Chomsky wrong on language?
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ALB wrote:I meant someone from his own field of linguistics on the basis of their research and theorising in this field or, if you prtefer, theorising, research and theorising again
I made some criticisms of Chris Knight's work, here:http://en.internationalism.org/forum/1056/jk1921/4410/chris-knight-marxism-and-science-part-one#comment-9494My comments are 4 & 5.
I've read Knight's articles on Chomsky, and his dodgey tarry brush, in the past, and been distinctly unimpressed. I'm no expert, and so don't have much of a dog in the fight, other than the impression that Knight really wasn't arguing from evidence. Chomsky's rationalism does impinge, somewhat, on his politics, in his claims of an innate sense of morality/human values relate to that view.
It's Chomsky's rationalism, his extreme individualism and his (modified) Cartesianism that should immediately start raising issues. When it is asserted that language has no social fuction and no social purpose we need to look very carefully at the man's agenda. Chomsky: "I should mention that I am using the term ‘language’ to refer to an individual phenomenon, a system represented in the mind/brain of a particular individual…In ordinary language, in contrast, when we speak of language, we have in mind some kind of social phenomenon, a shared property of a community. What kind of community? There is no clear answer to this question…. The term ‘language’ as used in ordinary discourse involves obscure sociopolitical and normative factors."
ALB wrote:LBird wrote:More:regarding Chomskys theory, the article wrote:Speech is the natural, autonomous output of a dedicated computational mechanism – the ‘language organ’ – located in a special region of the individual human brain.'Individuals' and 'biology'.
It is this biological determinism that was why I was waiting for someone to refute him. A bit suspicious of Chris Knight though, as isn't he a bit of one too (ex-SWP, expelled I think, but in their argument I thought Chris Harman came off best)?
LOL, we have some ex SWPers, ex facists, ex everything in the party, Adam. Are you suspicious of them too? I think we need to approach this from a factual point of view. I don't go with everything Chris says by any means but I think his views needs to get a fair hearing, without their being loaded down with these kinds of irrelevancy.
Young Master Smeet wrote:I've read Knight's articles on Chomsky, and his dodgey tarry brush, in the past, and been distinctly unimpressed. I'm no expert, and so don't have much of a dog in the fight, other than the impression that Knight really wasn't arguing from evidence. Chomsky's rationalism does impinge, somewhat, on his politics, in his claims of an innate sense of morality/human values relate to that view.That's a dodgy tarry brush kind of contribution there, YMS. In my experience Chris is almost OCD about evidencing his work, especially anything he says about Chomsky, because he knows just what sort of a backlash it is likely to provoke.
That individualism has an advantage of providing for a form of human universalism, and being a decent rebuff to some of the worst of post-modernism. HIs exclusion of context, which he seems to prefer to call communications, rather than language is n attempt to concentrate on the mechanics of language. Much like a telecoms engineer doesn't concern themself with social context, but the mechanics of radio transmission.The evidence is that language is innate, taking, for example, the maroon communities. You yourself have noted that some human communities worlds apart share basic structures, and ideas, which also point to an innateness. In some ways, it's a hopeful notion that were civilisation to be smashed any remaining humans would jut begin again.
Except of course, that Chomsky has utterly failed to find anything universal about language forms. In terms of language itself, I don't think it needs an MIT professor to tell us that it is universal. Chomsky does not however exclude content. He believes, as I have been saying, that content – a universal grammer and set of concepts – are a given. He simply excludes social content, or indeed any kind of explanation that requires social input – like the idea that language evolved. It is because of this that he has been forced to hold the rather mad idea that a language module appeared in our minds fully formed at some time in our past. (Note in our minds. For Chomsky 'body' is an 'inchoherent' concept.) Lots of people have been misled into thinking that Chomsky has at certain times accepted an evolutionary explanation of language origins. He hasn't. It is just that his views have sometimes been conflated with those of others with whom he has collaborated. I'm not a biological determinist, I'm a cultural materialist. I don't believe that human communites share basic structures because they are innate as, for example, Levi-Strauss sometimes maintained. I believe that human communites share basic structures because their need to solve similar problems has given rise to similar material solutions and thence structurally similar ideological forms.I don't see any compelling evidence that the content of language is innate, which is Chomsky's foundational view and which over decades and many different theories he has been unable to demonstrate. Prima facie it seems very likely that our capacity for language contains factors of some kind that are innate (though some argue otherwise) but that is an entirely different matter
But Chomsky does accept an evolutionaery origin of language, admittedly via saltation (another new word, doing well this week), but that is perfectly consonant with biological evolutionary theories. It's not a mad idea at all.If the poverty of stimulous is true, then Chomsky's line is the only option (I am aware it is disputed, but not completely overturned). Further, as I said, the Maroon creoles, which developed out of the adult pidgins of the first generation maroons (but which later generations turned into a completely syntactically coherent language), is highly suggestive of a biological capability to create language.
Hud955 wrote:I'm not a biological determinist, I'm a cultural materialist.Thank god, at last!Someone who agrees with Marx's 'idealism-materialism'.
If you go to the link below, you'll find in the second issue of the journal an interview I carried out with Noam Chomsky on these very issues. I was working under the influence and with the help of Chris Knight. As the saying goes, Chomsky cut us both a new arsehole. He will certainly be very surprised to learn that "biological determinism" has been refuted – you should let the Intelligent Design people know! I'm now more with Young Master Smeet – though like him I am no specialist and have no dog in the fight. http://radicalanthropologygroup.org/journal
PS Knight was not in the SWP as far as I know, but was in the Militant Tendency. He was chucked out for being too mad. No further comment.
Stuart omits another relevant piece from RAG..the Chris Knight interpretation of Chomsky' sciencehttp://radicalanthropologygroup.org/sites/default/files/journal/journal_04.pdfAthough, of course, coming from the horses mouth the Chomsky interview takes precedence, All the contributions have been very erudite and well- read (similarly with the Hunter-Gatherer thread) which left me at a disadvantage but i was gratified that Chomsky explained using Pannekoek's astronomy as an example provided some element of support for my own early lay-man contribution to this thread…My puzzlement at those wishing to link the relevance of Chomsky's professional discipline to his political position. I still have no clue if he has been proved wrong on linquistics but whether he has or not, i simply think the issue has nothing to do with his politics or our attitude towards it..They stand alone and independent. For me, we discuss that aspect, and leave linquistic theory to those involved in the investigation of it…I simply won't vote on the scientific validity of it if democracy involves determining correct or wrong theory from the ideological trenches.To repeat, Chomsky's importance to the world is not his linquistic research but his practical politics …here, i am able express a view of Chomsky's worth and i suggest it has been overall a positive contribution but not an infallible one, and that is absolutely normal.
I agree with you Alan, as does Chomsky, as you say. There are no political implications. Not are there with so called "biological determinism". Stalinists found "cultural determinism" perfectly congenial after all.
"PS Knight was not in the SWP as far as I know, but was in the Militant Tendency. He was chucked out for being too mad. No further comment."I'm not sure that Militant Tendency would be the first place I would go for an opinion on whether a person was mad or not, Stuart. But anyway…
Once again, YMS, the biological ability to create language is not what is in question here. At least it is not what I am arguing. (As already indicated, I think there is a good prima facie case for it.) Chomsky does argue for this, but it is by no means all that he is arguing. If you want a discussion on Chomsky and evolution then you will have to be more specific about the claims you making here. (Unless your reference is to an earlier post I have missed, in which case apologies. Let me know.) In all the reading I have done I have never seen anything that would confirm this view.
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