity to pair
sound and meaning - but there is little hope of us explaining how such
structures are integrated into behaviour. That is, performance remains theoretically intractable. Cartesian Linguistics is
the most sustained treatment of this central aspect of Chomsky’s outlook, one
which is largely neglected by critics and advocates alike, but one which is
core to Chomsky’s profound intellectual and moral insight, which rivals
anything of the 20th Century, or any other.
Some
Things I have learned from Noam - Ray Rackendoff
It
is possible to be widely hailed in the intellectual world, and then, without
fundamentally changing one's ideas, and without serious arguments being offered
against the soundness of one's ideas, to come to be widely reviled.
It
is possible to be widely hailed in the intellectual world as a master in
multiple fields and still firmly believe that one is unappreciated and
virtually without influence.
It
is possible to write science in a way so true and so beautiful as to bring
tears to the eyes of discerning readers.
It
is possible to write science in a way so quietly aggressive as to infuriate
rather than win over one's opponents.
There
is no substitute for charisma.
There
is no substitute for hard work.
There
is no substitute for human dignity.
Colorless
green ideas sleep furiously. They really do.
Postscript
The
missing Whitehead quotation is:
''A
brief, and sufficiently accurate, description of the intellectual life of the
European races during the succeeding two centuries and a quarter upto our own
times is that they have been living upon the accumulated capital of ideas
provided for them by the genius of the seventeenth century''. A.N. Whitehead, Science and the Modern World.