To the Editors:
George Lakoff's response [NYR, February 8] to John Searle's article on linguistics [NYR, June 29, 1972] is largely a criticism of views he attributes to me. In fact, there is little resemblance between my views and what he believes them to be. More important, Lakoff presents a very confused picture of the issues that have been under discussion in the work to which he refers and an entirely fanciful account of the interests and concerns of various individuals and groups working in the field. I cannot take the space to disentangle each confusion and correct every misrepresentation, but a few examples may suffice to illustrate the intellectual level of Lakoff's attempt to correct "nonspecialist articles about linguists."
Lakoff's first and major example is what he calls "the behaviorist vs. rationalist dispute." He states that I have "characterized structural linguistics as being fundamentally behavioristic" and "necessarily tied to behaviorism," and that my argument for rationalism "is based on the existence of linguistic universals." But structuralist theories have "incorporated claims for extremely complex and sophisticated linguistic universals" and these, Lakoff argues, are "more than complex enough" to refute behaviorism.
The relevant background facts are, briefly, as follows. I and others have suggested that it is useful to distinguish two approaches to the study of language acquisition, call them E and R, where E incorporates (inter alia) the variety of proposals within structural linguistics and behaviorist psychology that bear on the issue, and R differs in fundamental respects. We have also argued that E and R express certain leading ideas of empiricism and rationalism, respectively, and that the results of transformational generative grammar support R over any variety of E. I will not try to explain or defend these views here (see Alan Gewirth, NYR, February 22, for some illuminating comment). Details are given in publications that Searle cites. I am concerned here merely with the logic of the argument...
[Read more at <http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1973/jul/19/chomsky-replies/>.]
On 5/9/11 8:25 AM, Wojtek S wrote:
> [WS:] Chomsky's problem was that he did not understand cognitivism.
> That failure did his linguistics in, and undermined his politics as
> well. It is not about people having or not having analytical,
> critical thinking skills - but about using them selectively, as
> determined by a cognitive framing of an issue, which in turn is
> determined by socio-linguistic contexts.
>
> In other words, most people are fully capable of critical analysis of
> events as well as uncritical repetition of spoon-fed pablum. Which of
> these these two they will use in any particular situation depends
> mainly on the cognitive framing of that situation. In the US as well
> as the USSR, the cognitive framing of another country's politics
> called for a critical assessment, whereas cognitive framing of the
> domestic politics called for repetition of spoon-fed pablum. Both
> were rational responses within the respective cognitive frame.
>
> That is why I prefer Lakoff to Chomsky.
>
>
> Wojtek
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