A theory of x, is the ripened body of knowledge or more precisely a framework of concepts which has a correspondence with the facts within the field of knowledge-x and a logical relation among those concepts such that a consistent formal system giving a general view of dependency/inter-dependencies of its axioms can be formulated. The framework should be such that it is internally and externally consistent, simple (at level of axiom, theorems and whole theory) and, satisfies certain explanatory (explanatory adequacy: explaining a set of puzzles) and descriptive (descriptive adequacy: the elements that combine the puzzle and the explanation) demands.
We are free to chose any sufficiently well-defined equivalent formal system used to reconstruct the object-statements of a Theory. And the terms are internally and recursively defined, with the goal to have a referent.
Puzzles can only be made sense of in presence of a Programme/Theory/Paradigm. The paradigm and programme put constrains on the nature of descriptive and explanatory elements of a Theory.
Note: Descriptive and Explanatory adequacy are not the same as observational adequacy, which would mean something like accounting for “all of the relevant phenomenon”. The goal of a theory is to chip away the non-essential parts of a phenomenon and get to a deeper level of principles that underline it.
By Noam’s approach to philosophical inquiry I have in mind those meta-philosophical conceptual distinctions that appear very often in his technical work and; play a crucial part in presentation and I believe more so in his analysis. For Noam, like many analytic philosophers there is no clear distinction between science and philosophy – because philosophy has no independent domain of inquiry where specific puzzles and problems can be solved by internally developed tools for gaining substantial understanding or insight. What is called ‘philosophy’ now a days is a second order inquiry, i.e. more reflexive parts of (to a large part natural) sciences1. This is distinct from what Katz’ called traditional view of philosophy, of say, Thomas Nagel, who held that philosophy can tell us something about a-priori truths2. Further, Noam’s naturalistic view of philosophy is methodological – that is, that the way for acquiring knowledge about the natural world is through method of scientific inquiry – naturalistic theory creation (not any set of procedures but the social and intellectual practice), this is distinct from Quine’s epistemic naturalism which limits the acquisition of knowledge about the natural world through scientific means in the already existing categories of physical entities – primarily entities of physics.
Broadly, Noam’s categorization of philosophical issues fall under three categories: 1. common-sense 2. theoretical problems and, 3. Pseudo-theoretical problems. Of the three, the third class of issues are mostly incomprehensible and not genuine issues in there existing form. And only fruitful and relevant inquiry can be either common-sense or natural scientific and theoretic in nature. Below, I will first discuss what are common-sense issues followed by natural scientific issues and then briefly talk abut the third category.
1. Common-sense and Oxford Philosophy.
There are a set of issues in that revolve around confusion from how certain words are used. For ex. What “is it like to be” a bat? Can computers “think”? Is “water” H2O? And many more. For Noam, like the oxford linguistic philosophers – to understand what these words and phrases mean is to look at how they are used. Strawson for example noted that “to refer” is something people do, it is an act.3 And to understand how particular linguistic unit is used in action we need to understand how we use them. We use the phrase “is like a”, among other things, to point to some resembling properties; we use “think” when talking about humans and maybe some animals, not organs like brain.
So, there is a category of philosophical questions that are not real questions about natural world but rise from the confused usage of phrases and terms.
The internal-meaning of these words and phrases acquired in natural course of language acquisition and interaction with the outside world have the following properties:
“1. are reasonably assumed to be innate (in the Cartesian sense, as dispositional);
2. are anthropocentric (primarily human interest- and action-related);
3. are rich and (so far) undefined, although (in principle) targets of the naturalistic theory of mind (including growth);
4. are flexibly used in various ways and applied (in metaphor, for example) in a diverse set of circumstances, invite creativity, appear to be domain-general; and
5. are constitutive of an understanding of ‘our’ world, which is the world of everyday practical affairs.”4
The problems about phrases and terms can be meaningfully asked when these are constructed within part of explanatory framework – a scientific account and programme. Hence, the way Putnam dealt with the problem of “meaning” is incomprehensible because there is no explanatory framework where this term is used but questions about Davidsonian semantics programme can be asked more fruitfully and are a function of programmes research and explanatory vitality. This leads us to the second class of issues5.
2. Theoretical Problems.
To understand this set of problems let us recall that Noam is primarily a natural scientist – a researcher who is studying the properties of a “mental organ” within a biolinguistic framework6. This fact in light of his believe about the role of philosophy tells us that Noam’s primary concerns lies in this category of problems, which are the more reflective aspects of biolinguistic naturalistic inquiry. In these issues most of his convictions are drawn from history of scientific practice and ideas. Noam follows Lakatos’ framework and sees the practice of Kuhnian normal science as a competition and comparison of research programmes. For most of his academic life this has been a criticism of empiricist and behaviorist programmes. (But also structuralist and technology based explanatory efforts.) Lakatos notes that “the basic unit of appraisal must be not an isolated theory or conjunction of theories but rather a ‘research programme’, with a conventionally accepted (and thus by provisional decision’ irrefutable’) ‘hard core’ and with a ‘positive heuristic’ which defines problems, outlines the construction of a belt of auxiliary hypotheses, foresees anomalies and turns them victoriously into examples, all according to a preconceived plan.”7
Lakatos’ programme comparisons bring Kuhn’s evaluation phase of competing paradigmatic theories into normal science practice. Based on the choice criterion, which the initiated researchers acquires in the course of her training she conducts rational evaluation for justification of a programme. The choice of a research progamme is under-determined by all the facts, which cannot lead a researcher by logic to the correct way of puzzle and problem solving in a domain and no one correct explanatory account. These choices are determined by non-empirical considerations. As the programmes are not empirically equivalent, that is that the relevant evidence for the particular programme’s scope is not shared. What might be within scope of one descriptive and explanatory enterprise might not enter into the other, making their points of contact with nature distinct. The programmes are then judged on other merits: “These five characteristics—accuracy, consistency, scope, simplicity, and fruitfulness—are all standard criteria for evaluating the adequacy of a [programme]. If they had not been, I would have devoted far more space to them in my book, for I agree entirely with the traditional view that they play a vital role when scientists must choose between [programmes]. Together with others of much the same sort, they provide the shared basis for [programme] choice.”8
2.1. Methodological Assumptions and Questions
Generally speaking, methodological issues are those that arise out of particular commitments that dictate nature of descriptive and explanatory features of a given programme. These commitments cannot be judged on empirical bases. The above mentioned five values and other like them guide the rational deliberation on these issues. While the eventual degradation of programme might be a logical consequence of its internal features, a researcher in the normal course of work has to justify the work based on such criterion.
In case of biolinguistics, Noam holds that the explanatory goal of the enterprise must be what the human person acquires, how this is structured and how it grows and so enables linguistic performance of a competent person. And for this enterprise to be consistent with related successful programmes it must been treated as part of biology and proceed on similar lines. To not do so as a doctrine, is a form of dualism that treats study of mind-brain distinct from study of rest of human biology9 Like biologists, Noam hold that genetics provides for development of specific organs, with specific properties and structures and function within the whole organism. That matures and works according to internal rules, laws of nature and external stimulus. Like natural scientists he believes that idealizations and generalizations with considerations of formalization (in terms of mathematics that captures the nature of system under study10) are essential, as the goal of a scientist is not to explain the phenomenon, but to develop theories that explains underlying principles of nature11. These and other methodological features shape his explanatory and descriptive enterprise.
These are distinct from behaviorist and empiricist dualist-methodological commitments, in that they postulate powerful general learning mechanism and possibility of boundless learning – for example infinitely varied and all kinds of associations and grammars. Unlike any known features in the biological world. Its explanatory accounts then, restricts itself to set of inputs and observable behaviors – and does not postulate specific internal mechanisms – other then the above mentioned general learning mechanism (like conditioning, associationism etc) contra, the genetically given specific systems. They therefore tend to be externalist and statistical in their explanatory goals and choice of descriptive terms – making the enterprise less adequate on these counts and also on count of external consistency.
This distinction is not clearly demarcated. Methodological commitments do have some empirical bases – the choice of what are the relevant one and their imports to explanatory goals and description restriction are value driven. Biolinguistics is based on the empirical consensus that humans are biological systems and that the genetic and evolutionary developmental programmes have been largely successful.
2.2 Empirical Assumptions and Questions
Empirical assumptions are the concrete descriptive claims about state of things (that such and such is the case, say a mechanism) within any programme.. These claims can in principle be fleshed out for empirical testing within the programmes assumptions and therefore can be empirically substantiated. And the results evaluated on rational grounds – usually not affecting the more established or entrenched ‘hard core’ parts. This could explain why Noam has focused his criticism more on methodological grounds and not on empirical ones, as these can be easily defended as minor anomalies if the methodological assumptions are taken for granted. This is seen by many as a radical idea that paradigms cannot be criticized or defended primarily on empirical grounds but, acceptable to anyone who has studied any period of scientific history.
Empirical assumptions, of say particular mechanism of learning etc, can be judged in principle on the bases of descriptive and explanatory adequacy of a particular instantiation of mechanism under question, and of the feasibility of such mechanism in explaining the relevant phenomenon12. It goes without saying that all of this is done keeping in mind the relevant evaluations of associated studies within parameters of both (or more) paradigms.
2.2.1. Substantial and Insubstantial Empirical Assumptions:
Compared to methodological commitments, researchers are more flexible in giving up particular empirical assumptions about particular the state of things. This happens when test(s), thought experiments or reflection within the programmes’ parameters repeatedly suggest otherwise, and this might leave the programme largely intact based on other internal factors.
Insubstantial empirical assumptions of a programme are those state of things claims that allow easy reformulation of these claims into substantial empirical assumption and claims of another contending programme, leaving only the differing terminological and descriptive and explanatory choices of the first program intact. When Quine grants possibility of “innate structures of yet unknown characteristics” and “quality space” in acquisition of knowledge this is vague enough in a particular way to be reformulated as a nativist theory of knowledge acquisition13. When core empirical assumptions have become insubstantial, it looses much of its power. This combined with external inconsistencies, descriptive inadequacies of postulated mechanism,s and their non-feasibility further weakens a programme.
Substantial empirical assumptions are those that do not allow such reformulation of a particular empirical claim and are thus substantially distinct. Hume’s theory of acquisition of knowledge for example details the mechanism of primary and, secondary impressions forming faded impressions that associate by specific rules; is an empirical assumption. Goodman while studying induction also maintained substantial distinction and this lead him to absurd results14.
3. Mind-Body Problem as Methodological Assumption of a Failed Programme.
We can now look, albeit only superficially and briefly, at how Noam’s views on the mind-body problem can be seen within this schematic.
What was the mind-body problem? Emphasizing the historicity of Descartes Mind-Body distinction, Desmond Clarke writes that “when Descartes wrote about matter, the matter in question was a theoretical construct of Cartesian natural philosophy. Whatever corpus or materia may have meant in that system, these terms certainly did not mean the same as ‘matter’ today.” And that his mind-body distinction is not “conceptually isomorphic with what is now called the mind-body problem”.15
Descartes and his contemporary “physical scientists assumed that the universe was composed of microscopic corpuscles and that all natural phenomena could be explained in terms of corpuscular shape, size, motion, and interaction. That nest of commitments proved to be both metaphysical and methodological. As metaphysical, it told scientists what sorts of entities the universe did and did not contain: there was only shaped matter in motion. As methodological, it told them what ultimate laws and fundamental explanations must be like: laws must specify corpuscular motion and interaction, and explanation must reduce any given natural phenomenon to corpuscular action under these laws.”16
But there are features of the world, Descartes noted, namely of intellect and of willed action – broadly the mental substance or things, that do not allow themselves to be formulated in the corpuscular mechanical framework. This led “Descartes to think of the scope of the material as being co-extensive with those natural phenomena for which we can, at least in principle, provide a scientific explanation, and to classify whatever lies outside the scope of the latter as ‘immaterial’. It may be that mental phenomena are immaterial in both senses.”17
Then, for Descartes, the Mind-Body problem was a problem of explanatory gap while assuming the adequacy of the given methodological commitment. But after Principia was gradually accepted and corpuscularism gave way to an explanatory account that could include new and ever increasing variety of explanations and entities. After the shift from a rigid to relaxed methodological commitment there was no longer “material” things or substance from which immaterial things could be compared and with the collapse of the “material” there was no gap to be closed. Rather there were all sorts of things in the world – electrical things, chemical things, mental things, etc. The study of how one sort of things interact with other became regular part of scientific effort in mature areas for assimilation and integration.
4 Pseudo-Theoretical Issues & Other Pseudo-Problems.
A large part of writing in philosophy journals does not appear to be formal inquiries in logic or anything like critical programmes appraisal that Chomsky engages in. But if they are not doing this, any historical work or clarification of pseudo-problems, then what are they engaged in? For example, many thinker still write about mind-body problem devoid of any historicity and without any roots in natural sciences. This exercise, since the gradual decline in support of naturalism among some philosophers, tacitly assumes metaphysical inquiries outside the bounds of natural science. But a major lesson from Descartes to Newton chapter in history was that a priori speculation devoid of naturalistic research is not fruitful. What kinds of mechanisms and entities there are in the world is described by best available theories.
Two kinds of a-priori question especially make no sense to Chomsky: those about ontology and realism. And, Chomsky’s approach to ontological issues is almost identical with Carnap’s:
“This voluntarist orientation remained fundamental. The notion that something beyond the scope of science might actually be the case seemed to Carnap a back door to the readmission of traditional prejudices and conformities of all kinds. Certainly we need to make assumptions, he acknowledged, but we can decide on these, and spell them out; they are not “out there” for us to find. On these grounds he deprecated Quine’s preoccupation with ontology. It makes no sense to talk about “what there is,” Carnap said, without specifying the language framework in which this is asserted; any such claim can only be understood or judged relative to a framework. It makes perfectly good sense to ask, within a framework that includes, say, the Zermelo-Frankel axioms for set theory, whether there are infinite numbers. Such “internal” questions have determinate answers. But it makes no sense, outside such a framework, to ask “just in general” whether “there are” infinite numbers. Not only is there no determinate answer, but there is no way to give such an “external” question itself any clear meaning.”18
Same remarks and in similar terminology can be found in Noam’s interviews and writings. Another kind of question that Noam believes is meaningless is to ask in general is whether such and such thing is real? Things are real within or are crucial part of a ‘language framework’ (borrowing Carnap’s terminology) depending on the choice of ‘language framework’. That is to say, things exists in various senses. For example, Sherlock’s hat is real in the fictional universe, so when we choose to talk about things in Conan Doyle’s book, the hat exists, if we talk about economical things “the economic crisis in Pakistan” is a real thing, in language framework where we are talking about how the natural world works, the things in our best available theories exists. We can only ask whether a thing is real if we are clear about in what sense and ‘language framework’ are we talking about and does that framework has this entity in it.
This view in Chomsky probably has some connections with pragmatism of later Carnap and Frege’s theory of sense. And also the relation between the philosophical attitude associated with this name and the aspects of language use within a community named pragmatism by Mead and Charles Morris. But I cannot proceed in that direction at the moment.
5. Conclusion.
A schematic can only help navigate and guide us in our search but not do the hard work of clear thinking for us. And this schematism I believes gives a clear enough picture to better navigate Noam’s philosophical writings. Noam philosophical project is influenced by Carnap’s scientific philosophy and is a peculiar kind of therapeutic work. These can most visibly be seen in his criticism of behaviorism, which at first was motivated theoretically but as the Cold War took hold of the social sciences and intellectuals were eager in assisting in the task of social management, also for moral and political reasons. The image of human nature behaviorism and empiricism presents and justifies is unacceptable to Noam and to every person who values individual deliberation, choice and liberty. As a substantive thesis, these ideas show tendency to be against the free development of capacities and diminish the role of rational common sense of judgment and creative capacities and justify control – managerial, technocratic, statist, corporate, patriarchal, casteist and other. Humans for Noam and other libertarian socialists are not bound, are undetermined, and seek creative and experimental initiatives taking form of infinite possibilities without coercive in a free associative society. In social writings too similar schema can be found that might shed light on meta-philosophical, moral and practical consideration of Noam Chomsky that I believe are of considerable value in time of multiple and extreme global crisis.
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Footnotes:
1Interview with Ludlow, “Science is metaphysics, trying to understand how the world works”. And section about Kant and philosophy as reflective science at https://youtu.be/6N8HYdAuUZs .
I now find my comments below, written with little understanding of Carnap, to be confused and foolish. I probably did not even grasp the important shift in second sentence of Para-1 of my comments of Carnap’s reliance on “the logic” to tolerance. I am in agreement with most of what Cohen and Marschall say in their paper wholeheartedly, while noting that what they say is not novel anymore but the application of the Carnapian value-based critique to contemporary issue is quite interesting. Where I might have some disagreement has to do their treatment of the notion of internal-external questions.
The paper describes two phases of Carnap’s criticism of “metaphysics”. The first meaning-theoretic critique rested on the inability of certain natural language grammatical forms to correctly map to the logical forms (for example where the logical form ¬∃(x)R(x) can be in the natural language grammatical form R(x).) Then such natural language statements are meaningless. The second “value-based” phase, forced by the appearance of certain logical languages that could in fact map many such grammatical forms, was based on the “principle of tolerance” for all such logical languages but demanded that they clearly state their syntactic rules and that frameworks be valuable for practical inquiry. Those frameworks or languages that do not state their syntactic rules clearly or whose value is dubious are to be less valued and possibly meaningless.
The §4 seems to be wrong (at least quite weak) in its emphasis on the value being based on practical scientific considerations. I believe this is due to a reading of the tolerance principle devoid of its general thesis. The principle was a special case for the foundations of mathematics program of his ontological neutrality. While talking of Aufbau he summed up the attitude as “my attitude was again ontologically neutral. For me, it was simply a methodological question of choosing the most suitable basis for the system to be constructed, either a phenomenalistic or a physicalistic basis. The ontological theses of the traditional doctrines of either phenomenalism or materialism remained for me entirely out of consideration… in the Aufbau I merely refrained from taking sides; I added that, if one proceeds from the discussion of language forms to that of the corresponding metaphysical theses about the reality or unreality of some kind of entities, he steps beyond the bounds of science.” There can be no metaphysics beyond the bounds of sciences, ontological questions are to be answered by our best theories and only meaningful questions are of methodology and epistemology not ontology.
This principle can possibly be used to test whether Carnap would have tolerated contemporary mereology or not. My own partially articulated opinion is that the problem of meaningless metaphysics can be best understood through informal logic principle of sense-domains consistency1. Asking whether a discussion is within a single sense-domain or not. Where a sense-domain is the sets of predicates and constants that are implied by using the particular term in a particular sense (either one of several possible natural language senses or any theoretic sense). If the discussion switches domains without clarification or uses predicates and constants inconsistent with the sense in that particular domain then the discussion risks becoming non-sense. One assumption in this theory is that there is no sense of the terms in isolation that are also not natural language commonsense.
Perhaps what I am getting at through sense-domain principle is only a way of avoiding semantic ambiguities. Similarly, there are ways of avoiding syntactic ambiguities in natural languages. But maybe what some people assume Carnap to be saying is that certain kinds of inquiries are necessarily ambiguous because they are contentless or/and meaningless. And this can somehow be shown by logical or epistemic analysis. But both the critiques Carnap offered were inquiry general. His later criticism of ontology was perpahs methodological and based on the value and success of non-ontological inquiries and the fruitlessness of ontological ones.
1This is not a “theory” in naturalistic sense because argumentation and language-use for inquiry is a human action and without a theory of human action a theory of argumentation in this sense is impossible. But to the extent the goals and intention of the person engaged in argumentation is insight though clear exchange then some principles for clear discussions can be sketched out. Sense-domain principle being one such proposal.
Descartes is (in)famous for his apparent skepticism. While he was merely rehearsing the common Pyrrhonist skepticism, most famously being advocated by Michel de Montaigne and Mersenne, before criticizing it. In doing so he asks us to doubt two categories of beliefs: that of the extramental world (I refrain from using the word “physical” for separate reasons) and of mathematical facts. His reasons for doubting both categories were different. But first, let us look at why do we find these beliefs to be self-evident.
I believe that my dog is sitting in front of me because my sense tells me that he is. But my senses do, from time to time, deceive me, for example in the case of optical illusion and under the influence of psychoactive drugs. So this method of acquiring belief is generally put into doubt – although many individual believes might still be true but the senses generally lose their credibility as a source of self-evident believes. And in the case of mathematical facts, we find them to be true because they are tautologies – i.e. they are true by virtue of their definition, or at least because they are true by demonstration of proves. Also, these are not claims about the external world, Pythagoras theorem will still be true even if there is no external world and no physical triangles. Descarte gives two reasons to doubt these mathematical beliefs (Point 5, Part 1, Principles of Philosophy and Book 1, Meditations.) First, he merely states and in my opinion without giving any convincing examples to the effect that we often err while forming mathematical beliefs, and second, that God has created us in such a way that we err sometimes so it is possible that he might have created us in a way that we err all the time, even in things mathematical. The second argument can be made without invoking God as evolution might as easily have organized our cognitive faculties in such a way that we systematically err.
While to doubt the first source of beliefs seems reasonable, the second looks less convincing as it is on the one hand a general claim about all cognitive faculties and not merely about the method of acquiring mathematical claims, and on the other, we have no examples that lead us to doubt the specific source of such believes. Whatever their merit, it is clear that the epistemological value of the reasons to doubt both categories is very different.
In his history of atheist thoughts, the famous Italian Catholic priest and scholar Cornelio Fabro wrote that “this radical libertarian tendency will gradually reveal itself as responsible for that positive and constructive atheism which is typical of modern philosophy.” The radical libertarian tendency in question was the philosophy of Rene Descartes. Fabro criticized this philosophy because in Descartes God is no longer “posited as creator of the world and Father of men” and He instead created “the philosophy of freedom, considering freedom an ultimate and therefore a viable first principle”.
“Cartesian immanentism concentrated itself in man’s most intimate and all-embracing act, that of willing; it was therefore bound to close to man all avenues of escape from the long straight road leading down to d’Holbach, Feuerbach, Nietzsche and Sartre.” The roots of this concentration on “willing”, i.e. freedom of will and thought is explained by Descartes scholar Harry Bracken as “Descartes had good reasons for introducing a second substance (res cogitans, “thinking things”), for e.g., that our creative use of speech cannot be understood in terms of the mechanics available to him”. The essential character of humans, for the Cartesian, is this creative and willing aspect of the intellect.
Which in Calvinist terms of the time was also the “Way Of Examination” – which alone can judge the truth of religious texts and teaching. Cartesian, like Bayle developed the ideas and gave this freedom and Way Of Examination the primacy over the Way Of Authority. The state or church cannot dictate what the individual must believe because it is against the faculty of free judgment that God has endowed us with. While dethroning God from the paternalistic position Cartesian thoughts also laid the foundation of radical freedom of thought and speech, where the privacy of the intellect takes the priority.
Bracken says that “when we read Bayle’s views on toleration, we should recall that he is perhaps the first person to separate the domains of religion and morality by arguing that there is no logical anomaly in conceiving of a highly moral society of atheists. One can be religious and immoral and also nonreligious and moral. His rationalist views on universal natural (moral) law, that is, independent of religion or culture, should be seen in that context.” One can also, perhaps add the separation the domains of national laws and morality.
This was a radical break from those who advocate authorities’ right to hold our tongue because they have the right to hold our hands. A principle advocated and adhered till this date by those who do not (and for reasons of power cannot) give primacy to the individual’s intellect and her expressions.
This distinction also separated the rationalist-cartesians from the empiricists like Locke and Hume. For the empiricist there is no distinction between the tongue (the expression of one’s thoughts) and the hand (actions and physical attributes). Where for the Cartesian the essence of being human and our most important characters are our intellect and freedom of will, for the empiricists the physical features play as important or more important role in defining the essence of human beings. And from here begins the philosophical justification for racism and sexism.
In these spheres too, the Cartesian philosophers were among the first to (at least theoretically) defend freedom for All human beings. While the racists and sexists were debating over color, physical abilities one of the most prominent French Cartesian philosopher, Poullain de la Barre simply stated that “the mind has no sex.”
Among the people who think about these things, for most Descartes and his ideas have been reduced to caricatures of positions that were for the most part secondary to him and are for us. While, many also sideline him for ideological reasons. But people in radical political circles might still find fruitful insights in the work of the Cartesian.
“In your house, I long to be
Room by room, patiently
I’ll wait for you there like a stone”
– Audioslave
Nick Treanor in his review of Nirmalangshu Mukherji’s Reflections on Human Inquiry says that “there is less clarity and sophistication than ideal” in the book but acknowledges that “[p]erhaps this is explained by the intention to speak to a broad audience. And some unclarity is also inevitable in a work like this, given its ambitions, and that can indeed be a virtue rather than a defect.” To illustrate his point he uses this passage from the essay “Human Reality”:
what do we mean when we say that nonhuman organisms conceive of other kinds of world? If we cannot ourselves conceive of any other kind of world except what we are allowed by our design, how can we make a comment on what different-designed animals conceive of? As Chomsky suggests, Nagel’s question, “What is it like to be a bat?”, does not seem to have an answer; hence, the question could be meaningless. (pg. 17)
Let’s call Nagel’s question Q-N. Treanor finds “this passage puzzling, and puzzling because it was just unclear to me what was being said”.
What does Mukherji (or Chomsky, for that matter) mean in saying that Nagel’s question doesn’t seem to have an answer? Is it that the question seems to have no answer at all? Or no answer that humans can understand?
Is the idea Mukherji is driving at that the question doesn’t have an answer, understood as a kind of semantic item akin to a sentence or proposition?
Or is it rather that there is nothing it is like to be a bat, propositional or otherwise?
Although (2) is an interesting suggestion (as might have been the case if Q-N was a meaningful question – but, say a case of category error of associating “like to be” with “a bat”) I think, Mukherji subscribes to (1). Chomsky writes that
Many questions that puzzle people have an interrogative form, but it’s not clear what the question is. Take “What is it like to be a bat?” – Nagel’s (1974) question. It has an interrogative form but is it a question? If it’s a question, there have to be some possible answers to it. In fact, in formal semantics, it’s common to propose that the meaning of a question is the set of propositions that are possible answers to it. Maybe that’s too strong, but at least it’s some kind of condition of the meaning. Suppose there are no possible answers – is it a question? What’s a possible answer to “What’s it like to be me?” I can’t think of a possible answer; so is it a question? Or maybe the question is something like, “How do things work?” which has an interrogative form but is not really a question.
McGilvray: It’s precisely that kind of question – if you can call it a question – that exercises philosophers.
Chomsky: It does, but the first thing they’ve got to do is turn them into meaningful questions. (Chomsky and McGilvray, Science of Language. pg 98)
For Chomsky (also Mukherji and many others) an interrogative sentence doesn’t necessarily form a meaningful question – just as a sentence like “colorless green ideas sleep furiously” doesn’t form a meaningful sentence. The formal semantics approach to the meaning of a question might be too strong but even in a weaker form, any possibility of finding an answer is a necessary condition for the interrogative to be a meaningful question. And what makes Q-N meaningless is the vagueness of the interrogative, which to me is almost of the quality as “How do things work?” And it is in this context of a discussion of vagueness the first quote from Mukherji appears in the essay.
For Chomsky, such meaningless interrogatives can (at least sometimes) be turned into meaningful questions. For example, if we ask another question,
Q-S: Is there a systemic difference between the visual perception realized by the same stimuli in two different species?
This, I believe, Chomsky would find a meaningful question and will even answer the question in affirmative. As in case of conceptual differences between humans and rats – the latter with their lack of cognitive bases for the concept of prime numbers cannot solve the maze with prime numbers.
But even the amalgam of all sensory perceptions (and emotions) doesn’t capture what is in natural language is meant by the phrase “like to be”. Cases of being “like” an inanimate object further complicates the issue. As long as there is no clear definition of this phrase and what is it like to be me or Chomsky or Nagel there is no hope to even guess what is it like to be a bat – because we do not know what to guess in the first place.
These are some comments on Rachael L. Brown’s paper, which is a criticism of Eric Margolis and Laurence’s view of nativism. Brown claims that Margolis et al. base their support for nativism (here meaning to be domain-specificity of inputs and process mechanisms) on the argument from animals (i.e. there is sufficient evidence to believe animals have domain-specific learning systems, humans are animals hence we must have domain-specific learning systems.) And tries to show that this is the only possible argument for nativism or modularity. This is not true.
Neither Margolis et al. in their paper base nativism solely on animal evidence but, focus also, on Poverty of Stimulus; nor in the nativist literature is the main argument based on animal evidence. Even those who argue for domain-specific cognitive systems in humans with assistance of non-human animal data do so in a limited way and do not “infer” the value of nativism from it. For example, C.R. Gallistel states that, “”it is not to argue that an account of cognitive development should use animal models of learning. Rather, it is to take advantage of developments in this area that provide insights into the question of how to characterize cognitive development.” (“Lessons from animal learning for the study of cognitive development”)
Brown does try to argue that there are not enough “developments in this area” to take insights from. But provides only references to “recent empirical advances” supporting associationist domain-general characterization, while admitting these are only partial support to discard nativism in animal learning. The section on inferences from the phylogenetic tree, while being interesting in its own right does not strengthen the empiricist argument because most nativist formulations do not use this kind of inferences (see Gallistel’s paper).
So, if nativism does not require argument from animals, what gives it support? As pointed out above, Poverty of Stimulus can support some formulation of domain-specificity of inputs and processes. The evidence also comes from exceptional cases of language learning and use, notably Neil Smith’s work Christopher, a polyglot savant.
Brown’s paper is important for pointing out the challenges with phylogenetic inferences and the possibility of arguments for domain-general explanations of birdsongs and filial imprinting. But, I believe it fails to establish how her case, as nativism is not dependent on factors she is focusing on.
