Noam Chomsky: A Philosophic Overview by Justin Leiber - Book Review by Guy A. Duperreault

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Leiber, Justin.

Noam Chomsky: A Philosophic Overview.

St. Martin's Press, 1975.

Review by Guy A. DuperreaultMarch 2012.

This book is not for the faint of heart. Nor is it for those who have become

ideologically fixated on empirical / behavioural science in the humanities.

Not only is this a bookfor people interested in how language works, it is far

more importantly a powerful book for those who have come to believe that

much of what passes for science in the behaviour / humanistic fields has

been plagued with a false science that has managed to turn empiricism into amind numbing ideology. For many readers,NC:APO has the potential to be

a transformational book in that it provides the solid analysis that supports

making the leap from the flaccid so-called truths that behaviourism has

provided us with to a resurgence of the scientific attitude of 18th & 19th

century rationalism. That rationalism, unlike today's mask of rationalism,

does not pretend that their philosophy can explain things beyond what it

can.

Chomsky's argument applies to other fields, such as economics andpsychology. For example, the behaviourist B.F. Skinner's is mentioned

several times in unflattering terms. (In the book of his interviews with

Mitsou RonatLanguage and Responsibility, he goes so far as to say,

paraphrased, that as far as he knows behaviourism has contributed nothing

ofmeaningfulscientific value.)

Empiricism, perhaps especially in fields like linguistics, economics and

psychology, act as if all behaviours and characteristics of the human speciesand the individuals within it, can be explained by stimulus/response

theories. The book begins with Leiber succinctly recapping the history of

how Chomsky, with the ease of a knife cutting through water, revolutionized

linguistics and proved irrevocably that empirical behaviourism is

completely inadequate to explain not only the acquisition of language but

also its comprehension. Leiber describes Chomsky's argument that, since
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/979389.Language_and_Responsibilityhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._F._Skinnerhttp://www.goodreads.com/book/show/979389.Language_and_Responsibilityhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._F._Skinner


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the sentences of a language that can be created are infinite, that the

behavioural linguistic practice of cataloguing them so as to fully describe a

language is fruitless. Chomsky extends that argument by pointing out that

most sentences that human's comprehend in their lives they will not have

ever seen or heard before. He then convincingly argues that the rules ofgrammar allow for sentences to be constructed that are incomprehensible,

whereas sentences are easily created that don't properly follow the rules of

grammar but which can be perfectly comprehensible. All of these are

extremely strong indictments of some of behaviourism's fundamental

tenets of human understanding of language and understanding.

Chomsky's pragmatic rationalism may be most pointedly observed when he

describes the real world experience that children learn language before theyknow the so-called rules of grammar. That repeatedly observed behaviour,

from a behavioural model of language acquisition, would ostensibly be

unheard of. Chomsky also observes with pragmatic rationalism, that

children's language acquisition is largely independent of the oftentimes

horrible language usage and training that parents provide. He also suggests

with pragmatic rationalism that one might even be able to argue that in

extreme cases the acquisition of language skills would appear to be

independent of any significant language training because the training skills

or environment are so poor that that the child's language acquisition wouldseem to occur despite their language training behaviour.

The final nail in the behaviourist's coffin, as it pertains to linguistics anyway,

is that when the rationale of the behaviourists' practices were questioned

vigorously, it was revealed that behavioural linguistic practices were largely

preconfigured by the human behaviour and/or psychological bias and

preconceptions of those formulating the 'science.'

Rationalistically, as opposed to empirically, Chomsky posits that there is

something in the human being that promotes language acquisition

independent of race and strict behaviourism. He called it universal

grammar.

And this gave me one of the greatest of finds, discoveries, epiphanies, joys I


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have experienced from reading a book in long time: in exactly the same way,

with a nearly identical conceptualization, Chomsky proposes a description

of language that is nearly identical to the methods and rational behind

Jung's formulation of the Collective Unconscious. YES! My intuitive

prompt, from several years ago, that there was something similar in thephilosophy of these two ostensibly disparate thinkers has been beautifully,

elegantly, and delightfully affirmed. I wonder, is itjusta coincidence that

these two thinkers that I highly respect are both ignored or denigrated by

our society's political and education leaders?

This commonality is even more strongly affirmed with the idea of a 'deep

structure,' which Chomsky posits provides the fundamentals of language. Its

description reminds me of Jung's descriptions of the common imagery andsymbolism of myth, dreams as an expression of the collective unconscious.

And when the problem of how to constrain a universal grammar to create

only meaningful sentences was discussed, I am again reminded of Jung's

theories about the problem of constraining (not Jung's word) the symbols

to being meaningful. A very amusing formulation of that problem is the

anecdote attributed to Sigmund Freud: sometimes a cigar is only a cigar.

This is a brilliantand very important book. That I came across it by accident

I extend a heartfelt Thank you to J&L @ Renaissance Books for catchingthis one for me without my asking!
http://www.renaissancebookstore.com/http://www.renaissancebookstore.com/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigmund_Freudhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigmund_Freudhttp://www.renaissancebookstore.com/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigmund_Freudhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_unconscious

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Noam Chomsky: A Philosophic Overview by Justin Leiber - Book Review by Guy A. Duperreault