METAPHILOSOPHY

Vol. 4, No. 3, July 1973

MINDS AND LEARNING: THE CHOMSKIAN REVOLUTION*

HARRY M. BRACKEN
It is by now a common-place that linguistics has been revolutionized by the work of Noam Chomsky. For those who have doubts, a glance at the work of the counter-revolutionaries should settle matters. Chomskys work in linguistics is under heavy and constant attack-but both the issues and the entire theoretical framework of the discussions would be unthinkable without his contributions. I think that a case could be made that those who are now his most vocal opponents, the proponents of generative semantics, are anti-chomsky for reasons rooted in political and philosophical disagreement. This possibility should not surprise us. Since language plays a central role in human activities, a revolution in linguistics has repercussions throughout the Republic of Letters. Rather than examining the revolution strictly within linguistics, I shall examine the Copernican style revolution Chomsky proposes for our thinking about minds as well as some of the implications for other disciplines and for social policy. My remarks deal with the general question under three headings : first, the anti-behaviorist, and second, the empiricistrationalist themes in Chornskys thought. In each theme, a theoretical dimension in linguistics is associated with a second dimension related to matters of social policy. Third, a sceptical crisis theme-less obviously rooted in linguistics, but more frightening in its implications. It would be unfair to Chomsky as well as to other critics to suggest that his ideas, and his alone have had social consequences. But he deserves to be singled out because he is a masterful conceptual analyst and because his social comments are related, albeit in varying degrees, to his theoretical work in linguistics. The first and most obvious effect Chomskys work is already having derives less from his positive contributions to linguistics than from his devastating critique of the social sciences. In brief,
*A revised version of a paper delivered at the LSAs Linguistic Institute 71,SUNYBuffalo, July 13, 1971. Some of the research used in its preparation was supported by a grant from the Canada Council. For an excellent general introduction to Chomskys major work, see John Lyons, Chomsky, in the Fontana Modern Masters Series (1970).

229

230

HARRY M. BRACKEN

Chomskys attack on behaviorism has threatened the social scientists. That in turn has begun to affect the university institutionalization of the social sciences-and hence, in a perfectly direct way, university educational policy as well as practice. The attack on behaviorism, first formulated in the famous 1959 review of Skinners Verbal Behavior, constitutes an attack on the extension of psychological learning theory to linguistic behavior. In an introduction to a 1967 reprinting of the review Chomsky writes : if the conclusions I attempted to substantiate in the review are correct, as I believe they are, then Skinners work can be regarded as, in effect, a reductio ad absurdurn of behaviorist assumptions . . . I do not . . . see any way in which his proposals can be substantially improved within the general framework of behaviorist or neo-behaviorist, or, more generally, empiricist ideas that has dominated much of modern linguistics, psychology, and philosophy. The conclusion that I hoped to establish in the review, by discussing these speculations in their most explicit and detailed form, was that the general point of view is largely mythology, and that its widespread acceptance is not the result of empirical support, persuasive reasoning, or the absence of a plausible alternative. In the review proper, Chomsky attacks Skinner for his extended use of the nomenclature of animal experimenta1 research, i.e., stimulus, response, reinforcement, etc. While these terms may have some sense in precisely defined contexts, their analogic extrapolation to linguistic behavior leaves the key concepts of Skinners account of verbal behavior vacuous. Thus while a unit of behavior within a given experiment may be defined as a recorded peck or bar-press, it is not so simple in the case of language. The unit of verbal behavior-the verbal operant-is defined as a class of responses of identifiable form functionally related to one or more controlling variables. No method is suggested for determining in a particular instance what are the controlling variables, how many such units have occurred, or where their boundaries are in the total response. Nor is any attempt made to specify how much or what kind of similarity in form or control is required for two physical events to be con2The original review appeared in Language. My page references are to the text that appears in Readings in the Psychology of Language, ed.. Jakobvits, L. A. and Miron, M. S . (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1967), p. 142.

MINDS AND LEARNING : THE CHOMSKIAN REVOLUTION

231

sidered instances of the same operant. In short, no answers are suggested for the most elementary questions that must be asked of anyone proposing a method for description of behavior. The review is by now a classic, and as Kenneth MacCorquodale remarked in his 1970 counter-attack, no behaviorist escaped untouched. Yet MacCorquodales defense of Skinner fails to deal with the fundamental issue just cited. A real defense of the legitimacy of the application of the behaviorist framework to language ought to take language, and the unit of verbal behavior seriously. It ought to show that the framework has not merely been extended to linguistic behavior by the magic of analogic extrapolation. Instead, MacCorquodale writes : The hypothesis of VerbaE Behavior is simply that the facts of verbal behavior are in the domain of the facts from which the system has been constructed. Skinners stratagem is to find plausible referents in the speech episode for the laws and terms in his explanatory system : stimulus, response, reinforcement, and motivation. The relevance of these laws and their component variables for the verbal events is hypothesized only; it is not dogmatically ~ l a i m e d . ~ One saves behaviorism by treating it as an hypothesis. And it may, writes MacCorquodale, prove to be wrong, but our antecedent confidence in its correctness is a t least enhanced by the fact that the basic laws which it invokes have become very sophisticated and impressively well researched. They have also been shown to be surprisingly free of species restriction . . . 6 He concludes that we do not yet know if verbal behavior is within the domain of Skinners system and whether the technical terms stimulus, response, reinforcement are literally applicable to verbal behavior and correctly parse it into its functional parts of speech (p. 86). The non-psychologist bystander can be forgiven, I hope, for wondering what could conceivably count against MacCorquodales definition of hypothesis. If the key terms are vacuous, if the predictive power is hardly awe-inspiring, and if the whole thing is merely an hypothesis which is not to be rejected because, given infinite time, it may be confirmed:lIbid., p. 150. 4On Chomskys review of Skinners Verbal Behavior, Journal of the Experimental Anafysis of Behavior, X I 1 1 (19701, 83-99, C f . p. 83. SIbid., 8 5 . ~LOC. cit. The inner quote is from Skinner.

232

HARRY M. BRACKEN

then nothing but the boredom of psychologists is likely to effect a change. The metaphysical theory hiding behind the behaviorist model is as old as Greek atomism. As a theory of man, of learning, of cognition, and of meaning, it has been around a long while. No more than in the case of the Greeks is todays version scientific. The Greek atomist took his theory to be a way of looking at things in order to help preserve one from the fears induced by the parasitic priests of the society. The tables seem now to have been turned. I shall return to that point in a moment. Thus far I have discussed Chomskys attack on behaviorism primarily as it bears on psychology. However, many people in the social sciences outside of psychology have been profoundly shaken in their convictions. The assertion of the status of genuine science made by political scientists, sociologists, historians, etc., on behalf of their respective fields, rests on the theoretical core of each discipline. But in fact the only widely accepted contender at the level of theory has been behavioristic psychology. Many of those who work in the social sciences have taken over the theoretical core from the real scientists, the learning theorists, largely on faith. This faith is now in doubt. In North America one now hears the phrase behavioral science less frequently, and I notice that some of my colleagues who once spoke of being in political science are now in politics. I think there is no question but that the Chomskian revolution has been one occasion for these reconsiderations. First, by its attack at the theoretical level-second, by interconnection with issues involving the Vietnam War. Chomsky has not only sought to provide a theoretical challenge to behaviorist theory applied to language acquisition. He has challenged the role of social scientists in the formulating
TChomsky writes : MacCorquodale assumes that I was attempting to disprove Skinners theses, and he points out that I present no data to disprove them. But my point, rather, was to demonstrate that when Skinners assertions are taken literally, they are false on the face of it (MacCorquodale discusses none of these examples accurately) or else quite vacuous (e.g., when we say that the response Mozart is under the control of a subtle stimulus, and that many of his false statements can be converted into uninteresting truths by employing such terms as reinforce with the full imprecision of like, want, enjoy, etc. (with a loss of accuracy in transition, of course, since a rich and detailed terminology is replaced by a few terms that are divorced entirely from the setting in which they have some precision). Failing to understand this, MacCorquodale defends Skinner by showing that quite often it is possible to give a vacuous interpretation to his pronouncements, exactly my point. The article is useful, once errors are eliminated, in revealing the bankruptcy of the operant conditioning approach to the study of verbal behavior. In Psychology and Ideologv, Cognition, I (1972), pp. 11-46. See also hI Review of Books, Dec. 30, 1971, pp. 18 f.

MINDS AND LEARNING: THE CHOMSKXAN REVOLUTION

233

and executing of military policies generally, but particularly American policy i n South East Asia. From policy planning to counter-insurgency warfare, from student disorders to ghetto discontent-social scientists have analysed the problems and proffered solutions. If War Crimes trials were held, and the standards of Niirnberg employed, it is clear that prima facie cases could be established against many distinguished academics at Americas (and not only Americas) universities. These scholars moved into positions of power on the basis of their claims to expertise. But, as Chomsky has noted, If there is a body of theory, well-tested, and verified, that applies to the conduct of foreign affairs or the resolution of domestic or international conflict, its existence has been kept a well-guarded secret. Ancient Greek atomism was intended to be a buckler against the power of the priests. Today, the inheritors of most of the atomistic ideas have used them to forge a new and powerful ideology. One of its greatest advantages comes from its claims to being a genuine and objective science. This has made it extraordinarily difficult to challenge either its goals or methods, because the critic is automatically branded as unscientific, subjective, or ideologicallymotivated. Chomsky has discussed issues of this sort in his non-linguistic work, for example in American Power and the New Mandarins and At War with Asia. But the combination of the technical attack on the theoretical core of social science, and the ideological analysis of the uses of expertise in the construction of Americas power base has already contributed to a number of changes beyond those already mentioned. First, academics have become more sensitive to the question of the politicization of their institutions. Second, what Conor Cruise OBrien9 has called the counterrevolutionary subordination of scholarship has become increasingly evident. Even, as Chomsky has argued, in a matter as relatively remote from cold-war problems as the Spanish Civil War. Third, professionalism has been challenged. There are, of course, differences among the several humanities and social scietlces as academic disciplines. But they are not differences marked off by those which possess a rich explanatory theory versus those which do not. A reduced professionalism is evident in such institutional
SAmerican Power and the N e w Mandarins (New York : Pantheon, 19691, pp. 342-3. gconor Cruise OBrien, Politics and the Morality of Scholarship, in The Morality of Scholarship, ed. Max Black (Ithaca, N.Y. : Cornell University Press, 1967).

234 HARRY M. BRACKEN forms as the growth of interdisciplinary courses and even departments, and the increased willingness (relatively !) to consider new ideas and new methods in the social sciences. Fourth, even philosophers appear to be less complacent about the antiseptic nature of their professional inquiries. The walls we erected in order to have something left to say-by really having nothing to say-are being dismembered both from within and without philosophy. These mark profound changes in our institutions, in our ways of looking at the conceptual frameworks we employ, and in our understanding of ourselves and of our world. While I am not claiming that Chomsky has been the only causal agent, he has played a major role in the continuing debates both at the technical and the more traditionally political levels. I described Chomskys attack on behaviorism as a component, an element in the elaboration of his account of linguistics. But it should again be noted that the attack is largely independent of his own doctrines, e.g., of transformational grammar. Obviously establishing the gross inadequacies of the S-R model of language acquisition does not of itself establish the soundness of Chomskys own positive account. I should add that philosophers have been seriously disturbed by Chomskys attacks on behaviorism. The thesis that the meaning of a word is its reference, that ostensive definition is the ultimate philosophical weapon, that how we learn a concept is the final court of appeal in the process of clarification-these views have been closely tied to the S-R account of language learning. So closely tied that one often hears the S-R account defended by an appeal to referential meaning, and vice versa. But the attack on behaviorism, however fruitful it may be, is only one element. I have briefly discussed that attack and suggested that it can usefully be understood as operating first, in terms of methodology in learning theory; second, as part of a broad assault on the political role of the social sciences and the cult of the expert. A second area discussed by Chomsky-and mentioned as early as the review of Skinner, is the rationalism /empiricism theme; a theme which is more rooted in Chomskys positive doctrines. It too can be seen under two headings: first, as an extension of technical methodological questions; and second, as affecting a range of philosophical, educational, political, and moral issues. In Cartesian Linguistics and in Language and
OCf. Chomskys comments in the review of Skinner, op. cit.,
p. 149.

MINDS AND LEARNING : THE CHOMSKIAN REVOLUTION

235

Mind, Chomsky argued, I think correctly, that our commitment to empiricism was getting in the way of our understanding of reality. We have spent untold millions of dollars and countless man-hours attempting to provide a model of mans linguistic competence without having recourse to the mind. Chomsky suggested, in the face of the apparent deadend the behaviorists had reached, and the obviously primitive state of neurophysiology, that we might give serious consideration to a fresh examination of the seventeenth-century philosophers of the Cartesian tradition. And he meant to take mind seriously; to take Descartes insights seriously, e.g., human communications systems do not appear to be extensions of animal systems. Chomsky put it this way in his 1969 John Locke Lectures at Oxford :
In short, an animal can operate on the principle of the speedometer-producing a potentially infinite, in fact in principle continuous, set of signals as output in response to a continuous range of stimuli--[whereas human language is a] system that is available for the free expression of thought precisely because it is not under direct stimulus control, and does not signal points on non-linguistic dimensions. . . . Every animal communication system that is known operates on one of two principles: either the principle of the speedometer . . or else a principle of strict finiteness; that is, the system consists of a finite number of signals, each produced under a fixed range of stimulus conditions. . . . A person who knows a language has mastered a set of rules and principles that determine an infinite, discrete set of sentences . . . [and] can instantaneously interpret an indefinitely large range of utterances, with no feeling of unfamiliarity or strangeness-and, of course, no possibility of introspecting into the processes by which the interpretation of these utterances, or the free and creative use of language takes place. If this is correct, then it is quite pointless to speculate about the evolution of human language from animal communication systems. . . .12 Chomsky has expanded upon Descartes position that mans speech reflects a uniquely creative capacity which cannot be explained in terms of the mechanica1 model he considered satisfactory for dealing with bodies. The Cartesians were aware of
llCartesian Linguistics (New York: Harper and Row, 1966) and Language and Mind (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1968). 12Times Literary Supplement, May 15, 1969, pp. 523-5.

MPH

236

HARRY M. BRACKEN

the methodological options provided by the empiricists of the day-and not very different from those still being employed. In the seventeenth century, such options having been fruitless for two millennia, were deemed unpromising. Besides, they were understood to run counter to our daily conscious experience, our regular use of language, and our observations of children, In abstracto, one would expect that these common features of experience could hardly be discounted. However, by definition empiricism pays close heed to human experience. If it eschews the domain of the mental, if it articulates theories which make it impossible to talk about minds, so much the worse for minds. David Hume seems to have felt the theory was grossly inadequate on mind, but also that it would take too much trouble to come up with another one. Cartesians themselves were divided roughly into two groups. Malebranchians accepted the uniqueness of human minds but saw no clues from which a genuinely explanatory theory could be elaborated. One could tally occurrences, one could study languages, one could describe what one saw and heard. But Malebranche was not confused into thinking that such studies constituted a theory. The Port Royal wing did try to find in grammar the elements of a comprehensive theory of mind. A generative grammer would make known mind as geometry did body. But, Chomsky suggests, because the powerful mathematical ideas of recursion theory were unavailable, the Port Royal dream, however suggestive, remained unfulfilled; and the tradition, while alive down through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, was never again a major f o r ~ e . ~ As a result of his own early work in syntax, Chomsky came to believe that the sorts of grammatical rules which appeared to be necessarily present in order to make possible our use of language, simply could not be accounted for if one accepted the blank tablet picture of mind (with or without vacuous appeals to linguistic dispositions) that accompanies behaviorism and empiricism. Hence Chomskys innateness hypothesis : what is innate is a set of rules of universal grammar because, it seems that knowledge of a language-a grammar-can be acquired only by an organism that is preset with a severe restriction on the form of grammar. This innate restriction is a precondition, in the Kantian sense, for linguistic experience,
13See my Chomskys Variations on a Theme by Descartes, Journal of the History VIII (1970), pp. 181-192, and Chomskys Language and Mind, Dialogue J X (1970), pp. 236-247.
of Philosophy,

MINDS AND LEARNING

: THE CHOMSKIAN REVOLUTION

237

and it appears to be the critical factor in determining the course and result of language 1earni11g.l~

If one takes transformational generative grammar to be a t least a partial representation of mans linguistic competence, if one asks about the entity in which ones model might be instantiated, the rationalist model of man provides a more compatible foundation than the empiricist one. After all, innate ideas have a long and respected tradition within so-called Western philosophy. Briefly and crudely, philosophers usually opted for innateness when dealing with ideas or truths which it seemed unreasonable to suppose had been derived from experience. Two and two are four is not about marks on the blackboard, for such marks can be changed or erased. The truth of eternal truths cannot rest upon things in the sense-world of flux. For centuries other philosophers sought to avoid incorporating anything into the mind which could not be philosophically interpreted as ultimately abstracted from the data of our senses. On the Thomist model, for example, the mind had no innate ideasit merely had an innate capacity to immaterialize material things. While the immaterializer hypothesis may strike us as more intellectually honest than the recommendations of Locke or Hume, the Cartesians had no qualms about innate ideas. Admittedly the sorts of universal constraints on grammars which Chomsky might treat as reflecting innate structures do not seem formally to resemble Cartesian innate principles. But the Cartesians aIso understood the logic of their innateness hypothesis to require a sharp rejection of abstractionism as a doctrine of concept acquisition. That is, their arguments for innateness are bound up with those against seventeenth-century versions of S-R or other referential empiricist theories of meaning. Current discussions of innateness sometimes ignore this innateness /anti-abstractionism connection both for the Cartesians and for Chomsky. Some Cartesians tried via grammar to give content to their mind doctrine. Grammar would reveal the essence of mind as geometry reveals the essence of body. Malebranche did not approve of the efforts to provide a model of mind precisely because he did not consider that the Cartesians who made that attempt had been successful in giving content to their talk about
*Language and Mind, p. 78. For one of the few useful criticisms of Chomskys innateness hypothesis, see Roy Edgley, Innate Ideas, in Knowledge and Necessity, ed. G . Vesey, Royal Institute of Philosophy Lectures, Vol. 111, 1968/69.

238 HARRY M. BRACKEN mental dispositions. Chomsky may not have given us the correct model for our innate linguistic capacity, and his efforts to provide, in the tradition of Port Royal, a formal characterization of linguistic universals may fail, but it is noteworthy that the mere effort proves to be such an offense. The assumption that the bird-nest building ability of certain birds is innate does not upset us, although how this is transmitted genetically or recorded neurally remains largely mysterious. Perhaps the anxiety producing issue is the suggestion that mans communication system reflects a device which is not merely more complex, but is qualitatively different from anything else in the animal kingdom, i.e., an emergent entity. Or to put the point in explanatory terms, an explanation of this device will require the introduction of features which are not definitionally reducible to the basic terms used to describe our world. That does not commit one to Cartesian substances. But it is the very stuff of which a mind/body category distinction can be made. This may seem reasonable enough, but it does run counter to views regarded seriously by our culture. When empiricist I rationalist debates occur outside the context of academic philosophy, as they often have in the past, one can expect that the nub of the argument will be conflicting images of man. If we think of the debate between Locke and the defenders of innate ideas as simply a fight over the nature of learning in children, we will miss the point. Of course part of the issue hinges on understanding whether, in acquiring a language, a child can be said to learn it, or be taught it. But the empiricist/ rationalist debates of the seventeenth century and of today are debates between different value systems or ideologies. Hence the heat which characterizes these discussions. Is a human infinitely conditionable? Is a human indefinitely manipulatable? It may seem that we are dealing with a straightforward factual issue, although we are not. Nor are we dealing with the sort of linguistic confusion a philosopher can dispell. First, we should remember that variations of this debate are as old as recorded history. Second, the philosophers tools are suspect. The fact /value distinction, often beloved by both philosophers and social scientists as a justification for their so-called value-free inquiries, was used by Hume and used by him successfully, as an ideological weapon. I suggest that philosophers should make an effort to understand just how value laden their purportedly neutral methods really are. A point Miss Anscombe made more than a decade ago in that extra-

239 ordinary paper : Is Oxford Moral Philosophy Corrupting the Youth? I5 Historically, the evidence suggests that both rationalists and empiricists have been among our culture heroes as well as villains; advocates of light as well as of darkness. That is not the immediate issue. It does not take much theory to operate on the principle that the best way to eliminate a certain idea is to kill the people who hold it. The assumption, glossed as a scientific claim, that behavior is motivated only by deprivation and external reward finds eager acceptance within an ideology based on material rewards-a point not lost on another of Chomskys targets--Harvard psychologist Richard Herrnstein.I6 Even more curious is that thinking of people as conditionable reserves a place for those who must bear the awesome task of conditioning. There is room for an elite-an 6lite which possesses special knowledge of people, of their natures, how they interact, etc. An elite which for more than two centuries has, for example, been prepared to take as a serious scientific issue the relation between mean I.Q. and race. The kind of elite we are acquainted with in liberal democratic societies. An 6lite whose power base is the claim, certified with a variety of degrees and university courses, to special knowledge, to social science. Notice that this sort of 6lite only makes sense given certain presupMINDS AND LEARNING : THE CHOMSKIAN REVOLUTION
Listener, February 14, 1957. Tests : Building Blocks for the New Class System, Ramparts, July/August, 1972, p. 26. 17Ibid., p. 30. We are granting too much to the contemporary investigator [of race and intelligence] when we see him faced with a conflict of values: scientific curiosity versus social consequences. Given the virtual certainty that even the undertaking of the inquiry will reinforce some of the most despicable features of our society, the authenticity of the presumed moral dilemma depends critically on the scientific significance of the issue that he is choosing to investigate. Even if the scientific significance were immense, we should certainly question the seriousness of the dilemma, given the likely social consequences. But if the scientific interest of any possible finding is slight, then the dilemma vanishes. . A possible correlation between mean I.Q. and skin color is of no greater scientific interest than a correlation between any two other arbitrarily selected traits, say, . In the present state of scientific understanding, mean height and color of eyes. there would appear to bt: little interest in the discovery that one partly heritable trait correlates (or does not) with another partly heritable trait , With the best of will, i t is difficult t o avoid questioning the good faith of those who deplore the alleged anti. .ntellectualism of the critics of scientifically trivial and socially malicious investigations. On the contrary, the investigator of race and intelligence might do well to explain the intellectual significance of the topic he is studying, and thus enlighten us as to the moral dilemma he perceives. If he perceives none, the conclusion is obvious. with no further discussion. . . . As to social importance, a correlation between race and mean I.Q. (were this shown to exist) entails no social consequences except in a racist society in which each individual is assigned t o a racial category and (dealt with not as in individual in his own right, but as a representative of this category. . .
The
16I.Q.

. .

..

. .

240 HARRY M. BRACKEN positions about persons, to wit, those presuppositions we associate with Locke and Hume and which we label empiricist. The Orwellian categories we use in talking about such issues as war, civil strife, or racism are part of a complex web of concepts. And this larger framework rests upon what are taken to be sound empirical bases. In raising anew the rationalism issue, Chomsky is tampering with the portion of that web which we use in talking about persons. Behaviorism and empiricism are central to the liberal ideology not because of any logical necessity but because those are the terms in which the liberal ideology has been formulated. To tamper with empiricism is to tamper with the ideology and to offend those whose role in our power dlites is conditional upon the retention of that ideology. One of Chomskys longest essays, Objectivity and Liberal Scholarship,18 is devoted in large part to showing how biased good, sound liberal scholarship is when it comes to dealing with social and political forms which are indigenously rooted. People who organize themselves, who develop their own educational forms, their own political or economic relations (or to recall the example of another age, their own forms of religious expression), etc., are threats not only to governmental bureaucrats-they are threats to liberal scholars as well. So long as interpreting the world constitutes ones power base, so long as people and events are considered understandable only through ones categories, social actions not fitting ones theories are not only irrational (N.B. in liberal talk, anarchistic is taken to mean irrational), they are a profound threat to ones claim to special knowledge. There are also elements of a positive and rationalistically rooted social doctrine suggesting the directions Chomsky would have us explore and the ideals he advocates, In his Russell Lectures, Chomsky said, The radical reconstruction of society must search for ways to liberate the creative impulse, not to establish new forms of authority. He goes on to cite approvingly comments by Russell, Wilhelm von Humboldt, and others who have conceived of the species character of man as free conscious activity and productive life . . . and have sought to conceive of social forms that will encourage the truly human action that grows from inner impulses.s For Russell and for Chomsky, socialism is primarily about the liberation of the creative impulse and the reconstruction of society to this end,
lsIn American Power and the New Mandarins.

9Delivered at Trinity College, Cambridge, January, 1971. See Problems of Knowledge and Freedom Wew York: Pantheon, 1972).
1

MINDS AND LEARNING : THE CHOMSKIAN REVOLUTION

241

rather than being fundamentally about the distribution of wealth and the allocation of resources. For Russell and for Chomsky workers must control the long run ideal is anarchistic-the their own management. This ideal has not, however, won the day. Control of industrial societies, East and West, North and South, Upper and Lower, is obviously ever more concentrated in the hands of bureaucrats. And the educational system, in which Russell placed cautious faith, has emerged as the technique for social streaming and solidifying class levels-with the fantastic advantage over other methods that it seems to reflect equality of opportunity and hence to make the man at the bottom feel that he really deserves to be there. Presumably the humanistic conception of human nature-that it is the nature of man to inquire and create-is an ideal compatible with empiricism or rationalism. But empiricism has in fact been associated with a different ideal: the ideal of control. To control what is written on the blank tablet is to control the man. A point fully recognized by seventeenth century rationalists. The radical extirpation of mind is of crucial ideological importance. In Language and Freedom Chomsky writes : A vision of a future social order is in turn based on a concept of human nature. If, in fact, man is an indefinitely malleable, completely plastic being, with no innate structures of mind and no intrinsic needs of a cultural or social character, then he is a fit subject for the shaping of behavior by the State authority, the corporate manager, the technocrat, or the central committee. Those with some confidence in the human species will hope this is not so and will try to determine the intrinsic characteristics that provide the framework for intellectual development. The growth of moral consciousness, cultural achievement, and participation in a free community. . . .20

In Linguistics and Politics Chomsky is quoted as saying I think that anyones political ideas or their ideas of social organization must be rooted ultimately in some concept of human nature and human needs. Now my own feeling is that the fundamental human capacity is the capacity and the need for creative selfexpression, for free control of all aspects of ones life and thought.
2oLanguage and Freedom, Abruxus, I (1970). pp. 9-24.Cf. p. 22. and Politics, a n article-interview in New Left Review, No. 57, Sept.-Oct. 1969, pp. 21-34.See p . 31.
2 1Linguistics

242
He also writes :

HARRY M. BRACKEN

I think that the study of language can provide some glimmerings of understanding of rule-governed behavior and the possibilities for free and creative action within the framework of a system of rules that in part, at least, reflect intrinsic properties of human mental organization. . . . As long as we restrict ourselves, conceptually, to the investigation of behavior, its organization, its development through interaction with the environment, we are bound to miss these characteristics of language and mind. Other aspects of human psychology and culture might, in principle, be studied in a similar way. Conceivably, we might in this way develop a social science based on empirically well-founded propositions concerning human nature.
Out of the empiricist /rationalist theme within Chomskys thought, we find, as with the behaviorism issue, that a specialized and technical discussion of language and mind in terms of transformational generative grammar emerges into a doctrine of human nature. Thus the language acquisition device, the competence model Chomsky envisions to be in part innately grounded, sustains the larger doctrine of human nature. I say sustains because the connection is, as Chomsky has put it, tenuo~s.~~ Chomsky is calling for a complete reversal of our present picture of language acquisition. It is his contention that we should extend this revolution of thought; that we should rethink the questions of the social sciences, education, politics, and of social policy generally, on the analogue of linguistics. This means seeking to locate the innate structures of mind which make us human-those structures which provide the bases for our functioning as free and creative agents. I think that we know what Chomsky is talking about in asking us to reflect on ways in which we might build a new society in which men could learn and develop in accordance with humanistic ideals. I think that we can comprehend the vision of a social order which aims for what he has called consistent
22Language and Freedom, p. 25. z3Linguistics and Politics, p. 31. 24Most critics have missed a key point to Chomskys work on Cartesian linguistics. Of course there were earlier and perhaps equally suggestive grammarians. But the Cartesians combined a radical rethinking of mans nature, of the minds contributions to knowledge, with a linguistic theory as a vehicle for the exploration of mind.

MINDS AND LEARNING : THE CHOMSKIAN REVOLUTION

243

anarchism, or libertarian s o ~ i a l i s r n .We ~ ~ can comprehend it if only because we have reason to believe that the goals for our sciences of man, rooted as they are in the empiricist doctrine of human nature, are to enable us to treat men as commodities in accordance with principles which are free of species restrictions so that they may be efficiently controlled and merchandized. Has liberalism always had the elitist bias, the fear of human freedom, the anti-libertarian element that now is obvious? These are perfectly intelligible questions, even if the attempts to answer them may prove threatening to us. We do not need to have Chomsky provide us with a blueprint for change before we can ask what is to be done. We can see where present ideas are taking us. Free inquiry into the concrete problems of specific communities does not first require a masterplan. Especially since master-plans have a way of establishing that slavery is freedom. Chomsky has explored the history of linguistic theory as source for ideas as well as for clues as to where we went wrong in linguistics, psychology, and philosophy. He has explored the history of the cold war seeking its roots. But there are other inquiries to be pursued. Inquiries into the liberal-empirical tradition: John Locke, for example. We are told, in Hans Aarsleffs defenses of Locke against Chomsky, that the grand passion that illuminates all Lockes work [is] his desire for toleration. Given Lockes views on Catholics, this claim is incredible. Accordingly, we must try to understand why our culture canonized Locke, why liberalism canonized as the father of religious toleration a man who so plainly expressed his fear of religious freedom. If nothing else, Aarsleffs paper shows that the stakes in this debate are high. David Hume, who ranks with Locke as a liberal-empiricist saint also deserves new scrutiny. His white-supremacist views are unambiguously, trenchantly stated. Examination of the roots of racism and elitism within the liberal-empiricist tradition is very much in order.
2sSee also Chomskys Introduction t o Daniel GuCrins Anarchism (New York : Monthly Review Press, 1970). 26The History of Linguistics and Professor Chomsky, Language, CLVI (1970), pp. 570-85. See p. 581. See also his Cartesian Linguistics: History or Fantasy? LUlZgVQge Sciences, No. 17, Oct. 1971, pp. 1-12, and my Chomskys Cartesianism, Language Sciences, No. 22, Oct. 1972, pp. 11-17. 27See his Note to the Essay, Of National Character. 28A Section of the American Society for Eighteenth Century Studies has begun some of these inquiries. See the forthcoming paper by Richard H. Popkin, The Philosophical Basis of Eighl eenth Century Racism, in Proceedings of the Anzericun Society for Etghteenth Century Studies (1972). See also my Essence, Accident, and Race. forthcoming in Hermtithena.

244

HARRY M. BRACKEN

Thus far I have discussed the issue of behaviorism and the effect the wider discussion is currently having on social scientists. That issue I considered to be independent of Chomskys own positive doctrines. But the second and closely related theme, empiricismIrationalism, I took to be more closely tied to Chomskys major theoretical contributions. I propose now to discuss briefly what I consider to be one of Chomskys most interesting and perplexing contributions. Perhaps because theoretical work in linguistics has not advanced to the point where an experimenturn crucis could help resolve doubts, there is a profound scepticism within Chomskys work. One may wish to say that Chomsky merely reveals the critical intellect, the probing mind. But reading his social and political commentary from Responsibility of intellectual^"^^ onward, one comes to appreciate that Chomsky sees us facing a complete sceptical crisis. The kind of crisis which grips a civilization. The kind of crisis which was generated by the Protestant Reformation and to which Descartes so earnestly addressed himself in his Meditations? Philosophers have never taken kindly to a serious sceptical challenge. The posing of such insoluble problems has seldom found much favor in philosophy-and in the twentieth century, the suggestion that we might be universally and systematically misled by demonic forces is routinely disposed of in first-year philosophy courses. George Orwell must count as an exception because he, of course, presented us with a fictional account of a world manipulated by political demonic forces. Chomsky has for a number of years been alerting us to the Orwellian reality, although it is fashionable to write this off as left-wing paranoia. But as Orwells Winston says early in 1984, Truisms are true, hold on to that! (chapter vii) And yet, as Chomsky has observed, the truism that it is the responsibility of intellectuals to speak the truth and to expose lies [is] not at all obvious. Not when university intellectuals have such ready access to government posts as virtually to possess interchangeable identity cards. Given the role that intellectuals have played in creating and maintaining conditions of social hysteria, the task of locating first principles has become almost impossible. As with the behaviorist theme, as with the empiricist /rationalist
29Reprinted in American Power and the New Mandarins. 3OCf. Richard H. Popkin, History of Scepticism from Erasmus to Descartes, (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1968). W e e my Descartes-Orwell-Chomsky; Three Philosophers of the Demonic, The Human Context, IV (1972), pp. 523-36. American Power and the New Mandarins, p. 325.

MINDS AND LEARNING: THE CHOMSKIAN REVOLUTION

245

theme, so with this modern sceptical crisis-we must go back to fundamental issues. We must ask truly radical questions. As Descartes did when he faced his sceptical crisis we must ask questions about human nature itself, about what it is to be a human being, what it is to think, to talk, and to learn. These are not questions which those within the mainstream of Western thought have encouraged. They are, as it used to be put, unsettling,. Descartes own efforts to probe some of these questions were found so unsettling that his teachings were banned in both Catholic and Calvinist universities. To rethink the empiricist model of mind, plus its corollary, the behaviorist model of learning, and their interrelations with our all-encompassing liberal ideology-these are tasks Chomsky has clearly set for us. His own monumental efforts constitute important steps towards achieving them. If, however, like Orwells Winston we fail-then, P submit, the very possibility of education becomes absurd. It is an absurdity academics in Nazi Germany lived with successfully. It is an absurdity which will completely overtake us unless we are prepared to deal seriously with those ultimate epistemological, moral, and political questions Chomsky has placed before us. Descartes escaped a demonic world via God. Orwells Winston was destroyed, Chomsky offers us no grounds for optimism and few for hope.
MCGILL UNIVERSITY AND TRINITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN