The practice of pointing by infants raises some interesting questions about the psychological foundations upon which human communicational and linguistic capacities are built.
As explained in an article cited in the comments section of the previous post, young children routinely point to direct the attention of a nearby adult to something the infant finds interesting and apparently wishes the adult to see and appreciate also.
When an infant doesn't start pointing by the appropriate age (about 12 months), it's often a sign that they don't have an intuitive sense of other minds – and also of linguistic problems ahead. (I originally came across discussions of this phenomenon in material on identifying the early signs of autism.)
The article referred to above draws on papers by Michael Tomasello and his colleagues which explore the phenomenon of infant pointing and associated behaviors. Tomasello and his fellow researchers argue for "a deeply social view [of the process] in which infant pointing is best understood – on many levels and in many ways – as depending on uniquely human skills and motivations for cooperation and shared intentionality (e.g., joint intentions and attention with others). Children's early linguistic skills are built on this already existing platform of prelinguistic communication."
The researchers note that the kind of pointing they discuss is unique to humans and depends on certain key insights about the existence and nature of other minds as well as emotional factors – essentially a desire to share one's perceptions and to share in the perceptions of others.
A cursory reading of sources cited in the Slate article and related material suggests to me that Tomasello and his colleagues may well be overplaying their intuitions about sharing in their claims about the origins and development of human communication and language.
Of course, emotional factors cannot be ignored, but could not these elements be explained in terms of cognitive imperatives and the practical benefits of collaboration and reliable information transfer?
György Gergely and Gergely Csibra explicitly challenge Tomasello's views on the centrality of the emotions associated with shared intentionality and focus instead on the communication mechanisms necessary to ensure efficient cultural learning.
A crucial point relates to the efficacy of the highlighted emotions. Tomasello and his colleagues posit the desire to share emotional states as a key explanatory factor rather than merely as one element in a diverse suite of human abilities and behaviors.
But I am nowhere near having a sufficiently strong grasp of the material to take sides in this dispute.
It is clear that the same (or similar) perceptions and feelings which apparently motivate gestural communication – however we might characterize them – certainly do seem, in normal infants, also to motivate and facilitate the child's rapid and apparently easy acquisition of whatever language or languages they are routinely exposed to.
Significantly, though, the complexities of language can be learned (albeit often with some difficulty) even by those who lack a strong intuitive sense of other minds.
It's certainly plausible that the historical development both of prelinguistic modes of communication (like pointing) and language amongst our ancestors was dependent upon (amongst other things) certain empathetic perceptions and feelings. But, of course, the cognitive and affective factors involved are in practice always inextricably linked, sometimes in very complicated ways.
In his work on autism, Simon Baron-Cohen distinguishes between the cognitive and affective aspects of empathy. Cognitive empathy is all about what we perceive and understand about the mental states of others, whereas affective empathy concerns our emotional responses to this knowledge. Strength or appropriate responses in one area does not necessarily entail strength or appropriate responses in the other.
For example, the autistic person typically scores poorly on tests of cognitive empathy (e.g. reading particular emotions in pictures of faces cropped to reveal little more than the eyes), but often exhibits appropriate affective responses (e.g. to perceived suffering). By contrast, the psychopath typically has no problem at all with cognitive empathy (or language, for that matter), but displays deficiencies in terms of affective response.
Speculations about the way language evolved will necessarily draw on the findings of cognitive and developmental psychology as well as other areas. But, while it is reasonable to assume that affective responses played a role in the development of language, I have some doubts about the way Tomasello and his colleagues present the basic issues and about some of their key claims.
Also, as someone with a background in formal approaches to language and syntax, I am naturally wary of approaches which downplay the significance of this side of things. I was unimpressed, for example, by the comments by one of Tomasello's co-researchers, Malinda Carpenter, quoted in the Slate article.
The fact that pointing seems to call on a sophisticated understanding of what is going on in the heads of other people, she noted, "suggests that [infants] can do so much more with pointing prelinguistically than we ever thought before."
Until recently, people thought that this sort of knowledge only emerged with language. But when Carpenter, who was drawn to this work through an initial interest in language, started looking at prelinguistic gestures, her perspective changed.
"[E]verything’s already there!" she said. "I completely lost interest in language because you can see so much complexity already in infants' gestures."
It depends on what you mean by 'everything', I suppose, but I would have thought that language adds a little something to the mix.
Thursday, July 25, 2013
Monday, July 8, 2013
A science of language?
A large part of the fascination which language holds for many is that it is one of the key markers of our humanity. Language is at the heart of human culture and human consciousness. Tense and aspect mark our sense of time, grammatical mood our sense of possibility, personal and possessive pronouns our very sense of identity and how we see ourselves as relating to other people and things.
Partly because language is an inextricable and defining part of us – and at once social and individual – it is impossible to clearly define a science of language in the way most other sciences can be defined.
To what extent should the study of language be subsumed into psychology and neuroscience? Language is behaviour, and the human language faculty can only be said to be understood to the extent that the neurological processes which drive it are known.
On the other hand, language is also a cultural object which can be studied in its own right, both structurally and historically.
It's hardly surprising, then, that, since its rise to prominence in the 19th and 20th centuries, linguistics has, as sciences go, been unusually riven by competing frameworks and approaches, and these divisions have, if anything, increased over time. (Though I sometimes wonder how different things might have been if the later-20th century's most prominent linguist had not been such a relentless intellectual warrier and contrarian!)
Ultimately, the divisions between the sciences are merely for practical and administrative purposes: the quality – and worthwhileness – of research is not generally determined by discipline-specific but rather by more general criteria.
But I don't want to get into an abstract discussion about the unity of science or related matters. I really just wanted to make the point that language represents not so much a subject area as a number of interrelated subject areas. And, because the phenomenon of language can be approached from very different directions, it is difficult, if not impossible, to pull all these perspectives – and the knowledge implicit in them – together.
Perhaps, then, the best we can do is to focus on specific questions which may happen to relate to language in one way or another and to renounce as unrealistic the desire for a comprehensive understanding of the phenomenon of language per se.
I'll finish by mentioning a couple of language-related topics which I have been thinking about lately.
Last month I referred to the ideas of Simon Fisher and Matt Ridley on culture-driven gene evolution. The work of Fisher and others has shown that the FOXP2 gene has a crucial role to play in human linguistic abilities. The gene occurs in other species in slightly different forms and it plays various roles. Interestingly, it has been shown to play a key role in vocal expression in both birds (canaries and finches) and chimpanzees as well as in humans. Neanderthals are now believed to have had exactly the same form of the FOXP2 gene as modern humans.
I can't help thinking that the question of the origin of language retains its fascination in part because it promises to reveal something important about who we are and where we came from.
This is, I think, largely an illusion based on the idea that the abrupt discontinuity we see between ourselves and our nearest relatives (chimpanzees) always was. But intermediate forms did exist (until relatively recently, in fact).
In practice, I think we tend to assume, consciously or unconsciously, that our species has an essence.
It hasn't. Nonetheless, the development of human language as we know it does mark a clear historical and cultural discontinuity.
On a more practical note, I have also been thinking about the reputed benefits of bilingualism. It has been claimed, for instance, that bilingualism can delay the onset of the symptoms of Alzheimer's disease by about five years. I have some reservations about the significance of these claims. More another time.
Partly because language is an inextricable and defining part of us – and at once social and individual – it is impossible to clearly define a science of language in the way most other sciences can be defined.
To what extent should the study of language be subsumed into psychology and neuroscience? Language is behaviour, and the human language faculty can only be said to be understood to the extent that the neurological processes which drive it are known.
On the other hand, language is also a cultural object which can be studied in its own right, both structurally and historically.
It's hardly surprising, then, that, since its rise to prominence in the 19th and 20th centuries, linguistics has, as sciences go, been unusually riven by competing frameworks and approaches, and these divisions have, if anything, increased over time. (Though I sometimes wonder how different things might have been if the later-20th century's most prominent linguist had not been such a relentless intellectual warrier and contrarian!)
Ultimately, the divisions between the sciences are merely for practical and administrative purposes: the quality – and worthwhileness – of research is not generally determined by discipline-specific but rather by more general criteria.
But I don't want to get into an abstract discussion about the unity of science or related matters. I really just wanted to make the point that language represents not so much a subject area as a number of interrelated subject areas. And, because the phenomenon of language can be approached from very different directions, it is difficult, if not impossible, to pull all these perspectives – and the knowledge implicit in them – together.
Perhaps, then, the best we can do is to focus on specific questions which may happen to relate to language in one way or another and to renounce as unrealistic the desire for a comprehensive understanding of the phenomenon of language per se.
I'll finish by mentioning a couple of language-related topics which I have been thinking about lately.
Last month I referred to the ideas of Simon Fisher and Matt Ridley on culture-driven gene evolution. The work of Fisher and others has shown that the FOXP2 gene has a crucial role to play in human linguistic abilities. The gene occurs in other species in slightly different forms and it plays various roles. Interestingly, it has been shown to play a key role in vocal expression in both birds (canaries and finches) and chimpanzees as well as in humans. Neanderthals are now believed to have had exactly the same form of the FOXP2 gene as modern humans.
I can't help thinking that the question of the origin of language retains its fascination in part because it promises to reveal something important about who we are and where we came from.
This is, I think, largely an illusion based on the idea that the abrupt discontinuity we see between ourselves and our nearest relatives (chimpanzees) always was. But intermediate forms did exist (until relatively recently, in fact).
In practice, I think we tend to assume, consciously or unconsciously, that our species has an essence.
It hasn't. Nonetheless, the development of human language as we know it does mark a clear historical and cultural discontinuity.
On a more practical note, I have also been thinking about the reputed benefits of bilingualism. It has been claimed, for instance, that bilingualism can delay the onset of the symptoms of Alzheimer's disease by about five years. I have some reservations about the significance of these claims. More another time.
Monday, June 17, 2013
The adjective not the noun
I – and others – have been reflecting lately on the concept of political conservatism, and these reflections have prompted some inchoate – and totally non-partisan – meta-thoughts on the problems of political ideology which I have set out below.
One assumption behind most reflections on conservatism (or on any political ideology) is that it is desirable to have a consciously worked out (personal) political philosophy. And the assumption behind this is that it is possible somehow to assess alternatives in a rational manner and arrive at a satisfactory conclusion. This latter assumption – on which the value of the whole exercise depends – I am beginning to doubt.
When you reflect on these matters, you have to start somewhere. And where you start will be somewhat arbitrary, though it may well be in part determined by your values.
For example, you may want to maximize equality; or you may be more concerned with individual freedom; or order, or one of any number of other ideals or goals.
My starting point – reflecting perhaps the importance I place on a scientific view of the world free of metaphysical and religious baggage – would be the social nature of human identity.
Even those who think they have totally rejected the idea of a soul still cling, I believe, to a version of this idea. It is a natural belief for us to have, and I still feel it in myself.
Take this simple thought experiment. A human body could, presumably, be grown in a laboratory, nourished and exercised to develop muscles, etc. But, if it were deprived of all normal social interactions, linguistic and other cultural input, the brain would not develop normally and this body, though apparently perfectly formed and healthy, would not, as a result, constitute a person. It would not have a human identity, or human awareness. What rights would it have, if any?
This idea of a living human body with a radically undeveloped brain (due to the withholding of social inputs during development) is – to me at any rate – slightly shocking and confronting. It tells us something about ourselves: that our sense of self, our human identity comes just as much from without – from a particular social and cultural milieu – as from within. The social matrix within which we grow is an essential component of our individuality and our very humanity. We never were and can never be 'self-contained'.
This fact has implications for any social or political philosophy. I won't try to spell out the implications here, except to say that such a view is fatal for all forms of atomistic individualism.
Values, as well as often determining the starting-point for one's basic thinking about politics, also play a part in determining the direction of the argument. And this basic notion of the social self could clearly be developed in either a progressive or a conservative direction. The choice seems to depend on taste or predilection.
Which leads me to wonder whether developing such thoughts and arguments is worthwhile (other than for polemical or similar purposes).
Moral, social and political reflections and arguments move in a linear fashion like language. In fact, the thoughts only really crystallize when spoken or written down. But, clearly, this linear process does not do justice to our deepest values which are multidimensional. Arguably, such a process cannot represent our values accurately, much less enable us to assess or justify them.
We can, of course, describe, catalogue and consider the various political outlooks which others have elaborated and defined, seeing them as more or less internally consistent and competing frameworks. But, unfortunately, all these frameworks are – necessarily – highly simplified conceptual structures which are inadequate not only as models for how the (social and political) world works (or could work), but also as representations of the actual political beliefs and values of individuals and groups.
They are arguably post hoc rationalizations, and their main function, you could say, is to faciltate the formation of, and deepen solidarity within, social and political groupings. Part marketing tool, part reinforcement mechanism.
What I am saying essentially is that such frameworks are inevitably inadequate as serious belief systems.
But, though the various –isms are no good, the adjectives from which they derive do real and important work. So I think one can still usefully talk about conservative approaches to social, political and other questions, and distinguish them from, for example, liberal (or progressive) approaches.
Increasingly I see these matters in terms of individuals having – due mainly to various genetic and developmental factors – different psychological profiles and personality traits. These differences can, of course, be mapped and defined in different ways, but something like a conservative/progressive or conservative/radical contrast will, I think, continue to be a feature of models of human personality and cognition.
One assumption behind most reflections on conservatism (or on any political ideology) is that it is desirable to have a consciously worked out (personal) political philosophy. And the assumption behind this is that it is possible somehow to assess alternatives in a rational manner and arrive at a satisfactory conclusion. This latter assumption – on which the value of the whole exercise depends – I am beginning to doubt.
When you reflect on these matters, you have to start somewhere. And where you start will be somewhat arbitrary, though it may well be in part determined by your values.
For example, you may want to maximize equality; or you may be more concerned with individual freedom; or order, or one of any number of other ideals or goals.
My starting point – reflecting perhaps the importance I place on a scientific view of the world free of metaphysical and religious baggage – would be the social nature of human identity.
Even those who think they have totally rejected the idea of a soul still cling, I believe, to a version of this idea. It is a natural belief for us to have, and I still feel it in myself.
Take this simple thought experiment. A human body could, presumably, be grown in a laboratory, nourished and exercised to develop muscles, etc. But, if it were deprived of all normal social interactions, linguistic and other cultural input, the brain would not develop normally and this body, though apparently perfectly formed and healthy, would not, as a result, constitute a person. It would not have a human identity, or human awareness. What rights would it have, if any?
This idea of a living human body with a radically undeveloped brain (due to the withholding of social inputs during development) is – to me at any rate – slightly shocking and confronting. It tells us something about ourselves: that our sense of self, our human identity comes just as much from without – from a particular social and cultural milieu – as from within. The social matrix within which we grow is an essential component of our individuality and our very humanity. We never were and can never be 'self-contained'.
This fact has implications for any social or political philosophy. I won't try to spell out the implications here, except to say that such a view is fatal for all forms of atomistic individualism.
Values, as well as often determining the starting-point for one's basic thinking about politics, also play a part in determining the direction of the argument. And this basic notion of the social self could clearly be developed in either a progressive or a conservative direction. The choice seems to depend on taste or predilection.
Which leads me to wonder whether developing such thoughts and arguments is worthwhile (other than for polemical or similar purposes).
Moral, social and political reflections and arguments move in a linear fashion like language. In fact, the thoughts only really crystallize when spoken or written down. But, clearly, this linear process does not do justice to our deepest values which are multidimensional. Arguably, such a process cannot represent our values accurately, much less enable us to assess or justify them.
We can, of course, describe, catalogue and consider the various political outlooks which others have elaborated and defined, seeing them as more or less internally consistent and competing frameworks. But, unfortunately, all these frameworks are – necessarily – highly simplified conceptual structures which are inadequate not only as models for how the (social and political) world works (or could work), but also as representations of the actual political beliefs and values of individuals and groups.
They are arguably post hoc rationalizations, and their main function, you could say, is to faciltate the formation of, and deepen solidarity within, social and political groupings. Part marketing tool, part reinforcement mechanism.
What I am saying essentially is that such frameworks are inevitably inadequate as serious belief systems.
But, though the various –isms are no good, the adjectives from which they derive do real and important work. So I think one can still usefully talk about conservative approaches to social, political and other questions, and distinguish them from, for example, liberal (or progressive) approaches.
Increasingly I see these matters in terms of individuals having – due mainly to various genetic and developmental factors – different psychological profiles and personality traits. These differences can, of course, be mapped and defined in different ways, but something like a conservative/progressive or conservative/radical contrast will, I think, continue to be a feature of models of human personality and cognition.
Wednesday, June 5, 2013
Necessary freedom
The mathematician G.H. Hardy – most famous amongst the general public for his having 'discovered' the self-taught prodigy Ramanujan – said that the only other career that might have suited him was journalism.
When I first read this it surprised me, even bearing in mind the fact that journalism in early 20th-century England was very different from journalism today.
Clearly Hardy could write – his short book, A Mathematician's Apology, is a minor classic. But it's very clear from that essay that his identity was inextricably bound up with being a mathematician, and nothing else.
Late in life he attempted suicide, not just because of the general effects of failing health but also – and perhaps mainly – because his mathematical powers had deserted him.
Rather depressingly, he claimed (in his Apology) that most people don't have any significant talent for anything. But "[i]f a man has any genuine talent he should be ready to make almost any sacrifice in order to cultivate it to the full." Anyone, he asserted, who sets out to justify his existence and his activities has only one real defense. And that is to say, “I do what I do because it is the one and only thing that I can do at all well."
Why did he mention journalism, I wonder? It's particularly puzzling because journalism is so utterly different from mathematics generally – and especially from Hardy's style of doing and thinking about mathematics with its focus on timeless beauty.
This is in addition to the fact that mathematics is normally associated with the sciences. So, naïvely, I would expect a mathematician to say that, had he not pursued mathematics as a career, he might have become a scientist or engineer of some kind, for example.
But Hardy, though he was attracted to biology in his youth, exhibited in his adult life no great interest in or high regard for science, and he had a quite negative attitude to applied science. He prided himself on the fact (as he saw it) that his work had no practical applications.
And he disliked new technologies. He had a telephone installed in his house which he ostentatiously avoided using: it was for the use of any guests who fancied that kind of thing.
By journalism Hardy certainly didn't mean writing about scientific (or mathematical) subjects for a general audience. He meant, presumably, mainstream journalism. And my guess is that he was attracted to it for three basic reasons.
Firstly, he recognized that he had a second talent, a gift for writing – and writing with style and wit and conciseness. (He was famous amongst his friends for his postcards.)
Secondly, though scornful of politicians, he did have an interest in politics and was active in a pacifist organization, the Union of Democratic Control, during World War 1. Significantly, one of the leading and most impressive figures involved in this organization was the French-born journalist E.D. Morel.
And last but not least, I suspect that Hardy saw in the lifestyle associated with journalism (as in the academic lifestyle of the time) a kind of freedom which for a certain kind of person is not just desirable but necessary.
Saturday, June 1, 2013
Cultural innovation, genes, and the origin of language
Simon Fisher and Matt Ridley have argued, mainly on the basis of new DNA sequencing data, that cultural factors were far more significant in driving genetic changes in the evolutionary history of our species – such as those that led to the development of language – than was previously thought.
"The common assumption is that the emergence of behaviorally modern humans [sometime] after 200,000 years ago required – and followed – a specific biological change triggered by one or more genetic mutations."
But the "prevailing logic in the field may put the cart before the horse. The discovery of any genetic mutation that coincided with the 'human revolution' must take care to distinguish cause from effect. Supposedly momentous changes in our genome may sometimes be a consequence of cultural innovation. They may be products of culture-driven gene evolution."
Fisher and Ridley quote obvious, uncontroversial examples where culture has driven genetic change – like lactase persistence amongst dairy-farming communities, and alcohol-tolerance amongst Europeans (who generally drank more alcohol than Asians, for example).
The question of language origins is much more complex, of course, but there is mounting evidence – relating, for example, to variations in the FOXP2 gene in humans and other species – that cultural factors were the drivers of change.
FOXP2 is known to play an important role in human language abilities, but, in considering the roles of FOXP2 in human evolution, it is important to recognize that it has a deep evolutionary history.
"Animal studies indicate ancient conserved roles of this gene in patterning and plasticity of neural circuits, including those involved in integrating incoming sensory information with outgoing motor behaviors. The gene has been linked to acquisition of motor skills in mice and to auditory-guided learning of vocal repertoires in songbirds. Contributions of FOXP2 to human spoken language must have built on such ancestral functions.
"Indeed, further data from mouse models suggest that humanization of the FOXP2 protein may have altered the properties of some of the circuits in which it is expressed, perhaps those closely tied to movement sequencing and/or vocal learning.
"Given these findings, it seems unlikely that FOXP2 triggered the appearance of spoken language in a nonspeaking ancestor. It is more plausible that altered versions of this gene were able to spread through the populations in which they arose because the species was already using a communication system requiring high fidelity and high variety. If, for instance, humanized FOXP2 confers more sophisticated control of vocal sequences, this would most benefit an animal already capable of speech. Alternatively, the spread of the relevant changes may have had nothing to do with emergence of spoken language, but may have conferred selective advantages in another domain.
"FOXP2 is not the only gene associated with the human revolution. However, it illustrates that when an evolutionary mutation is identified as crucial to the human capacity for cumulative culture, this might be a consequence rather than a cause of cultural change. The smallest, most trivial new habit adopted by a hominid species could – if advantageous – have led to selection of genomic variations that sharpened that habit, be it cultural exchange, creativity, technological virtuosity, or heightened empathy.
"This viewpoint is in line with recent understanding of the human revolution as a gradual but accelerating process, in which features of behaviorally modern human beings came together piecemeal in Africa over many tens of thousands of years."
The accumulating evidence alluded to by Fisher and Ridley certainly makes Noam Chomsky's suggestion that language appeared all of a sudden and was the direct result of a genetic mutation look naïve and implausible.
But it also challenges the more mainsteam approaches still favored by many linguists who (influenced, like Chomsky, by traditional rationalism) see the human language faculty in absolute and ahistorical terms.
Descartes saw "la raison" [reason] as being "toute entière en un chacun" [entirely and equally present in each of us], and many linguists still see language in a similar – and strangely metaphysical – way.
"The common assumption is that the emergence of behaviorally modern humans [sometime] after 200,000 years ago required – and followed – a specific biological change triggered by one or more genetic mutations."
But the "prevailing logic in the field may put the cart before the horse. The discovery of any genetic mutation that coincided with the 'human revolution' must take care to distinguish cause from effect. Supposedly momentous changes in our genome may sometimes be a consequence of cultural innovation. They may be products of culture-driven gene evolution."
Fisher and Ridley quote obvious, uncontroversial examples where culture has driven genetic change – like lactase persistence amongst dairy-farming communities, and alcohol-tolerance amongst Europeans (who generally drank more alcohol than Asians, for example).
The question of language origins is much more complex, of course, but there is mounting evidence – relating, for example, to variations in the FOXP2 gene in humans and other species – that cultural factors were the drivers of change.
FOXP2 is known to play an important role in human language abilities, but, in considering the roles of FOXP2 in human evolution, it is important to recognize that it has a deep evolutionary history.
"Animal studies indicate ancient conserved roles of this gene in patterning and plasticity of neural circuits, including those involved in integrating incoming sensory information with outgoing motor behaviors. The gene has been linked to acquisition of motor skills in mice and to auditory-guided learning of vocal repertoires in songbirds. Contributions of FOXP2 to human spoken language must have built on such ancestral functions.
"Indeed, further data from mouse models suggest that humanization of the FOXP2 protein may have altered the properties of some of the circuits in which it is expressed, perhaps those closely tied to movement sequencing and/or vocal learning.
"Given these findings, it seems unlikely that FOXP2 triggered the appearance of spoken language in a nonspeaking ancestor. It is more plausible that altered versions of this gene were able to spread through the populations in which they arose because the species was already using a communication system requiring high fidelity and high variety. If, for instance, humanized FOXP2 confers more sophisticated control of vocal sequences, this would most benefit an animal already capable of speech. Alternatively, the spread of the relevant changes may have had nothing to do with emergence of spoken language, but may have conferred selective advantages in another domain.
"FOXP2 is not the only gene associated with the human revolution. However, it illustrates that when an evolutionary mutation is identified as crucial to the human capacity for cumulative culture, this might be a consequence rather than a cause of cultural change. The smallest, most trivial new habit adopted by a hominid species could – if advantageous – have led to selection of genomic variations that sharpened that habit, be it cultural exchange, creativity, technological virtuosity, or heightened empathy.
"This viewpoint is in line with recent understanding of the human revolution as a gradual but accelerating process, in which features of behaviorally modern human beings came together piecemeal in Africa over many tens of thousands of years."
The accumulating evidence alluded to by Fisher and Ridley certainly makes Noam Chomsky's suggestion that language appeared all of a sudden and was the direct result of a genetic mutation look naïve and implausible.
But it also challenges the more mainsteam approaches still favored by many linguists who (influenced, like Chomsky, by traditional rationalism) see the human language faculty in absolute and ahistorical terms.
Descartes saw "la raison" [reason] as being "toute entière en un chacun" [entirely and equally present in each of us], and many linguists still see language in a similar – and strangely metaphysical – way.
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
The view from Nagel-land
I said I would follow up on Thomas Nagel's views. The first twenty minutes or so* of the video inserted below is a talk in which Nagel summarizes and critiques his friend Ronald Dworkin's view of morality. Nagel speaks (as he writes) with great clarity and seriousness. (I realize that many will find the content a bit dry, but there is interest also in the style of delivery, in the very manner of the man. Ivy League and very 20th century!)
Dworkin wants ethics to be objective, and has a clever argument which appears to demonstrate that moral claims can indeed be seen as objectively true or false even within the context of a naturalistic world view.
Nagel – correctly in my view – sees our current naturalistic world view (he refers specifically to evolutionary theory) as being "difficult to square with" the objectivity of moral claims. But, as he is not willing – for moral reasons, apparently – to give up on the objectivity of right and wrong, he rejects the current naturalistic world view.
This last move is a grievous mistake, in my opinion. He is saying, in effect, that it would be just too awful if right and wrong did not have an objective basis – and so they do have an objective basis, and the scientists must have got things seriously wrong.
I respect Nagel's honesty and directness. He goes with his moral intuitions, but I would say that they take him out of the secular mainstream.
Nagel's move in this talk, by the way, needs to be seen in the context of his long-standing insistence that science, which aspires to an objective 'view from nowhere', is incomplete for it cannot encompass or explain the reality and the realities of the first-person point of view.
This idea is associated with (because it can be used to justify) what I see as the main problem with Nagel's thinking: that he lacks, and shows little interest in, scientific knowledge.
This may not matter for certain kinds of intellectual enquiry, but scientific issues (especially relating to evolutionary biology and physics) are crucial to many of the questions Nagel addresses.
In fact, his obvious (and self-confessed) lack of knowledge in these areas makes it difficult to take his reflections on human psychology or human evolutionary or cosmic history (most recently expressed in his book Mind and Cosmos) seriously.
I don't want to posit a simplistic contrast between scientifically-trained thinkers and those with little or no scientific training, however, and suggest that only the former are worth listening to. The scientifically trained can be just as stupid and irrational as anyone else.
But it does seem reasonable to expect anyone dealing in a serious way with questions pertaining to a particular area of science to have a thorough grounding in that area, or at least in a related area of science.
* The most interesting bit, in my opinion, starts at the 14:20 mark.
Dworkin wants ethics to be objective, and has a clever argument which appears to demonstrate that moral claims can indeed be seen as objectively true or false even within the context of a naturalistic world view.
Nagel – correctly in my view – sees our current naturalistic world view (he refers specifically to evolutionary theory) as being "difficult to square with" the objectivity of moral claims. But, as he is not willing – for moral reasons, apparently – to give up on the objectivity of right and wrong, he rejects the current naturalistic world view.
This last move is a grievous mistake, in my opinion. He is saying, in effect, that it would be just too awful if right and wrong did not have an objective basis – and so they do have an objective basis, and the scientists must have got things seriously wrong.
I respect Nagel's honesty and directness. He goes with his moral intuitions, but I would say that they take him out of the secular mainstream.
Nagel's move in this talk, by the way, needs to be seen in the context of his long-standing insistence that science, which aspires to an objective 'view from nowhere', is incomplete for it cannot encompass or explain the reality and the realities of the first-person point of view.
This idea is associated with (because it can be used to justify) what I see as the main problem with Nagel's thinking: that he lacks, and shows little interest in, scientific knowledge.
This may not matter for certain kinds of intellectual enquiry, but scientific issues (especially relating to evolutionary biology and physics) are crucial to many of the questions Nagel addresses.
In fact, his obvious (and self-confessed) lack of knowledge in these areas makes it difficult to take his reflections on human psychology or human evolutionary or cosmic history (most recently expressed in his book Mind and Cosmos) seriously.
I don't want to posit a simplistic contrast between scientifically-trained thinkers and those with little or no scientific training, however, and suggest that only the former are worth listening to. The scientifically trained can be just as stupid and irrational as anyone else.
But it does seem reasonable to expect anyone dealing in a serious way with questions pertaining to a particular area of science to have a thorough grounding in that area, or at least in a related area of science.
* The most interesting bit, in my opinion, starts at the 14:20 mark.
Thursday, May 2, 2013
David Albert on science
Having previously wondered out loud about and attempted to speculate on David Albert's general perspective on science and religion, I thought I would let him speak for himself. Okay, it's just a YouTube video and it's a few years old, but Albert is impressive and direct and concise. (This is the man Lawrence Krauss called 'moronic'.)
There are allusions to a silly film Albert got involved in which pushes all sorts of New Agey ideas and which he is seeking to distance himself from. What is particularly interesting (given all the fuss about his reliance on Templeton funding and so on) is that, far from coming across as sympathetic to a religious view of the world, Albert suggests that science, which is revealing a hard and mechanistic reality quite at odds with human desires and expectations, constitutes our best hope of getting at the truth of things.
[If you're pressed for time, I suggest you come in at the 10 minute mark.]
There are allusions to a silly film Albert got involved in which pushes all sorts of New Agey ideas and which he is seeking to distance himself from. What is particularly interesting (given all the fuss about his reliance on Templeton funding and so on) is that, far from coming across as sympathetic to a religious view of the world, Albert suggests that science, which is revealing a hard and mechanistic reality quite at odds with human desires and expectations, constitutes our best hope of getting at the truth of things.
[If you're pressed for time, I suggest you come in at the 10 minute mark.]
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