This document summarizes and compares the linguistic views of Noam Chomsky and Ludwig Wittgenstein. It argues that Chomsky's view that grammar exists innately in the human mind is reductionist, as it defines linguistics narrowly and fails to account for the full mystery of language. Wittgenstein saw that philosophical problems often arise from misunderstandings of language and aimed to clarify language use rather than make deductions about what must exist in the mind. While their views differ significantly, with Chomsky focusing on innate structure and Wittgenstein on actual language use, the document explores their relationship and concludes they have little direct connection.
(Continuum Studies in American Philosophy) Sami Pihlström - Pragmatist Metaphysics - An Essay On The Ethical Grounds of Ontology (2009, Bloomsbury Academic)
This document summarizes and compares the linguistic views of Noam Chomsky and Ludwig Wittgenstein. It argues that Chomsky's view that grammar exists innately in the human mind is reductionist, as it defines linguistics narrowly and fails to account for the full mystery of language. Wittgenstein saw that philosophical problems often arise from misunderstandings of language and aimed to clarify language use rather than make deductions about what must exist in the mind. While their views differ significantly, with Chomsky focusing on innate structure and Wittgenstein on actual language use, the document explores their relationship and concludes they have little direct connection.
This document summarizes and compares the linguistic views of Noam Chomsky and Ludwig Wittgenstein. It argues that Chomsky's view that grammar exists innately in the human mind is reductionist, as it defines linguistics narrowly and fails to account for the full mystery of language. Wittgenstein saw that philosophical problems often arise from misunderstandings of language and aimed to clarify language use rather than make deductions about what must exist in the mind. While their views differ significantly, with Chomsky focusing on innate structure and Wittgenstein on actual language use, the document explores their relationship and concludes they have little direct connection.
This document summarizes and compares the linguistic views of Noam Chomsky and Ludwig Wittgenstein. It argues that Chomsky's view that grammar exists innately in the human mind is reductionist, as it defines linguistics narrowly and fails to account for the full mystery of language. Wittgenstein saw that philosophical problems often arise from misunderstandings of language and aimed to clarify language use rather than make deductions about what must exist in the mind. While their views differ significantly, with Chomsky focusing on innate structure and Wittgenstein on actual language use, the document explores their relationship and concludes they have little direct connection.
Economic & Political Weekly EPW november 2, 2013 vol xlviii no 44
23 Chomsky and Wittgenstein A Short Reection Ramaswamy R Iyer This criticism explores the relationship between the Chomskyan and Wittgensteinian views of language. It argues that Chomskyan linguistics seems reductionist, as it denes linguistics narrowly, refusing that name to many different kinds of language study. A s the subject of this article is out- side my usual beat of water-related issues, let me begin on a personal note. In the late 1940s and early 1950s before I accidentally stumbled into central civil service I studied and later taught English language and literature at Elphinstone College, Mumbai. Among other things, I developed a deep interest in linguistics, phonology, philo sophy of grammar, and so on. In 1949, I was introduced to Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgensteins work by my friend (the late) K J Shah, a student and friend of Wittgensteins, who had just returned from Cambridge, and that philosophy became a lifelong interest. That was the route through which I came to Noam Chomsky. I started reading Chomsky in the 1970s, with great admiration for the rare origi- nality and distinction of mind that the writings revealed, but with nagging doubts regarding the theories put forward. Even- tually gradually, hesitantly I became a dissenter from his ideas. My long article on Chomskyan linguistics in a recent issue of the Journal of the Indian Council of Philosophical Research 1 was the nal ver- sion of an exploratory essay that I had started writing ve years earlier, and represents the closing stages of my grap- pling with Chomsky. Continued thinking after writing that article has taken me a bit further on the path of dissent. In the present article, after a brief statement of my difculty with Chomskyan linguis- tics, focused essentially on one central point, I proceed to explore the relation- ship, if any, between the Chomskyan and Wittgensteinian views of language. Human Faculty of Language Central to Chomskys linguistics is the hypothesis that there is a human faculty of language; that we are born with it; Ramaswamy R Iyer (ramaswamy.iyer@gmail. com) is with the Centre for Policy Research and is better known for his extensive writings on issues related to water. COMMENTARY november 2, 2013 vol xlviii no 44 EPW Economic & Political Weekly 24 that it is a biological feature. Chomsky thinks that this is a species-characteristic common to all humans, i e, that human beings come equipped with a minimal language-facilitating structure and basic principles (linguistic universals) in the mind. In this view, the lexical element has to come from outside. So Chomskyan linguistics isolates grammar from lan- guage and puts it in the mind, thus privi- leging grammar or structure, treating it as the core of language. Chomskyan linguistics is concerned only with language as a mental faculty, i e, the architecture or paradigm that is in the mind, which, at the individual level, is I language or IL, and at the species level, is Universal Grammar or UG. Languages in the world (English, Japanese, Hindi, etc), not being in the mind or leading to it, are of no theoreti- cal interest to the Chomskyan linguist; they are merely social phenomena. Ling- uistics, then, is not the study of lang- uages, but the study of the mental faculty of language. Grammar in the mind does not mean grammar in the ordinary sense. From a structural analysis of languages, the linguist arrives at certain rules or principles; generalises and simplies them; and reduces them to certain very basic principles, or linguistic univer- sals. It is grammar in this sense that Chomsky puts in the mind and identies with the human language faculty; it is this innate faculty that (according to the Chomskyans) enables a child to acquire its rst language rapidly. What are these linguistic universals? Two of them, for instance, are recursion and structure- dependence (of rules). We need not go into these in detail here. The theory is that given such an innate paradigm in the mind, we are able to acquire our rst language easily and rapidly. Mystery of Language I have serious difculties with the above. It is not the idea of an inborn human capacity for language that I am ques- tioning, or even the description of that capacity as a faculty, but what Chomsky puts into the mind. Chomskyan linguis- tics nds a great mystery in the allegedly rapid acquisition of the rst language by a child and seeks to explain it by saying that the necessary paradigm is there in the mind; it does not talk about the much greater mystery of language. The quintessence of language its central mystery is the creation of meaning through the use of signs (oral sounds, or hand gestures in the case of the deaf-mute). We can perhaps conceive of language without transformational rules or recursion or structure-dependence; but without meaning there is no language. Lexicon and structure together create meaning; we cannot split the two and put the latter in the mind and the former in the world, as Chomskyan linguistics does. Grammar in the mind, if it exists, does not explain language in the world. The language faculty, if there is one, has to be a faculty for the totality of language, i e, a faculty of meaning, not just structure. That is the core of my critique of Chomskyan linguistics. Incidentally, grammar in the mind was not a discovery or empirical nding; it was a deduction from the theory of a mental faculty of language. Surprised by the ease with which a child picks up its rst language, and by the fact that the child learns to avoid certain errors with- out actually committing them and being corrected, we think that there must be something in the mind to explain this. As that something in the mind cannot be specic lexicons or even specic gram mars (English, German, etc), we postulate a generalised paradigm; and we put that into the mind and call it the mental faculty of language. Holding that theory, we look for commonalities of a very general kind among the languages of the world, and come up with features such as recursion, structure-depend- ence, etc. In this desperate search for structural commonalities (linguistic univer sals), we overlook the one lin- guistic universal that stares us in the face, namely, meaning, i e, the use of words or gestures or other signs to make sense to ourselves or others. Once we see that grammar in the mind cannot ex- plain language in the world, the whole edice a mental faculty in a literal sense, an architecture or paradigm in the mind, universal grammar, I lan- guage, etc collapses. We are left with two things: the probability that we are born with some kind of a capacity for language, and the existence of actual natural languages. What that capacity consists in, and how it leads to actual languages in the world, are matters for fresh study. Wittgensteinian View Let me proceed now to the question of the relationship, if any, between the Wittgensteinian and Chomskyan views of language, which I have been thinking about for long. It is well known that Wittgenstein moved away from the pic- ture theory of language stated in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, on to the position of the Blue Book Brown Book period (the meaning of a word is the technique of its use), and on to the com- plexities of Philosophical Investigations. However, right through all these changes the therapeutic view of philosophy as a clarier and rescuer of the mind from bewitchment by language remained. We perplex ourselves with misleading meta- phors or analogies, tend to take gram- matical or tautological statements (i e, Survey August 27, 2011 Experimental Economics: A Survey by Sujoy Chakravarty, Daniel Friedman, Gautam Gupta, Neeraj Hatekar, Santanu Mitra, Shyam Sunder Over the past few decades, experimental methods have given economists access to new sources of data and enlarged the set of economic propositions that can be validated. This field has grown exponentially in the past few decades, but is still relatively new to the average Indian academic. The objective of this survey is to familiarise the Indian audience with some aspects of experimental economics. For copies write to: Circulation Manager, Economic and Political Weekly, 320-321, A to Z Industrial Estate, Ganpatrao Kadam Marg, Lower Parel, Mumbai 400 013. email: circulation@epw.in COMMENTARY Economic & Political Weekly EPW november 2, 2013 vol xlviii no 44 25 statements about language use) as state- ments about the world, and so on. This does not happen in the ordinary use of language; it happens when language becomes self-conscious, as it does in metaphysical discussions. The task of philosophy is to analyse such statements, clear up the muddle, and rescue the mind from bewilderment. As Wittgenstein said, it is the task of philosophy to shew the y out of the y-bottle. 2 The problem then dis - appe ars. However, the underlying un- certainties and anxieties may remain. None of this has anything to do with Chomskys linguistics. It is clear that Wittgenstein was essentially concerned with language-in-use, the language games that we play, the perplexities that we create for ourselves. Chomsky, on the other hand, is concerned with language as a human faculty and what it tells us about how the human mind is consti- tuted. On this understanding, there is neither contradiction nor complementa- rity between Wittgensteins philosophy and Chomskys linguistics; they are doing different things. Difference in Ideas Why then does the impression of a con- tradiction arise? The explanation is that Wittgenstein dismisses mental events as a constituent of meaning and denies the possibility of a private language, whereas in Chomskyan linguistics private language (language-in-the-mind or I language) is not only possible, but is in fact, the proper subject of linguistics. Is a private language possible? The answer depends on ones denition of language. If one thinks that communi- cation is central to language, i e, if one views language as something that hap- pens between people, as Wittgenstein did, then by denition there can be no private language. 3 On the other hand, if one thinks, as Chomsky does, that communication is not central to lan- guage (though language is indeed used for communication), and that language is the expression of thought, 4 then private language is not a contradiction in terms. 5
What is involved here is not so much a contradiction between Wittgenstein and Chomsky as a difference in the idea of language. To Wittgenstein, language meant English, German, etc, i e, the actual languages in use in the world (or the imaginary dialogues that he con- structed as examples), i e, E-languages in Chomskyan terminology. On the other hand, Chomsky is essentially interested in what he called I-language (internal, individual language, regarded as a mental object). He uses natural languages only as a means of studying one postulated mental faculty, namely, the language faculty, and through it the human mind. Consider the following quotations: (1) Chomsky (quoting with approval a traditional view): language is a mirror of mind; 6 and (2) Wittgenstein: Our language can be seen as an ancient city: a maze of little streets and squares, of old and new houses, and of houses with additions from various periods; and this surrounded by a multitude of new bor- oughs with straight regular streets and uniform houses. 7 And to imagine a lan- guage means to imagine a form of life (ibid: 19). These are clearly two differ- ent ways of seeing language. Conclusions Both Wittgenstein and Chomsky are apt to overstate their respective positions. Wittgenstein may be right in saying that mental explanations of meaning do not help, but he goes too far in his dismissal of mental images and the like, which could almost be interpreted (or misinterpreted) as denial. Chomsky may be right in postulating a human capacity or faculty for language, but goes too far in reifying it as I language, assigning centrality to it, and dismissing natural languages (English, Japanese, etc) as nebulous and not t subjects for theo- retical study. Speaking personally, I nd the Wittgen- steinian view of language richer and more illuminating; by contrast, Chomskyan linguistics seems reductionist, as it virtu- ally identies language with grammar, and denes linguistics narrowly, refus- ing that name to many different kinds of language study. With its focus on what (according to it) is in the mind, it ignores what is in the world, namely, the actual languages. It has no interest in the use of language and no concern with language as communication. As mentioned earlier, it has nothing to say about the central mystery of language, namely, using signs to create meaning. Chomsky does indeed recognise the creative use of language, but it forms no part of his linguistics, and he fails to see that language itself is a manifestation of human creativity. In fact, that creativity is denied or down- graded by treating language as some- thing we are born with a biological given. Chomsky will doubtless dismiss this statement as not coherent, but there it is, for whatever it is worth. I wish to conclude this article by reaf- rming my profound admiration and respect for Noam Chomsky. Adapting the words of Caliban 8 to benign pur- pose, may I say to him you (and a few others) taught me to think about lan- guage and my prot ont is, I have learnt how to argue. Notes 1 Language and Grammar: Some Reections on Chomskyan Linguistics, Journal of the Indian Council of Philsophical Research, Vol XXVIII, No 3, pp 55-88. 2 Philosophical Investigations, 309 available at: http:// topologicalmedialab. net/xinwei/ classes/ readings/Wittgenstein/pi_94-138_239-309. html 3 Of course, if I were the last surviving member of a language community, I may continue to think or keep a diary in that language; one may perhaps describe it as a private language; but with no one else to understand it, it is not really a language, at any rate not a living one, though scholars may study it as a dead language. 4 Noam Chomsky, Reections on Language (Fontana, California: Collins), 1976, pp 56-67. 5 However, there are some difculties here. Let us suppose that I think thoughts to myself in English or Tamil or Hindi. If I spoke those thoughts aloud, people will understand me. If those same thoughts were uttered by someone else to me, I would understand them. That is what makes those thoughts language. If I spoke my thoughts aloud and no one under- stood them, would one still call my utterance language? When I think to myself with no audi- ence to hear me, I may not be communicating to anyone, but I am using a public language privately; it is its public nature that makes it language. That is, of course, a Wittgensteinian view; Chomsky would disagree. Another hypo- thetical possibility is that I devise a language and keep it to myself; I may think thoughts in that language or keep a diary in it; but in what sense can one describe it as a language? That again is a Wittgensteinian question. 6 Chomsky, op cit, p 4. 7 Wittgenstein, op cit, p 18. 8 Caliban to Prospero: You Taught Me Language; and My Prot Ont Is I Know How to Curse, Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act 1, scene 2.
(Continuum Studies in American Philosophy) Sami Pihlström - Pragmatist Metaphysics - An Essay On The Ethical Grounds of Ontology (2009, Bloomsbury Academic)