I’m Tired of Chomsky (Part III)

Kant combined Aristotle's dependence on the senses with a few Platonic prejudices.  In two previous posts I summarized Chomsky's theory of language (Part I) and an alternative theory (Part II). In this final section I wrap up. So … Besides having the experimental evidence on its side, the alternate theory is more in keeping with what we have learned from natural history and its evolutionary backbone. It seems impossibly naïve to rely on a single mutation to account for human uniqueness. Mutations occur all the time and are part of every generation. If a single mutation was all it took to produce Chomsky's Merge, we would be left wondering why the mutation had not happened millions of years sooner. The likely answer would be that in all probability the mutation had occurred, but the environment was not ripe for its selection. Chomsky does not like this answer because it gives power to externalities and he wants a complete, internal system. As the poet warns us, however: You can't always get what you want. It also seems naïve to claim an interest in the biology of language, and yet pay no attention to the abundant fossil and tool evidence of the evolution of the human lineage. It shows that for the past 1.8 million years the lineage has gotten smarter, more cooperative, and more fertile. Human infants are much more burdensome than chimpanzees and other ape infants. We have a much longer period of helplessness, and yet we reproduce more quickly than the great apes an...
Source: Babel's Dawn - Category: Medical Scientists Authors: Source Type: blogs