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Lesson 5
Rationalists/Nativists claim
Some (or all) knowledge is independent of our sensory experience. We must innately be endowed with such knowledge
Empiricists claim
All knowledge must ultimately be derived from our sensory experience
Nativism roots
Greek philosophy, Plato
Meno, Plato (427-347 B.C.)
Asked how it is possible that humans know so many things they do not know they know
Plato's answer to "Meno"
All knowledge is already present unconsciously in our souls
What does it mean for knowledge to be "innate"?
It is inborn and carried over from previous existence
According to Plato, how do we gain conscious knowledge?
Through anamnesis (recollection)
How did Socrates prove Plato's view in the dialogue
He questions an uneducated child and shows that he understands complex theorems of geometry even though the child did not realize he had the knowledge. The questioning helped the boy recollect the innate but forgotten knowledge
How is it possible that native speakers come to know things about their language in conditions of sparse evidence
Knowledge is innate
Native speakers know things about their language which:
they have never been taught and they have never experienced
Rationalism in the 18th century
Philosophers Rene Descartes (The Mediations) and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (A Discourse on Metaphysics) argued for a Rationalist form of Nativism
What Did Rene and Gottfried argue?
Argued that humans have knowledge of concept that are not available to human sensory experience (concepts of God, infinity, and necessary truth)
Rationalism view
Humans are endowed by God with a rational soul which is equipped with certain innate ideas
Any human's sensory experience is only:
partial and contingent
According to Rationalists:
knowledge is necessary and universal
Who proposed the first idea of innate language?
Rationalists
Universal Grammar
language involved innate universal ideas and principles
Empiricism (response to Rationalism)
Ideas either come directly from sensory, our experience, or are derived from experience using general cognitive abilities such as abstraction, analogy, and definition
What did John Locke question in "An Essay Concerning Human Understanding"?
universal concepts
What did Empiricists question?
The possible origin of innate concepts
Locke argued that Nativism could or could not possible be true?
could not
Locke's Empiricist theory of acquisition of knowledge
All knowledge is based in experience
At birth the human mind is a blank slate (tabula rasa) on which experience writes
Our sensed are the origin for all concepts, ideas, and beliefs
For Empiricists, there must be something:
built into the mind that abstracts, analogies, or defines
Behaviorism
a development of empiricist ideas in the early to mid-twentieth century
Leading scholar in Behaviorist movement
B.F. Skinner (1904-1990)
According to Skinner:
the mind is not observable so we should avoid talking about ideas and instead should stick with observable behavior
In Behaviorism, all learning can be boiled down to:
how behavioral responses to stimulus can be modified by reinforcement/punishment
Skinner applied his ideas to what book?
Verbal Behavior 1957
What did Skinner argue?
Children learn languages by receiving reinforcement for producing the right word or sentence in the right context
Progressive approximation (Skinner)
Over time, through reinforcement, children's language becomes better and more accurate
Modern Empiricism, name
Connectionism
Connectionism argues that:
human cognitive processes can be adequately modeled with artificial neural networks, modeled on the workings of neurons
Neural network
has a layer of input nodes, a layer of output nodes, and connections between them that may be mediated by layers of hidden nodes
Network set up for facial recognition
input nodes might detect facial features and the output nodes might be the identities of individuals
Noam Chomsky argues that:
innate knowledge is required to acquire a human language
Cartesian Linguistics (Chomsky)
reintroduced Universal Grammar
Universal Grammar, according to Chomsky
an innate body of prespecified, domain-specific knowledge about human language
Not placed by God, but an inherent part of human biology, specified in human genetics
Language Acquisition Device (LAD)
constrains the course and outcome of language acquisition, equipped by UG
Consequences of Nativist view
Parents do not teach their children language (in the usual sense of explicit teaching) and children successfully acquire language because they posses UG and LAD
Do modern Nativists acknowledge that experience plays a crucial role in acquiring knowledge?
yes
Modern nativism in the case of language
you need unput from the environment to know which language you are acquiring. Experience determines the specific grammatical settings of your language and you learn particular words of you language from experience
What are the two schools of thought on how humans acquire knowledge that the study of language has been influenced by?
Nativism and Empiricism
What does Empiricism emphasize?
The role of the environment and experience, suggesting only general cognitive abilities are required for learning
What does Nativism emphasize?
The innate and domain-specific knowledge that humans bring to the task of acquiring language
Modern nativists furthermore acknowledge:
The important role experience plays in language acquisition
For Chomsky, Universal Grammar is:
the theory of the innate knowledge of language specified in human biology
Innate knowledge
the idea that some knowledge and ideas are present in the mind at birth
The opposite idea of innate knowledge, that all knowledge comes from experience
Empircism
