At least since Wittgenstein aired the matter in the Philosophical Investi- gations, the Augustinian theory of language learning has generally been regarded as a quaint old relic, as naive and uncontroversially wrong. It has been virtually a commonplace in contemporary discussions of language that however a language is learned by the aspiring child, it is evidently not through the auspices of an unlearned language over which he innately has command and by means of which he conducts his cognitive ruminations. Surprising it is then, that this very theory has been rescued from the curio shop by Fodor in his latest book, The Language o f Thought (1975). Surprising also is the strength of the defense Fodor discovers can be marshalled on behalf of the Augustinian view. He argues that its status as a mere curio is undeserved, and that not the least of its virtues is that it is the only decent theory of tanguage learning in contention. The book will be widely read, indeed it should be widely read, by philosophers and psychologists alike, and it contains the potential to influence greatly the direction and development of psycholinguistic research. I hope that its potential to so influence will not be realized however, for, as I shall argue anon, it is thoroughly misconceived.
The undoing of the theory, at least in the form Fodor presents it, is not so much that innate wherewithal is posited; it is rather the consummate richness and fixity attributed to the innate wherewithal. According to Fodor, the innate structure needed for learning a language is an innate language, and this endowed accoutrement is no pale prototype of the language vocalis that the child will acquire, nor indeed is it a mere germ which grows and develops to reflect the sort of Weltanschauung embodied in the particular language of the child's milieu. Mentalese, Fodor argues, is as rich and powerful, as complex and complete, as any language, be it English or Urdu, the child comes to learn. Fodor is forthright in putting the point: What, then, is being denied? Roughly, that one can learn a language whose expressive power is greater than that of a language that one already knows. Less roughly, that one can learn a language whose predicates express extensions not expressible by those of a previously available representational system. ( 86) Synthese 38 (1978) 149-159. All Rights Reserved.