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Summary: Linguistics a la Uri Geller
Review: I cannot repeat here my review of this book published in The Times Higher Education Supplement (7 Apr 2000, p.23)First because it is too long (1500 words). Second because The Times owns the copyright. To cut 1500 words down to 50: the whole book rests on sleights of word (which I called "legerdemot"). Its absurdity becomes patent when the author argues that even such concepts as "carburetor" and "bureaucrat" must be innate (as a direct consequence of the "poverty of the stimulus"). Linguistics a la Uri Geller, cooked in Creationist sauce.
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Summary: Chomsky Plays Whack-a-mole
Review: Jerry Fodor says of this book that it's like the arcade game whack-a-mole: "Some philosopher sticks his head out of a hole and Chomsky whacks him." Those getting whacked include Searle, Dennett, and Putnam, and it's worth your time and pennies.
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Summary: Required reading for philosophers
Review: There are a lot of fantastic ideas in the book, despite the fact that it has the appearance of being a purely negative work (arguments against philosophers rather than a constructive piece of its own). In order to get to the original and interesting points, one has to overlook many familiar flaws in Chomsky's philosophical writing: (1) Because he mostly publishes collections of papers, such as this volume, his philosophical work is overly repetitive. Often one wonders whether this book would be half as long if the repetitions were just editted out. (2) One gets the sense that Chomsky is quite uncharitable to his opponents in reconstructing their arguments. For instance, he emphasizes psychological behaviorism as the key component to Quinean naturalism, overlooking many of the similiarities between his own view of naturalism and Quine's view (minus behaviorism). Chomsky makes an important point that an analytic/synthetic distinction can be made quite sharp and clear empirically on linguistic grounds (it follows from the language instinct). Quine himself would not object that a clear analytic/synthetic distinction could be made on empirical grounds, he makes one himself in one of his essays. (3) Chomsky often does not build systematic arguments against some of the points that his opponents make. Often, he would simply integrate a brief quotation from his opponents into his writing, and say something like "Fair enough, but this doesn't answer question X" and then he moves on. Often, a careful reader would want to reconstruct what Chomsky means, and would probably want to work out the very argument that Chomsky himself omits. In short, if one is able to read this book in a very different way from the manner in which Chomsky reads the works of his opponents, (i.e., charitably) and look past the repetitiveness, one will see that this book is full of insightful ideas. In fact, I think that it has the potential to redirect certain fields of research in philosophy. Scholars who are interested in issues of naturalism and normativity, not just in the cognitive sciences, but sciences in general, should read this work carefully. Needless to say, anyone interested in what the foundations for a naturalized philosophy of language could possibly be must read this book.
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Summary: Chomsky the philosopher
Review: This is Chomsky defending his conception of the mind and of language from philosophical views which are incompatible with it. The Kripke/Putnam view that meanings are largely determined by reference is countered by Chomsky's view that it is usually people, not words, that refer. One uses the word "London" to refer to different things in different conversational contexts, sometimes an abstract thing, sometimes something concrete, etc., and so there is no single coherent thing, London itself, which can serve as the referent of "London." One can make similar points about "water" and "gold," which supposedly makes trouble for Kripke and Putnam. Many other topics are treated in defending Chomsky's internalism and nativism, such as Quine on analyticity (for Chomsky, there are analytic entailments and they are largely innately based). In fact, there is really too much here to treat in any satisfactory way in a brief review, but suffice it to add that one really intriguing thing about this book is that Chomsky is going beyond mere syntax and also considering the probability of an innate basis for semantics. If I have one complaint, it is that Chomsky sometimes treats topics too quickly and sometimes even a bit enigmatically leaving more work for the reader to figure out what he means. But this fault, if I am right in calling it that, is rare, and the book is definitely worth reading.
Rating:
Summary: Chomsky the philosopher
Review: This is Chomsky defending his conception of the mind and of language from philosophical views which are incompatible with it. The Kripke/Putnam view that meanings are largely determined by reference is countered by Chomsky's view that it is usually people, not words, that refer. One uses the word "London" to refer to different things in different conversational contexts, sometimes an abstract thing, sometimes something concrete, etc., and so there is no single coherent thing, London itself, which can serve as the referent of "London." One can make similar points about "water" and "gold," which supposedly makes trouble for Kripke and Putnam. Many other topics are treated in defending Chomsky's internalism and nativism, such as Quine on analyticity (for Chomsky, there are analytic entailments and they are largely innately based). In fact, there is really too much here to treat in any satisfactory way in a brief review, but suffice it to add that one really intriguing thing about this book is that Chomsky is going beyond mere syntax and also considering the probability of an innate basis for semantics. If I have one complaint, it is that Chomsky sometimes treats topics too quickly and sometimes even a bit enigmatically leaving more work for the reader to figure out what he means. But this fault, if I am right in calling it that, is rare, and the book is definitely worth reading.
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