Chomsky: Ideas and Ideals

✍ Scribed by Neil Smith

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 1999
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 279
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

It is always difficult to summarize Chomsky's ideas and ideals. Neil Smith has made a great attempt to finish this challenging task. The five chapers of the book have covered all the important issues relating to Chomsky's theory. The first chapter explains why linguistics should belong to natural science. The second chapter is a good introduction to Chomsky's linguistic framework. The third chapter shows that Chomsky's hypothesis has a strong base of psychological reality. The fourth chapter discusses the difference between Chomksy's linguistic philosophy and those of other distinguished philosophers,such as Wittgenstein, Qyine, Putnan, and so on. The last chapter shows that Chomsky is full of sense of responsibility of the society. His appeal and decent activity to the equality of human beings. This is a helpful book for us to understand Chomsky more and eliminate the misunderstanding of him.

✦ Table of Contents

Acknowledgments......Page 10
Chomsky’s achievement......Page 12
On heroes and influences......Page 16
1 The mirror of the mind......Page 18
Linguistics as a science......Page 19
The nature of idealization......Page 23
Common sense......Page 27
Modularity......Page 28
Double dissociation......Page 32
Modules and quasi-modules......Page 36
Intelligence and ‘‘learning’’......Page 37
Competence and grammar......Page 39
Rules......Page 40
I-language and E-language......Page 42
Parsing considerations......Page 46
Pragmatic considerations......Page 47
Competence and performance versus I-language andE-language......Page 48
Evolution and innateness......Page 49
Poverty of the stimulus......Page 51
Word meaning......Page 53
Universals......Page 54
Natural language and the language of thought......Page 56
Summary......Page 59
Introduction......Page 60
The lexicon......Page 61
Knowledge of language: structure......Page 64
Knowledge of language: structural relations......Page 65
Levels of representation......Page 67
Constituents and rules......Page 68
Description versus explanation......Page 73
Government and Binding theory......Page 80
Empty categories......Page 87
The status of transformations......Page 91
Principles and parameters......Page 92
Lexical and functional categories......Page 94
Minimalism......Page 97
A historical progression......Page 101
Evolution......Page 102
3 Psychological reality......Page 104
Causality and observability......Page 106
Psychological reality and the nature of evidence......Page 108
Language processing......Page 117
Language acquisition (Plato’s problem)......Page 127
Language pathology......Page 137
Connectionism: the behaviorists strike back......Page 142
Commitments......Page 147
Controversies......Page 156
Language and the world......Page 157
Language and the community......Page 160
Language and the individual......Page 166
Problems of semantics......Page 173
Innateness......Page 178
Unification and reduction......Page 185
Conclusions......Page 187
Explanation and dissent: the common threads......Page 188
Rationality, modularity, and creativity......Page 191
The anarchist background......Page 197
The critique of (American) foreign policy......Page 201
The critique of domestic policy......Page 206
The critique of media control......Page 210
The technique of dissection......Page 214
Moral absolutes and options for the future......Page 219
The positive program......Page 222
Conclusion......Page 224
Envoi......Page 225
Notes and references......Page 226
Bibliography......Page 252
Index......Page 274