I will consider Chomsky's arguments and statements in this chapter.
This is the english version of L'innéisme psychologique (I): Chomsky et les capacités cognitives
1) Empiricism and rationalism:
Before formulating a solution to the problem, Chomsky begins by comparing two philosophical and scientific traditions, empiricism and rationalism.
a) Empiricism:
Chomsky, referring to the empirical, does an analysis of the psychological behaviourism. He highlights 3 typical characteristics of empiricism:
(E) The environment is the determining factor in the explanation of behaviors:
On a souvent abordé l’étude du développement de la personnalité, des schémas de comportement et des structures cognitives par des voies très différentes. On affirme, en général, que, dans ces domaines, l’environnement social est le facteur dominant."(P 19) (All quotations will be in french: I do not have the original with me, and I will not try to translate Chomsky in his own language! Sorry.)
(C): The characters of species are the product of a historic building:
« Les structures de l’esprit qui, dans leur développement, échappent au temps sont considérées comme arbitraires et contingentes ; il n’y aurait pas de « nature humaine » en dehors de ce qui se développe comme produit spécifiquement historique. » (P 19)
(G): The principles for cognition are general:
« Selon ce point de vue, typique de la spéculation empiriste, quelques principes généraux d’apprentissage, communs pour l’essentiel à tous les organismes (ou à quelques groupes importants d’entre eux), suffisent à rendre compte des structures cognitives acquises par les êtres humains. Ces structures comprennent les principes qui règlent et contrôlent le comportement humain. » (p 19)
b) Rationalism:
By rationalism, Chomsky means the psychological movement derived from the philosophical tradition: psychological inneism or psychological nativism.
Here follows the principles of innateness according to Chomsky:
« Ou pour le dire dans une formulation moins paradoxale, nos systèmes de croyance sont ceux que l’esprit, en tant que structure biologique, est destiné à connaître. Notre interprétation de l’expérience est déterminée par nos caractéristiques mentales. Nous atteignons la connaissance lorsque les « idées intérieures de l’esprit lui-même » et les structures qu’il crée s’adaptent à la nature des choses. » (p 16)
The proposition is a little vague. It can be paraphrased as following:
*for any individual i of a species E,
*then its belief system C is based on
*a faculty for the analysis and the collection of data (FD)
*and a faculty with the formal properties for development of beliefs (FC), that is biologically "grounded"
*so that i can make beliefs about an object O iff O can be percepted by FD and iff i has the necessary conditions for knowing O.
Therefore, individuals obtain complex and convergent belief systems not only with collected data but with a rational faculty.
c) Empiricism as an obstacle:
Chomsky does not hide his contempt for empiricism:
«L’audience dominante de l’empirisme dans la période moderne, en dehors des sciences naturelles, doit s’expliquer par des raisons sociologiques ou historiques. Cette position ne peut guère se recommander de preuves empiriques, ni de sa vraisemblance intrinsèque, ni de sa puissance explicative. Je ne crois pas qu’elle puisse attirer un chercheur capable de se défaire de la mythologie traditionnelle et d’aborder les problèmes avec un œil neuf. Elle est plutôt un obstacle, un barrage insurmontable à des recherches fructueuses, tout comme les dogmes religieux ont fait obstacle par le passé aux sciences naturelles. » pp 21-22
Empiricism as an obstacle to scientific research! It sounds like Bachelard. Chomsky argues that empiricism is a dogma, an opinion, an authority without justification, without rational arguments.
The problem now is to know 1) how he manages to demonstrate the superiority of rationalism; 2) how he thinks he can answer the question set out in the introduction (features a, b and c of the belief systems); 3) how answers to problems 1 and 2 are linked; 4), why language can make a decisive part in this debate.
2) Demonstrations of the validity of the hypothesis of innateness.
Chomsky does not demonstrate directly that the assumption of innateness is best to solution to the cognition problem. He uses three proofs (the ridiculous, the modus ponens tollendo, th epoverty of the stimulus) before finishing by a direct proof.
a) The "ridiculous argument":
Chomsky is very controversial, even a little aggressive, towards the empiricist tradition. Besides the passage quoted in 1-a, we can highlight other passages where he attacks empiricism, less with rational arguments than with rhetorical goals (playing with emotions):
« Bien que nombre d’idées directrices de la tradition rationaliste soient plausibles et que celle-ci présente sur des sujets cruciaux des affinités avec le point de vue des sciences naturelles, elle a souvent été rejetée ou méconnue dans les recherches sur le comportement et les processus cognitifs. C’est un fait curieux dans l’histoire intellectuelle de ces derniers siècles que le développement physique et le développement mental aient été abordés par des voies tout à fait différentes. Personne ne prendrait au sérieux une proposition qui dirait que l’organisme humain apprend à travers l’expérience à avoir des bras plutôt que des ailes, ou que la structure de base d’organes particuliers est le résultat d’expériences fortuites. On considère plutôt comme allant de soi que la structure physique de l’organisme est déterminée génétiquement, même si, bien évidemment, la variation de coefficients comme la taille, la vitesse de développement, etc., dépend partiellement de facteurs externes. » p 18
The "ridiculous argument" is against two characteristics of empiricism: (E) or the statement that the environment is the determining factor, and (C) or the statement that cognitive phenomena are historically built.
The comparison between natural science and cognitive science is very striking. But it is based on a strange premise: all the natural sciences are rationalists and are not indebted to the empirical tradition. I am very suprised to learn that physics is more indebted to the rationalist approach of Descartes than to Newton empiricism.
b) The modus ponens tollendo:
This argument has a little more formal rigor: either a or b, not b, thus a (modus ponens tollendo). This argument is not made explicitly, but we can rebuild it from the constant rejection of the empiricist tradition by Chomsky: either rationalism or empiricism, empiricism is false, then we must admit the truth of rationalism.
This argument is not very convincing: it is possible that both theories are all false.
c) The argument of the poverty of stimulus:
This argument has several forms with Chomsky. Here are two versions:
1) Short version:
« Une langue humaine est un système remarquablement complexe. Pour un être qui n’y serait pas spécifiquement destiné, ce serait un exploit intellectuel remarquable que d’arriver à connaître une langue humaine. Or un enfant normal acquiert cette connaissance au terme d’une mise en contact relativement brève et sans apprentissage particulier. » p 12
2) Long version:
«Ainsi, il est clair que la langue acquise par chaque individu est une construction riche et complexe qui, malheureusement, est loin d’être déterminée par les faits fragmentaires dont nous disposons. C’est pourquoi les recherches scientifiques sur la nature du langage sont si difficiles et obtiennent des résultats si limités. La pensée consciente ne possède aucune connaissance préalable (ou, pour rappeler Aristote, elle ne possède qu’une connaissance préalable insuffisamment développée). Elle est ainsi mise en échec par le caractère limité des faits dont elle dispose et confrontée à un bien trop grand nombre de théories explicatives possibles, qui sont contradictoires entre elles tout en étant adéquates aux données. (…) Et pourtant, les individus d’une communauté linguistique parlent, pour l’essentiel, une même langue. Ce fait ne peut s’expliquer que par l’hypothèse selon laquelle ces individus utilisent des principes très restrictifs qui fondent la construction de la grammaire. De plus, il est bien clair que l’homme n’est pas fait pour apprendre une langue plutôt qu’une autre ; le système des principes est donc nécessairement une propriété de l’espèce. Et des contraintes fortes doivent nécessairement opérer pour restreindre la diversité des langues. Il est naturel que dans la vie quotidienne on ne soit attentif qu’aux différences entre les gens et que l’on néglige les régularités structurelles. Mais lorsqu’on cherche à comprendre quelle sorte d’organisme est réellement l’être humain, d’autres exigences s’imposent. » pp 20-21
I rebuild the argument as follow:
Premises:
(A) There are linguistic universals.
(B) Children / individuals have limited experience of applications of these universals, insufficient to encounter them all and to know the correct application.
(C) Children / individuals use the same universals and apply them correctly.
Conclusion:
(D) So the experience is not sufficient to explain the learning of a language, we must be assumed that there is an innate ability for knowing the language universals.
This argument will provide some answers to problems 2, 3 and 4 set out at the end of Part 1.
* (2) features a, b and c: the premise necessarily lead to the formation of a beliefs system convergent (a), correct (b) and complex (c).
* (3) the superiority of rationalism: because of premises (A) and (B), empiricism is insufficient. Using the modus ponens tollendo, it leads to the superiority of rationalism.
* (4) the role of linguistics: for Chomsky, learning a language is a prime example of the superiority of a rationalist. He suggests to extend the rationalist approach in the language to all the cognitive sciences.
Can we accept the argument of poverty of the stimulus? Formally, it is indisputably correct. The only way to discuss it is to analyze the premises. What seems the most questionable is the assertion that children and individuals have only partial access to all universals. What Chomsky means by "limited experience", "unorganized"? Is he saying that we do not find in the entire corpus available (written or oral) certain applications of universals? Is he saying that the experiences of some linguistic universals are impossible and can therefore be find only in the innate biological structures of individuals? There is no convincing demonstration of the inability of the experience of some universals or certain applications of universals in Chomsky. And I really do not see how we could seek to test the inability of the experience of linguistic universals in individuals.
3) from the building of beliefs to a learning theory:
The direct proof of the validity of the hypothesis of innateness is in an experiment of thought with an imaginary researcher searching for a learning theory. By pretending to seek only the characteristics of this theory, he tries to convince its readers that the assumption of innateness is the only way to meet the criteria set by learning theory and implicitly responding to the problem we exposed initially.
a) Experience of thought 1: The researcher and his quest.
He describes the framework of an experience of thought as follow:
-Let be a researcher who seeks a theory of learning TA.
-He gives himself an organism O and a cognitive domain D.
-He tries to find a theory of learning of O in D: TA (O, D).
-For example, he is looking for a theory of language learning for men (H): TA (H, L).
b) Experience of thought 2: changes in the variables.
Chomsky proceeded by changing variables on TA (O, D).
-Is there a TA (O, D) which is valid, whatever O and whatever D?
«Prenons les êtres humains H comme O et les rats R comme O’ ; le langage L comme D et le parcours de labyrinthe P comme D’. S’il y avait une réponse même très approximative de la question 1, on s’attendrait à ce que les êtres humains fassent preuve, dans le parcours de labyrinthes, tout autant que dans le langage, d’une capacité d’apprentissage supérieure à celle des rats. (…) En réalité, il semble que les « rats blancs sont même capables de battre des étudiants dans ce type d’apprentissage » -l’apprentissage des labyrinthes. » pp 28-29.
It suggests that 1) in the same O, learning depends on D; 2) in different O, the same D is based on different abilities.
-Is there a TA (O, D) which is valid for a single O, but for all D? To say otherwise, Chomsky asks if all learning capacities among all individuals of one O is the application of general principles. Chomsky's response is rather disappointing: it is an idea dogmatic and there is no reason to expect the existence of these abilities.
-Is there a TA (O, D) is valid, if we keep the same O and if we collect D ', D'', D'''..., all D which have common characteristics?
«Il est raisonnable de supposer qu’il existe pour D, dans les limites de la capacité cognitive de O, un ensemble de schèmes qui définit la classe des structures cognitives susceptibles d’être acquises. » (p 32). Chomsky thinks it is the most acceptable solution. The researcher assumes that for a given O, there are various D to build complex, convergent and correct systems, that can be known through a TA (O, D).
c) Experience of thought 3: learning a language:
-The researcher asks: what is TA, if O is human being (H) and if D is the language (L). TA (H, L)?
Let be a child learning to build questions from A, in English:
A: The man is tall-Is the man tall?
-The researcher may interpret this as follows: « L’enfant traite la phrase déclarative en commençant par le premier mot (i.e. de gauche à droite) et en allant jusqu’à ce qu’il rencontre la première occurrence du mot « is » (…) ; il antépose alors cette occurrence de « is » pour produire la question correspondante (…) » p 42. This hypothesis involves only an analysis of words and the property "first" applied to a sequence of words.
But this assumption is wrong:
B: The man who is tall is in the room-Is the man who tall is in the room?
And, according to Chomsky, children do make this mistake and formulate correctly:
C: The man who is tall is in the room-Is the man who is tall in the room?
It compells the researcher to build another hypothesis: «L’enfant analyse la phrase déclarative en syntagmes abstraits ; ensuite il repère la première occurrence de « is » (etc.) qui suit le premier syntagme nominal ; puis il antépose cette occurrence de « is » pour former la question correspondante. » (p 43). Unlike the first hypothesis that is explaining the use of a language by child, with a "rule independent of the structure", the second case involves a" rule dependent of the structure", because the child analyse words and syntagms or structural elements.
The rule-dependent structure can not be drawn from the experience, according to Chomsky. It is innate. TA (H, L) is the theory that explains 1) all the cognitive structures that are not learned, that determine what is possible or not possible linguistically (Universal Grammar which defines the principles and the properties of languages) and 2) the mechanisms for implementing these principles.
d) The problems:
-What conclusions can be drawn from the argument? The formulation of TA (H, L) permits 1) a description of what may be a resolution of the problem of learning theories; 2) to hold a thesis which aims to replace the empiricist dogma.
-First problem. It can be summarized by the formula taken from Cid: "To fight without risk is defeating without glory. "I mean that the presentation of empiricism made by Chomsky is so low, if not grotesque, that we cannot help thinking that he triumphs a too easily. His treatment of language experiences of individuals in an environment is not rigorous. It relies more on a personal intuition than on actual work. One can not help but think that his argument neglects the role of environment in learning and the use of language mechanisms. It is possible that the behaviourism is a psychological interpretation which is unsatisfactory, but you can not imply that the environment is not decisive in the learning and use of linguistic principles because of the fact that the behaviourism fails to interpret adequately the role of environment.
-Second-problem. What means "innate"? It may mean that the principles and mechanisms are genetically encoded. Chomsky made a comparison between the ability to see which would be completely genetically encoded, and the ability to have a language. I am not sure that this comparison is appropriated. Indeed, the visual capacity is partially encoded, but not completely: interaction with the environment has a role to play. The boundary between what is encoded and what results from the interaction with the environment, in terms of development, is not clearly delineated. Why should this boundary be more known in linguistics capacity?
Conclusion:
The assumption of innateness is very interesting because it helps to focus on a real problem: the existence of converging, complex and pragmatically correct belief systems, though experiences may be different and limited . But this "hard nativism" is unsatisfactory.
Psychological Nativism (Chomsky) by Mikolka est mis à disposition selon les termes de la licence Creative Commons Paternité-Pas d'Utilisation Commerciale-Pas de Modification 2.0 France.
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