Bracken 1973 Minds and Learning

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METAPHILOSOPHY

Vol. 4 No. 3, Ju ly 1973

MINDS AND LEARNING:

THE CHOMSKIAN REVOLUTION*

HARRYM. BRACKEN

It is by now a common-place that linguistics has beenrevolutionized by the work of Noam Chomsky. For those whohave doubts, a glance at the work of the counter-revolutionariesshould settle matters. Chomsky’s work in linguistics’ is underheavy and constant attack-but both the issues and the entiretheoretical framework of the discussions would be unthinkablewithout his contributions. I think that a case could be made thatthose who are now his most vocal opponents, the proponents of“generative semantics”, are anti-chomsky for reasons rooted inpolitical and philosophical disagreement. This possibility shouldnot surprise us. Since language plays a central role in humanactivities, a revolution in linguistics has repercussions through-out the Republic of Letters. Rather than examining the revolu-tion strictly within linguistics, I shall examine the Copernicanstyle revolution Chomsky proposes for our thinking about mindsas well as some of the implications for other disciplines and forsocial policy.

My remarks deal with the general question under three head-ings first, the anti-behaviorist, and second, the empiricist-rationalist themes in Chornsky’s thought. In each theme, atheoretical dimension in linguistics is associated with a seconddimension related to matters of social policy. Third, a scepticalcrisis theme-less obviously rooted in linguistics, but morefrightening in its implications. It would be unfair to Chomskyas well as to other critics to suggest that his ideas, and his alonehave had social consequences. But he deserves to be singledout because he is a masterful conceptual analyst and because hissocial comments are related, albeit in varying degrees, to histheoretical work in linguistics.

The first and most obvious effect Chomsky’s work is alreadyhaving derives less from his positive contributions to linguisticsthan from his devastating critique of the social sciences. In brief,

*A revised version of a paper delivered at the LSA’s Linguistic Institute 71 UNY-Buffalo, July 13, 1971. Some of the research used in its preparation was supported bya grant from the Canada Council.

‘For an excellent general introduction to Chomsky’s major work, see John Lyons,Chomsky in the Fontana Modern Masters Series (1970).

229



230 HARRY M BRACKEN

Chomsky’s attack on behaviorism has threatened the socialscientists. That in turn has begun to affect the university institu-tionalization of the social sciences-and hence, in a perfectlydirect way, university educational policy as well as practice.

The attack on behaviorism, first formulated in the famous1959 review of Skinner’s Verbal Behavior, constitutes an attackon the extension of psychological learning theory to linguisticbehavior. In an introduction to a 1967 reprinting of the reviewChomsky writes

if the conclusions I attempted to substantiate in the revieware correct, as I believe they are, then Skinner’s work can beregarded as, in effect, a reductio ad absurdurn of behavioristassumptions . I do not see any way in which hisproposals can be substantially improved within the generalframework of behaviorist or neo-behaviorist, or, more gener-ally, empiricist ideas that has dominated much of modernlinguistics, psychology, and philosophy. The conclusion thatI hoped to establish in the review, by discussing these specu-lations in their most explicit and detailed form, was that thegeneral point of view is largely mythology, and that its wide-spread 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 hisextended use of the nomenclature of animal experimenta1research, i.e., stimulus, response, reinforcement, etc. While theseterms may have some sense in precisely defined contexts, their“analogic extrapolation” to linguistic behavior leaves the keyconcepts of Skinner’s account of verbal behavior vacuous. Thuswhile 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 definedas a class of responses of identifiable form functionally relatedto one or more controlling variables. No method is suggestedfor determining in a particular instance what are the control-ling variables, how many such units have occurred, or wheretheir boundaries are in the total response. Nor is any attemptmade to specify how much or what kind of similarity in formor ‘control’ is required for two physical events to be con-

2The original review appeared in Language. My page references are to the textthat appears in Readings n the Ps y c ho l ogy o Language, ed.. Jakobvits, L. A. andMiron, 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 answersare suggested for the most elementary questions that must beasked of anyone proposing a method for description ofbehavior.’

The review is by now a classic, and as Kenneth MacCorquodaleremarked in his 1970 counter-attack, “no behaviorist escapeduntouched”.’ Yet MacCorquodale’s defense of Skinner fails todeal with the fundamental issue just cited. A real defense of thelegitimacy of the application of the behaviorist framework tolanguage ought to take language, and the “unit of verbalbehavior” seriously. It ought to show that the framework hasnot merely been extended to linguistic behavior by the magic of

“analogic extrapolation”. Instead, MacCorquodale writesThe hypothesis of VerbaE Behavior is simply that the factsof verbal behavior are in the domain of the facts from whichthe system has been constructed. Skinner’s stratagem is to findplausible referents in the speech episode for the laws and termsin his explanatory system stimulus, response, reinforcement,and motivation. The relevance of these laws and their com-ponent variables for the verbal events is hypothesized only; itis not dogmatically ~l a ime d . ~

One saves behaviorism by treating it as an hypothesis. And itmay, writes MacCorquodale, “prove to be wrong, but our ante-cedent confidence in its correctness is at least enhanced by thefact that the basic laws which it invokes have become verysophisticated and impressively well researched. They have alsobeen shown to be ‘surprisingly free of species restriction . .’He concludes that “we do not yet know if verbal behavior iswithin the domain of Skinner’s system and whether the technical

terms stimulus, response, reinforcement are literally applicableto verbal behavior and correctly parse i t into its functional partsof speech” p. 86). The non-psychologist bystander can be for-given, I hope, for wondering what could conceivably countagainst MacCorquodale’s definition of hypothesis. If the keyterms are vacuous, if the predictive power is hardly awe-inspir-ing, and if the whole thing is merely an hypothesis which is notto be rejected because, given infinite time, it may be confirmed-

:lIbid., p. 150.4“On Chomsky’s review of Skinner’s Verbal Behavior”, Journal o the Exper imental

SIbid., 8 5 .~LOC.it. The inner quote is from Skinner.

Anaf y s i s o Behav ior , XI11 19701, 83-99, Cf p. 83.



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. Nomore than in the case of the Greeks is today’s 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 Chomsky’s 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 ofgenuine science made by political scientists, sociologists, his-

torians, 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 whoonce 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 chal-

lenge to behaviorist theory applied to language acquisition. Hehas challenged the role of social scientists in the formulating

TChomsky writes “MacCorquodale assumes that I was attempting to disprove

Skinner’s theses, and he points out that I present no data to disprove them. Butmy point, rather, was to demonstrate that when Skinner’s assertions are takenliterally, they are false on the face of i t (MacCorquodale discusses none of theseexamples 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 falsestatements can be converted into uninteresting truths by employing such terms as“reinforce” with the full imprecision of “like”, “want”, “enjoy”, etc. (with a lossof accuracy in transition, of course, since a rich and detailed terminology is replacedby a few terms that are divorced entirely from the setting in which they have someprecision). Failing to understand this, MacCorquodale “defends” Skinner by show-ing that quite often it is possible to give a vacuous interpretation to his pronounce-

ments, exactlymy

point. The article is useful, once errors are eliminated, in reveal-ing the bankruptcy of the operant conditioning approach to the study of verbalbehavior.” In “Psychology and Ideologv”, Cognition I 1972), pp. 11 46. See also h”I’Review o 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 thestandards of Niirnberg employed, it is clear that prima fac ie

cases could be established against many distinguished academics

at America’s (and not only America’s) 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 inter-

national 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 extra-

ordinarily 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 inAmerican Power and the New Mandarins and At Wa r wi thAsia. 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 America’s 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 O’Brien9 has called the “counterrevolutionary subordi-nation 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, profession-alism 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 O’Brien, “Politics and the Morality of Scholarship”, in The Mor a l i t y

o Scholarship, ed. Max Black Ithaca, N.Y. Cornell University Press, 1967).



234 HARRY M. BRACKEN

forms as the growth of interdisciplinary courses and even depart-

ments, and the increased willingness (relatively ) to consider

new ideas and new methods in the social sciences. Fourth, evenphilosophers appear to be less complacent about the antiseptic

nature of their professional inquiries. The walls we erected inorder to have something left to say-by really having nothingto 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 tech-

nical and the more traditionally political levels.I described Chomsky’s attack on behaviorism as a component,

an element in the elaboration of his account of linguistics. But itshould 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 lan-

guage acquisition does not of itself establish the soundness of

Chomsky’s own positive account. I should add that philosophers

have been seriously disturbed by Chomsky’s attacks on behavior-

ism. The thesis that the meaning of a word is its reference, thatostensive 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-Raccount 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 fruit-

ful it may be, is only one element. I have briefly discussed thatattack and suggested that it can usefully be understood as operat-

ing first, in terms of methodology in learning theory; second, aspart 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 Chomsky’s positive

doctrines. It too can be seen under two headings: first, as anextension 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 Chomsky’s comments in the review of Skinner, op. cit., p. 149.



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, ourregular use of language, and our observations of children, Inabstracto 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 inad-

equate 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 didbody. But, Chomsky suggests, because the powerful mathemat-

ical ideas of recursion theory were unavailable, the Port Royal

dream, however suggestive, remained unfulfilled; and the

tradition, while alive down through the eighteenth and nine-

teenth centuries, was never again a major fo 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 theblank tablet picture of mind (with or without vacuous appeals

to linguistic dispositions) that accompanies behaviorism and

empiricism. Hence Chomsky’s innateness hypothesis : what isinnate 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 severerestriction on the form of grammar. This innate restriction is

a precondition, in the Kantian sense, for linguistic experience,

13Seemy “Chomsky’s Variations on a T heme by Descartes”, Journal o the His toryo Philosophy VIII 1970), pp. 181-192, and “Chomsky’s Language and Mind”Dialogue JX 1970), pp. 236-247.




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

If one takes transformational generative grammar to be at

least a partial representation of man’s linguistic competence, ifone asks about the entity in which one’s model might be instan-tiated, the rationalist model of man provides a more compatiblefoundation than the empiricist one. After all, innate ideas havea long and respected tradition within so-called Western philos-ophy. Briefly and crudely, philosophers usually opted for innate-ness when dealing with ideas or “truths” which it seemedunreasonable 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. Forcenturies other philosophers sought to avoid incorporating any-thing into the mind which could not be philosophically inter-preted as ultimately abstracted from the data of our senses. Onthe Thomist model, for example, the mind had no innate ideas-it merely had an innate capacity to immaterialize material things.While the immaterializer hypothesis may strike us as moreintellectually 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 donot seem formally to resemble Cartesian innate principles. Butthe Cartesians aIso understood the logic of their innatenesshypothesis to require a sharp rejection of abstractionism as adoctrine of concept acquisition. That is, their arguments for

innateness are bound up with those against seventeenth-centuryversions of S-R or other referential empiricist theories of mean-

ing. Current discussions of innateness sometimes ignore thisinnateness /anti-abstractionism connection both for the Car-tesians and for Chomsky.

Some Cartesians tried via grammar to give content to theirmind doctrine. Grammar would reveal the essence of mind asgeometry reveals the essence of body. Malebranche did notapprove of the efforts to provide a model of mind preciselybecause he did not consider that the Cartesians who made thatattempt had been successful in giving content t o their talk about

‘ Language and M i n d , p. 78. For one of the few useful criticisms of Chomsky‘sinnateness hypothesis, see Roy Edgley, “Innate Ideas”, in Knowledge and Necessity

ed. G . Vesey, Royal Institute of Philosophy Lectures, Vol. 111, 1968/69.




mental dispositions. Chomsky may not have given us the correctmodel for our innate linguistic capacity, and his efforts to pro-vide, in the tradition of Port Royal, a formal characterizationof linguistic universals may fail, but it is noteworthy that the

mere effort proves to be such an offense. The assumption thatthe bird-nest building ability of certain birds is innate does notupset us, although how this is transmitted genetically orrecorded neurally remains largely mysterious.

Perhaps the anxiety producing issue is the suggestion thatman’s communication system reflects a device which is notmerely more complex, but is qualitatively different from any-thing else in the animal kingdom, i.e., an emergent entity. Or toput the point in explanatory terms, an explanation of this device

will require the introduction of features which are not defin-itionally reducible to the basic terms used to describe our world.That does not commit one to Cartesian substances. But it isthe very stuff of which a mind/body category distinction canbe made. This may seem reasonable enough, but it does runcounter to views regarded seriously by our culture.

When empiricist I rationalist debates occur outside the contextof academic philosophy, as they often have in the past, one canexpect that the nub of the argument will be conflicting images

of man. If we think of the debate between Locke and thedefenders of innate ideas as simply a fight over the nature oflearning in children, we will miss the point. Of course part of theissue 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 aredebates between different value systems or ideologies. Hencethe heat which characterizes these discussions.

Is a human infinitely conditionable? Is a human indefinitely

manipulatable? It may seem that we are dealing with a straight-forward factual issue, although we are not. Nor are we dealingwith the sort of linguistic confusion a philosopher can dispell.First, we should remember that variations of this debate are asold as recorded history. Second, the philosopher’s tools aresuspect. The fact /value distinction, often beloved by both philos-ophers and social scientists as a justification for their so-calledvalue-free inquiries, was used by Hume and used by himsuccessfully, as an ideological weapon. I suggest that philos-

ophers should make an effort to understand just how valueladen their purportedly “neutral” methods really are. A pointMiss Anscombe made more than a decade ago in that extra-



MINDS A N D LEARNING : THE CHOMSKIAN REVOLUTION 239

ordinary paper “Is Oxford Moral Philosophy Corrupting theYouth? ”I5

Historically, the evidence suggests that both rationalists andempiricists have been among our culture heroes as well as

villains; advocates of light as well as of darkness. That is notthe immediate issue. It does not take much theory to operateon the principle that the best way to eliminate a certain ideais to kill the people who hold it. The assumption, glossed as ascientific claim, that behavior is motivated only by deprivationand external reward finds eager acceptance within an ideologybased on material rewards-a point not lost on another ofChomsky’s targets--Harvard psychologist Richard Herrnstein.I6Even more curious is that thinking of people as conditionable

reserves a place for those who must bear the “awesome” taskof 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 relationbetween mean I.Q. and race”.” The kind of elite we areacquainted with in liberal democratic societies. An 6lite whosepower base is the claim, certified with a variety of degrees and

university courses, to special knowledge, to social science. Noticethat this sort of 6lite only makes sense given certain presup-

‘“The Listener, February 14, 1957.16“I Q 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 curiosityversus 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 scientificsignificance of the issue that he is choosing to investigate. Even if the scientificsignificance were immense, we should certainly question the seriousness of thedilemma, given the likely social consequences. But if the scientific interest of anypossible finding is slight, then the dilemma vanishes.

“A possible correlation between mean I.Q. and skin color is of no greater scientificinterest than a correlation between any two other arbitrarily selected traits, say,mean height and color of eyes. . In the present state of scientific understanding,there would appear to bt: little interest in the discovery that one partly heritabletrait correlates (or does not) with another partly heritable trai t With the bestof will, it is difficult to avoid questioning the good faith of those who deplore thealleged “anti. .ntellectualism” of the critics of scientifically trivial and socially

malicious investigations. On the contrary, the investigator of race and intelligencemight 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 nosocial consequences except in a racist society in which each individual is assignedto a racial category and (dealt with no t as in individual in his own right, but as arepresentative of this category. ”



240 HARRY M . BRACKEN

positions about persons, to wit, those presuppositions we asso-ciate with Locke and Hume and which we label “empiricist”.

The Orwellian categories we use in talking about such issuesas war, civil strife, or racism are part of a complex web of

concepts. And this larger framework rests upon what are takento be sound empirical bases. In raising anew the rationalismissue, Chomsky is tampering with the portion of that web whichwe use in talking about persons. Behaviorism and empiricism arecentral to the liberal ideology not because of any logical necessitybut because those are the terms in which the liberal ideologyhas been formulated. To tamper with empiricism is to tamperwith the ideology and to offend those whose role in our powerdlites is conditional upon the retention of that ideology.

One of Chomsky’s longest essays, “Objectivity and LiberalScholarship”,18 is devoted in large part to showing how biasedgood, sound liberal scholarship is when it comes to dealing withsocial and political forms which are indigenously rooted. Peoplewho organize themselves, who develop their own educationalforms, their own political or economic relations or to recall theexample of another age, their own forms of religious expression),etc., are threats not only to governmental bureaucrats-they arethreats to liberal scholars as well. So long as interpreting the

world constitutes one’s power base, so long as people and eventsare considered understandable only through one’s categories,social actions not fitting one’s theories are not only “irrational”(N.B. in liberal talk, ‘anarchistic’ is taken to mean ‘irrational’),they are a profound threat to one’s claim to special knowledge.

There are also elements of a positive and rationalisticallyrooted social doctrine suggesting the directions Chomsky wouldhave us explore and the ideals he advocates, In his RussellLectures, Chomsky said, “The radical reconstruction of society

must search for ways to liberate the creative impulse, not toestablish new forms of authority”. He goes on to cite approvinglycomments by Russell, Wilhelm von Humboldt, and others whohave conceived “of the ‘species character’ of man as ‘free con-scious activity’ and ‘productive life’ ” and have sought “toconceive of social forms that will encourage the truly humanaction that grows from inner impulses.”’s For Russell and forChomsky, socialism is primarily about “the liberation of thecreative impulse and the reconstruction of society to this end”,

lsIn American Power and the New Mandarins .19Delivered at Trinity College, Cambridge, January, 1971. See Problems o Know-

ledge and Freedom Wew York: Pantheon, 1972).




rather than being fundamentally about the distribution of wealthand the allocation of resources. For Russell and for Chomskythe long run ideal is anarchistic-the workers must controltheir own management. This ideal has not, however, won the

day. Control of industrial societies, East and West, North andSouth, Upper and Lower, is obviously ever more concentratedin the hands of bureaucrats. And the educational system, inwhich Russell placed cautious faith, has emerged as the tech-nique for social streaming and solidifying class levels-with thefantastic advantage over other methods that it seems to reflectequality of opportunity and hence to make the man at thebottom 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 com-patible with empiricism or rationalism. But empiricism has infact been associated with a different ideal: the ideal of control.To control what is “written” on the “blank tablet” is to controlthe man. A point fully recognized by seventeenth century ration-alists. The radical extirpation of mind is of crucial ideologicalimportance. 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 mindand no intrinsic needs of a cultural or social character, thenhe is a fit subject for the “shaping of behavior” by the Stateauthority, the corporate manager, the technocrat, or thecentral committee. Those with some confidence in the humanspecies will hope this is not so and will try to determine theintrinsic characteristics that provide the framework for intel-lectual development. The growth of moral consciousness, cul-

tural achievement, and participation in a free community. 20

In “Linguistics and Politics”” Chomsky is quoted as saying “Ithink that anyone’s political ideas or their ideas of social organiz-ation must be rooted ultimately in some concept of human natureand human needs. Now my own feeling is that the fundamentalhuman capacity is the capacity and the need for creative self-expression, for free control of all aspects of one’s life andthought.”

2o“Language and Freedom”, Abruxus, I 1970). pp. 9-24.Cf. p. 22.1“Linguistics and Politics”, an article-interview in N e w L e f t Review, No. 57,

Sept.-Oct. 1969, pp. 21-34. ee p. 31.



242 HARRY M BRACKEN

He also writes :I think that the study of language can provide some glimmer-ings of understanding of rule-governed behavior and thepossibilities for free and creative action within the frameworkof a system of rules that in part, at least, reflect intrinsicproperties of human mental organization. As long aswe restrict ourselves, conceptually, to the investigation ofbehavior, its organization, its development through interactionwith the environment, we are bound t o miss these characteris-tics of language and mind. Other aspects of human psychologyand culture might, in principle, be studied in a similar way.Conceivably, we might in this way develop a social sciencebased on empirically well-founded propositions concerninghuman nature.”

Out of the empiricist /rationalist theme within Chomsky’sthought, we find, as with the behaviorism issue, that a specializedand technical discussion of language and mind in terms of trans-formational generative grammar emerges into a doctrine ofhuman nature. Thus the language acquisition device, the com-petence model Chomsky envisions to be in part innatelygrounded, 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 presentpicture of language acquisition.”“ It is his contention that weshould extend this revolution of thought; that we should rethinkthe questions of the social sciences, education, politics, and ofsocial policy generally, on the analogue of linguistics. This meansseeking to locate the ‘‘innate structures of mind” which makeus human-those structures which provide the bases for ourfunctioning as free and creative agents.

I think tha t we know what Chomsky is talking about in askingus to reflect on ways in which we might build a new society inwhich men could learn and develop in accordance with human-istic ideals. I think tha t we can comprehend the vision of asocial order which aims for what he has called consistent

22“Language and Freedom”, p. 25.z3“Linguistics and Politics”, p. 31.

24Most critics have missed a key point to Chomsky’s work on Cartesian linguistics.Of course there were earlier and perhaps equally suggestive grammarians. But theCartesians combined a radical rethinking of man’s nature, of the mind’s contributionsto knowledge, with a linguistic theory as a vehicle for the exploration of mind.




anarchism, or libertarian so~ialisrn.~~e can comprehend it ifonly because we have reason to believe that the goals forour sciences of man, rooted as they are in the empiricist doctrineof human nature, are to enable us to treat men as commodities

in accordance with principles which are “free of species restric-tions” so that they may be efficiently controlled and merchan-dized. Has liberalism always had the elitist bias, the fear ofhuman freedom, the anti-libertarian element that now is obvi-ous? These are perfectly intelligible questions, even if theattempts to answer them may prove threatening to us. We donot need to have Chomsky provide us with a blueprint forchange before we can ask what is to be done. We can see wherepresent ideas are taking us. Free inquiry into the concrete

problems of specific communities does not first require a master-plan. Especially since master-plans have a way of establishingthat slavery is freedom.

Chomsky has explored the history of linguistic theory assource for ideas as well as for clues as t o where we “went wrong”in linguistics, psychology, and philosophy. He has explored thehistory of the cold war seeking its roots. But there are otherinquiries to be pursued. Inquiries into the liberal-empiricaltradition: John Locke, for example. We are told, in Hans

Aarsleffs defenses of Locke against Chomsky, that “the grandpassion that illuminates all Locke’s work [is] his desire fortoleration”.“ Given Locke’s views on Catholics, this claim isincredible. Accordingly, we must try to understand why ourculture canonized Locke, why liberalism canonized as the fatherof religious toleration a man who so plainly expressed his fearof religious freedom. If nothing else, Aarsleffs paper shows thatthe stakes in this debate are high. David Hume, who ranks withLocke as a liberal-empiricist saint also deserves new scrutiny.”

His white-supremacist views are unambiguously, trenchantlystated. Examination of the roots of racism and elitism withinthe liberal-empiricist tradition is very much in order.”

2sSee also Chomsky’s Introduction t o Daniel GuCrin’s Anarchism (New York

Monthly Review Press, 1970).26“The 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 “Chomsky’s Cartesianism”,

Language Sciences No. 22, Oct. 1972, pp. 11-17.27See his Note to the Essay, “Of National Character”.8A Section of the American Society for Eighteenth Century Studies has begun some

of these inquiries. See the forthcoming paper by Richard H. Popkin, “The Philo-sophical Basis of Eighl eenth Century Racism”, in Proceedings o the Anzericun Societyfor Etghteenth Century Studies (1972). See also my “Essence, Accident, and Race”.

forthcoming in Hermtithena.




Thus far I have discussed the issue of behaviorism and the

effect the wider discussion is currently having on social scien-

tists. That issue I considered to be independent of Chomsky’s

own positive doctrines. But the second and closely related theme,

empiricismIrationalism, I took to be more closely tied toChomsky’s major theoretical contributions. I propose now to

discuss briefly what I consider to be one of Chomsky’s most

interesting and perplexing contributions. Perhaps because theor-

etical work in linguistics has not advanced to the point where

an experimenturn crucis could help resolve doubts, there is a

profound scepticism within Chomsky’s work. One may wish to

say that Chomsky merely reveals the critical intellect, the prob-

ing mind. But reading his social and political commentary from

“Responsibility of intellectual^ ^^ onward, one comes to appre-ciate 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-yearphilosophy 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 Orwell’s 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 atall obvious”.” Not when university intellectuals have such ready

access to government posts as virtually to possess interchange-

able 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, H is tory of Scept ic ism fr om Erasmus to Descartes, New

W e e my “Descartes-Orwell-Chomsky; Three Philosophers of the Demonic”, The

“A m er ican P ow er and the New Mandarins, p. 325.

York: Harper T orch books , 1968).

Human Context , IV 1972), pp. 523-36.



MI N D S A N D LEARNING: THE CHOMSKIAN REVOLUTION 245

theme, so with this modern sceptical crisis-we must go backto fundamental issues. We must ask truly radical questions. AsDescartes did when he faced his sceptical crisis we must askquestions 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 beput, “unsettling”,. Descartes’ own efforts to probe some of thesequestions were found so unsettling that his teachings werebanned in both Catholic and Calvinist universities. To rethinkthe empiricist model of mind, plus its corollary, the behavioristmodel of learning, and their interrelations with our all-encom-passing liberal ideology-these are tasks Chomsky has clearly

set for us. His own monumental efforts constitute importantsteps towards achieving them. If, however, like Orwell’s Winstonwe fail-then, P submit, the very possibility of education becomesabsurd. It is an absurdity academics in Nazi Germany lived withsuccessfully. It is an absurdity which will completely overtakeus unless we are prepared to deal seriously with those ultimateepistemological, moral, and political questions Chomsky hasplaced before us. Descartes escaped a demonic world via God.Orwell’s Winston was destroyed, Chomsky offers us no grounds

for optimism and few for hope.

MCGILL UNIVERSITY

AND

TRINITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN

Bracken 1973 Minds and Learning

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