Chomsky and His Critics

by Louise M. Antony (Editor), Norbert Hornstein (Editor)

In this compelling volume, ten distinguished thinkers -- William G. Lycan, Galen Strawson, Jeffrey Poland, Georges Rey, Frances Egan, Paul Horwich, Peter Ludlow, Paul Pietroski, Alison Gopnik, and Ruth Millikan -- address a variety of conceptual issues raised in Noam Chomsky's work.

Genres: Philosophy, Linguistics, Essays

354 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

Reviews

[Billie Pritchett · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a difficult book for me to read, so I readily admit I may not understand all of the arguments and Noam Chomsky's replies. Philosophers and others in the book present critical arguments to Chomsky regarding Chomsky's views on cognitive science and linguistics. The first critic William Lycan considers himself a Functionalist, meaning he thinks science can reduce "the mental to the physical or material" (p. 11). Chomsky thinks this attempt to 'reduce' the 'mental' to the 'physical' is incoherent or ill-formed, writing "I am not concerned with the question of 'reduction of mind to matter,' and do not even understand what the question is" (p. 257). Chomsky's concern is that the keywords used here, 'reduce'/'reduction,' 'mental,' and 'physical' are inappropriate for scientific inquiry, unless of course they are defined as part of some explanatory theory, but then it would just be a matter of interest for the scientist who would want to define the terms however he would like, in which case any significant attempt to 'reduce' the 'mental' to the 'physical' is meaningless. Chomsky writes that "there is no place for Lycan's problems about 'reduction of mind to matter.' Mental phenomena are properties of matter, [matter being:] a term with no definite positive content in advance of understanding" (p. 258).

For the other essays, I'll try to summarize even more briefly. The next essay by Jeffrey Poland outlines a position for philosophers and scientists called 'methodological physicalism,' which, Poland writes, is "a certain 'spirit' which involves the deference to science... and a commitment to a certain sort of program of unification" of scientific understanding (p. 38). Chomsky agrees that Poland's is a fine ideal for inquiry. Therefore, not much more can be said about it. Galen Strawson outlines a philosophical position in the third essay that is confusing, and I do not quite follow it or what the purpose of such an outline would be. And, if memory serves, Frances Egan's and Georges Rey's essays (which follow) address particularly the role of intentionality in studying the mind/brain, a term used to mean the way in which the mind seems to be about or directed at objects in the world (for example, the way a belief can be about a person). Chomsky does not think intentionality will prove to be a useful scientific concept. Ditto for Peter Ludlow's technical use of the word 'reference' in the next essay. Then, Paul Horwich proposes a theory of how the language faculty in the brain processes meaning; Chomsky is suspicious, but, I think, ultimately agnostic. So too with Paul Pietroski's essay on event semantics, Chomsky also mentioning that 'event' has no clear meaning in its use in the logic literature. In the ninth essay, Ruth Millikan proposes a view of public language, which she defends, and which Chomsky thinks is a fine way to construe language commonsensically but not a very helpful way to study it scientifically. Finally, Alison Gopnik proposes an alternative to the idea that human beings have an innate faculty for language, but her position ends up being just another form of a proposal for the innate faculty for language, which Chomsky does not think will be fruitful for lingustics, but which nevertheless would appear to have some impact on the way human beings form theories. Apologies for the brevity or any obscurity.

[Liam Porter · Rating 5 out of 5]

A stimulating collection of essays regarding the ideas of Noam Chomsky, along with Chomsky's individual responses, which clarifies the big picture of scientific linguistics and by its example the scope and limitations of scientific knowledge quite generally. The limits of understanding is a theme which is constantly probed across all the essays. A great deal of trivial conceptual confusion stands in the way of the view of quite necessary "truisms" (to use Chomsky's favourite phrase). I didn't feel as if any substantial contradiction of scientific linguistics was raised: only competing senses of value for competing kinds of knowledge.

Difficult to read in parts, but still accessible to the casual reader with some background in current issues in the field of syntax.