Here are two unconnected comments about previous posts. The
first is a little rantish as it relates to a shibboleth I believed I had
chopped to the ground. The second is an
obvious point about Chomsky’s first lecture that I stupidly forgot to remark on
but is really very important. Here they
are:
I try not to give up hope that some day linguists and
psychologists will deconflate indispensable generic notions like abstractness
and similarity from issues about being domain-general or domain-specific.
Completely orthogonal and there isn't much hope for the field until that
distinction is made. The exchange between Norbert and Alex in the first comment
thread gives me a bit of optimism (because Norbert came around) but it can get
tiring to have to say it again and again and again.
There is
nothing to object to in the content of this remark. Who wouldn’t want these
notions “deconflated”? However, I find a
lot to object to in its connotation, and in two ways.
The
first is the suggestion that linguists (like moi) have finally “come around” to
recognizing that these dimensions are orthogonal. This suggests that there was
a time when there was widespread confusion among linguists on this matter. If
so, I don’t know who was so confused and when it was. We have long known that both domain general
and domain specific acquisition mechanisms need notions of abstractness and
similarity to get them to go beyond the input. There is no “learning” without
biases and there are no biases without a specification of dimensions of
similarity, some of them “concrete” and some of them “abstract.” Abstract, in
such contexts, means going beyond dimensions afforded by a purely perceptual
quality space (see Reflections on
Language for a long discussion of these themes in the context of a critique
of Quine). Empiricists have long argued
that all we need are such perceptual dimensions and they have been more than happy
to assume that coding these dimensions is an innate part of the mind. Part of what Rationalists have argued is
that this is insufficient and that more “abstract” dimensions of generalization
are required.
This
noted, there is a second question: what’s the nature of the abstractness
required? Is the abstractness that is
required peculiar to some domain (e.g. peculiar to visual computations or
linguistic computations or auditory computations alone), or are these all
aspects of one and the same kind of abstract computation.[1] This is where the domain general/domain
specific meets the abstract/non-abstract dimension. Let me explain.
Domain
general explanations are, ceteris paribus,
preferable to domain specific ones. Why? Because
they are more general. That means that they potentially apply to a wider
range of data than domain specific accounts apply to precisely because they are
domain general. And, all things being
equal, this means that were they
empirically adequate they would have
more kinds of evidence in their favor than domain specific accounts would have.
So, imagine a world (not this one from what we can tell at present) where we
could unify vision and language in one set of common principles. And say that
these principles could explain things like Island Effects or the ECP or Binding
Effects etc. as well as the Muller-Lyer illusion or Common Fate. This would be
a GREAT theory and clearly better than a purely linguistic specific explanation
of Islands, the ECP etc. Moreover, it’s obvious why, but let me say it anyhow:
it would be better because it explains more
than the purely domain specific linguistic account does. For the record, UG has nothing to say about
the Muller-Lyer illusion. So, to repeat, were there such accounts linguists
like me would rejoice and pop open the champagne, and nominate the relevant
scientists for Nobel Prizes. All
agree that such domain general accounts would be very nice to have, and there
is a sense in which Minimalists are betting that some might be available. So as
far as our druthers are concerned, we are all singing from the same hymnal.
So,
given this huge agreement among all good thinking people what’s the fighting
all about. Well, it’s NOT about this! Rather the above
noted aspirations have never come close to realization. The problem linguists
like me have with domain general explanations of linguistic phenomena of
interest is that they do not currently exist!!! The reason I resist all the
hype surrounding a very attractive prospect is that it seems to have relieved
advocates of concretely coming up with the goods. The reason I respect domain specific, i.e.
UGish, accounts is that they are currently the only game in town (actually, I
think that there are a few more general accounts of a minimalist variety, but
they are rightly controversial). In
other words, I respect domain specific accounts for empirical reasons. Moreover, IMO, the big difference between those
inclined to dismiss domain specific accounts and those that don’t is that the
former respect the discoveries GG has made over the last 60 years and those
that don’t, really don’t. Alex C and I
had a long involved “debate” about this (here) and I think that it is fair to say that we agreed
that we considered different things to be key data currently in need of
explanation. I take the results to 60 years of work of GG to give us a whole
slew of effects that should be the targets of linguistic explanation. He is
“interested in a different problem.”
And, as of this moment in time he has nothing to say about these effects
and so the domain specific accounts are the only ones available. As I’ve also
suggested, I think that ignoring these effects is bolstered by insisting that
they do not really exist. This leads different interests to couple with a kind
of skepticism about what GG has found. It is psychologically, if not logically,
comforting to ignore GG results if one denies the validity of these results
(e.g. see (here).
If this
diagnosis is correct (and, of course, I believe it is) then the domain general
vs domain specific issues have never been confused, nor have they ever hindered
fruitful dialogue. The gulf between linguists and some cognitive researchers has to do with what the worthwhile
problems are taken to be. GGers refuse to be diverted from their discoveries by
promises of a potential theory that might one
day in ways we do not yet begin to comprehend solve our problems. As I’ve state repeatedly, give us some
concrete domain general accounts and they will be carefully considered. I
personally hope they exist and are produced soon. But as I learned when I was
about 7, wishing things to be so doesn’t make them so.
So,
contra Ewan the problem is not that GGers like me don’t “get” the distinctions
he considers vital to internalize. We get them alright. We just don’t see how
they are currently relevant. Moreover, I would argue that pointing to the
“failure” Ewan identifies, serves simply to throw sand in GGers eyes. It tells
us to discard or demote results that we have labored hard to gain in favor of
theories that don’t yet exist (not even in the faintest outline) and that
address problems in ways that we think overly simplistic. It’s cloud cuckoo land advice and serves only
to mislead the interested parties as to what the real fight is about. It’s not
that some prize domain general accounts and others prize domain specific ones.
It’s that what GGers want to explain currently have only domain specific
accounts and that those with domain general stories to peddle are trying to
convince us that we should stop worrying about the facts we have found. No thanks.
2.
On Lecture 1
One
point I should have made about lecture 1 but did not was that it’s amazing that
this is Chomsky’s first lecture on a
series of very technical topics in minimalist grammar. It’s clear that he
thinks that what follows is interesting because
it is situated in a long tradition of questions about minds, brains, evolution,
learning and more. Put another way, the
technical discussion that follows should be understood as addressing these far
more general questions.
This is
Chomsky’s standard modus operandi, and it is what makes GG so exciting
IMO. GG has always been part of the
Rationalist tradition (as the lecture makes clear). Thus, the success of the GG
enterprise is philosophically very telling. It is rare that large philosophical
issues can be related to concrete empirical issues, albeit abstract ones, but
this is one such case. What Chomsky has
always been very good at showing is how very abstract philosophical concerns
are reflected in detailed empirical worries and how empirical problems commit
hostages to large-scale philosophical positions. What the first lecture makes
clear is that Chomsky is a modern incarnation of the 17th and 18th
century natural philosophers. Big empirical issues have philosophical roots and
each has implications for the other.
That’s an important insight, and nobody delivers it better than Chomsky.
[1]
Gallistel and King, for example, doubt the coherence of a generalized “sensing”
mechanism (as opposed to visual or olfactory sensing) and they seem to doubt
the coherence of a purely domain general notion of sensing as an abstraction.
