<HTML> <HEAD> <TITLE>Re: J. O'Connor on Chomsky</TITLE> </HEAD> <BODY BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF"> <TT>Hello everyone,  There was an extensive exchange on Chomsky a few days ago, which caught my attention.  Išm working full time and donšt have the time to reply exactly on the day of the exchanges.  I hope this isnšt lost on a dying thread.    Chomskyšs position on an innate universal grammar has many areas worth examining.  In the sixties Chomsky clashed with those linguist like George Lakoff who wanted to explore "meaning" in language.  Chomsky and his fellow academic researchers use mathematical logic to explore grammar structure.  They eschew meaning.  So in some sense then Chomsky can say the "universal" structure leaves one free to use any meaning.  The challenge to Chomsky comes from brain research in neural networks.  There has been no evidence found of an innate grammar structure.  Instead the evidence piles up that the neural networks are blank slates, that is they learn externally sensed structure and meaning, and have no organization of the networks by means of an innate grammar rule.  This is the dominant view in neuroscience.  So </TT><TT>Re:FWD:Re:J.OšConnor on Chomsky, Thu, Nov 5,98  Uh, right.  The question was the connection between Chomsky's linguistics and politics.  The suggested answer was his (generally implicit) concept of a human nature that includes both semantics and ethics -- "meaning" in several senses.  --Regards, C. G. Estabrook Doyle Where C.G. Estabrook suggests Chomskyšs concept of semantics, and ethics as innate, the scientific evidence so-far proves otherwise.  In that sense Pomošs are correct in their assertions. Charles Brown Re:FWD:Re:J.OšConnor on Chomsky, Thu, Nov 6,98 Anthropologist Leslie A. White said you can't explain a variable by a constant. Human nature is a constant throughout the species, so the DIFFERENCES within the species are not explained by human nature. So, in Doug's example the general capacity for language that is constant (universal) does not explain the differences between different languages. But this doesn't mean there is no unique human nature. No other species has the natural capacity for language equivalent to the human capacity. Charles Brown Doyle It is theorized, and given the tests so far that Bonobos chimpanzees have the capacity to create language.  Restricted from the level that humans have reached, but indicating that there is very little difference between us and these sub species of chimpanzees.  See the book by Terrence W. Deacon, The Symbolic Species, Norton, 1997.  This is a connectionist account of language by the way. >>> Doug Henwood <dhenwood@panix.com> 11/05 2:08 PM >>> C. G. Estabrook wrote: >And over against the PoMo pooh-pooh of any talk of human nature Many Marxists have also objected to talk of "human nature." Does that make them PoMo's too? Besides, pointing to an innate capacity for language in humans doesn't tell you anything about what languages we actually come to speak, or what we say when we talk. Doug Doyle The problem with this comment from Doug is the lack of meaning to the question.  In this sense I would refer Doug to prototype theory which George Lakoff emplifies in linguistics, and to the advances in neural networks.  Michael Cohen on this list is an expert in neural networks with respect to the mathematics.  So he is a good person to query.  At any rate the old argument about nature and nurture revolves around the sense that culture seems external to the mind.  Without any way to fill in what consciousness is through reference to neural networks, the argument remains stalled at a sort of Cartesian duality, which canšt be useful in articulating social structures or socialist movements.  I think therefore that neural networks put upon solid ground what we must do with our culture to fully implement what social construction must mean. Charles Brown writes </TT>Re: <TT>Chomsky, Thu, Nov 5,98 Although Marx criticized bourgeois conceptions of human nature, especially the notion that capitalism is an expression of human nature, Marx was not an absolute social constructionist. I could copy right now quotes from Marx (as I have in the past as this question has come up time and again on these lists) that would have absolute social constructionists criticizing Marx as a human naturist. Since the human capacity for language is unique to and universal in the species, it is difficult to see how it is not at some level biological. English or Kwaikiutl grammar are not inborn, but the capacity to rapidly and completely learn SOME grammar is not learned, but inborn. Human nature is not like other animals natures because it is preserved and overcome by our culture. Human nature changes. Also, human culture has natural implications and effects, as demonstrated by ecological anthropology. This history of humans shaping their own natural aspects has not obliterated nature  and especially natural limits on human beings. Such a claim is philosophical idealism and Marx was a philosophical materialist. Charles Brown Doyle There are structures in the mind, certainly areas of the mind which are "modules" and these structures are innate, in the sense that the optic nerve is genetically determined.  But meaning is not innate.  Some minor "calls" of human beings like coughs, laughs etc, might possibly fit into a vague human nature, but even that requires that we understand how these issue from neural networks that control the mind in virtually every animal.  The word instinct must be re-evaluated thoroughly. Paul Henery Rosenberg Re:FWD:Re:J.OšConnor on Chomsky, Thu, Nov 5,98 > He's also suggested that fundamental ethical notions are part of human > biological endowment, similar to the basic semantic structures of > language. I always thought this was an obvious corrolary, which is why I was so surprised to hear not one, but numerous denials over the years.  I'm glad to hear he's expressed the view you and William cite, but I wish he'd done so more consistently. Doyle I think this is a good point to observe here from Paul.  In this sense I think of Chomsky as a moralist in the Enlightenment tradition.  Rather than for instance a Marxist in the sense that Marx felt moralizing was inadequate.  Although Chomsky is too subtle to break down so easily.  His faith in rules forces him to apply his radical views to an innate consciousness which in turn forces Chomsky to rely upon a concept of moral rightness and wrongess. Regards, Doyle Saylor </TT> </BODY> </HTML>