universals, innateness & Chomsky

[Alexander Gross]

I'm delighted that Tom Givon felt sufficiently provoked to dash off his
small critique.  And I'd be even more delighted to reply in detail, but I am
on the very eve of departure for a conference in Philadelphia, followed by a
brief holiday with my wife, and will have no opportunity to respond for at
least a week.

On the whole it all sounds fairly familiar, the supposition by a Credo
supporter that any critic must simply be supporting another Credo, along
with the repetition of the expected canticles from the catechism:
Universals, innateness and evolution, Darwin and Wallace,
Performance vs. Competence.  All the comforting catchwords from the past as
a mantram against noticing that almost fifty years of linguistic work have
gone astray.

I notice also no mention at all of image schemas.  Could it just be that the
argument against their existence is so overwhelming that Tom has been forced
to the wall and felt the need to defend all so-called universals
generically?  But if universals are truly central to language, why would
there be any perceived need to defend them?

Hey, guys, I agree, let's do science: in the plural, lots of sciences and
not just the appointed, annointed ones, with a real breakout into medicine,
cartography, fractal geometry, true neurocognitive connections along with
others, and not just the plastic ones that claim Botticelli's use of
perspective as a false universal.

Let's get outside the box and stop murmuring all the inside-the-box phrases
whenever the existence of a life beyond its bounds is suggested.

I'm really afraid I've heard most of this before.  Since I won't be here for
a while, those of you who might care to see how I have responded to similar
critiques in the past might want to look at:

http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&selm=8ebm3f%24c6q%241%40slb1.atl.mindspring.net&rnum=1

or:

http://language.home.sprynet.com/lingdex/bigbird.htm#totop

or perhaps even my view of what it really takes to "do linguistics" at:

http://language.home.sprynet.com/lingdex/minimum.htm#totop

all the best to everyone!

alex

----- Original Message -----
From: "Tom Givon" <tgivon at uoregon.edu>
To: <funknet at mailman.rice.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, June 22, 2004 5:23 PM
Subject: [FUNKNET] universals, innateness & Chomsky


>
> Dear FUNK people,
>
> I keep changing my mind whether it would be useful to respond to
> Alexander Gross' recent epistle. It was surely a spirited missive,
> certainly most enjoyable. But how could one respond to a Credo ? (Except
> by reciting a counter- Credo , which I am loathe to do). Perhaps rather
> than responding directly, I will pick what seem to me the most salient
> issues.
>
> 1. Reductionism: One of the least fortunate legacies of 20th Centrury
> linguistics is the stark, either-or reductionism used to frame
> theoretical (and factual...) issues. For the record, Chomsky was not the
> first culprit. Bloomfield (1922, 1933), in his capacity as a flaming
> behaviorist/empiricist, was quite adamant about making a forced choice
> between Hermann Paul's "mentalism" and know-no-mind empiricism; or
> between Paul's (and Humbold's) universalism and 100%  linguistic
> relativity; or between (implicitly here) Platonic innateness and
> true-blue Watsonian behaviorism. Chomsky (1959, 1966) of course reversed
> directions, but was just as adamant about there being no middle grounds
> between Skinner & Descartes. The facts of language learning, language
> use and diachronic change, however, together with theoretical
> considerations that go back to (at least) Kant, strongly suggest that
> language is a typical biologically-based hybrid system; one that
> accommodates both extremes as competing principles within a complex
> system. As long as it keeps oscilating between the two reductive
> extremes, linguistics is doomed to recapitulate the 23 centuries'
> pendulum swings of post-Socrating epistemology. Which, for my money,
> would be a bloomin' shame.
>
> 2. Universals, innateness and evolution: So far as I can tell, there has
> been only two serious traditional explanation proposed for universals,
> not only of language but also of mind and, indeed, of biological design:
> (i) The Divine; (ii) Evolution. For the peculiar band of non-religious
> relativists that sprang in academic linguistics and anthropology one
> could concede a third one: (iii) Randomness. But, you surely agree, this
> is not much of an explanation. So, if you are not inclined to invoked
> either the Deity (i) or Randomess (iii) as serious scientific
> explanations, and if you recognize at least some  universals of
> language, you have no choice but to concede some  innatenes,
> neurological specialization, genetic encoding--and evolution. You simply
> can't buy one without buying the others. They come together, package
> deal. Tho of course, you are entitled to quibble about (or let repeated
> cycles of empirical investrigation settle, as I vastly prefer) matters
> of degree & fine details.
>
> 3. Evolution of mind: What split the two co-discovered of
> adaptive-selected evolution, Darwin and Wallace, from each other was the
> ancient question of where to draw the line. Wallace argued that the body
> evolved but the mind did not; essentially a dusted-up Platonic/Cartesian
> dualist position. Darwin insisted that what's good for the body is also
> good for the mind/soul; a position in line with Aristotelian monism in
> biology.
>
> One of the most puzzling things about Chomsky's approach to language is
> that in spite of being an avowed innatist and an atheist, he resists
> viewing language as the product of adaptive-selected evolution. In a
> recent joint article (with Hauser and Fitch, in Science), this paradox
> is maintained by invoking a (familiar?) distinction between the general
> cognition that supports language (including semantics and preagmatics!),
> which did evolve selectively-adaptively, and the presumably
> non-adaptive, unique core-principle of human language--recursivity--
> which cannot be explained adaptively. The supportive argument is cited
> directly from Chomsky 1965--yes, you guessed it-- Performance ("general
> cognition") vs. Competence ("the unique core-principle")! So Chomsky has
> gone a considerable distance past Wallace, recognizing the evolution of
> mind but not of language.
>
> 4. Linguistic relativism: The kind of linguistic/cultural  relativism
> that Alexander Gross waxes so nostalgically about is rather familiar in
> the social science (and the humanities), and is indeed the direct
> intellectual descendant of Wallace's denial of the evolution of mind. It
> is fully tantamount to saying that the brain evolved but the mind
> didn't. Perhaps with one exception, tho--this position is advocated by
> non-religious academics. But otherwise, it is part and parcel of the old
> tradition of drawing a sharp line between the biological (corporeal,
> profane, mundane; or subject to adaptive-selected evolution), and the
> mental/cultural (divinely given or free-chosen and fancy free). And it
> is Decartes' dualism thinly disguised, dusted up and refitted in fancy
> (post-modern) lingo. But otherwise still recognoizable.
>
> 5. Chomsky as a convenient Devil: I come last to a peculiar obsession of
> functionalist of whatever sect (or stripe), one they apparently--in a
> way peculiarly remiscent of old-time religion--cannot do without. For
> apparently we need a Devil; our very own Daemon to cast out; the
> Scapegoat to lead to the altar. And Chomsky surely makes such a splendid
> "Tailed One" (Kwasi-gyat , in Ute), being so obviously the font of all
> intellectual evil. So, at the risk of heresy and excommunication, I
> would like to suggest that in spite of all the profound and well
> documented differences and disagreements, we owe poor Noam an awful lot.
> For he had put many important issues back on the table that were ruled
> out or obscured by the Bloomfieldians. And, above all, that we really
> don't need a devil, be it Noam or anybody else. For we can learn even
> from what we take to be his missteps, and then move on, unencumbered by
> self-righteousness. Hey guys, let's do science. Let's unearth
> interesting facts and look for systematic tho tentative but (hopefully)
> progressively better explanations.
>
> Have fun. Best,  TG
>
>