LING 1010: Language and Mind - Empiricism and Nativism

Empiricism vs. Nativism: Fundamental Views

  • Empiricism and Nativism are two historical philosophical views on knowledge acquisition impacting language study.

  • Empiricists assert all knowledge derives from sensory experience; the mind is a tabula rasa at birth.

  • Nativists (Rationalists) claim some or all knowledge is independent of sensory experience and is innately endowed.

Historical Roots of Nativism: Plato's Problem

  • Plato's Problem questions how humans possess tacit knowledge they aren't consciously aware of.

  • Plato posited knowledge is innate, present unconsciously in souls, and gained through anamnesis (recollection), as exemplified by Socrates' geometric questioning.

  • In linguistics, Plato's Problem asks how speakers know language aspects without explicit teaching or experience, suggesting innate knowledge.

17th Century Rationalism and Language

  • René Descartes and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz championed Rationalism, arguing for innate ideas (e.g., God, infinity) beyond sensory experience.

  • They proposed humans possess a rational soul with innate ideas, making knowledge necessary and universal, contrasting with partial sensory experience.

  • Rationalists, seeing human language creativity as unique and beyond experience, first suggested innate language and a Universal Grammar (UG).

Empiricism's Development: Locke and Behaviorism

  • John Locke countered Nativism, proposing all knowledge is based on experience, with the mind as a tabula rasa at birth.

  • Locke argued ideas come directly from sensory experience or are derived via general cognitive abilities such as abstraction, analogy, and definition.

  • Behaviorism (B.F. Skinner) extended Empiricism, focusing on observable behavior and language learning through reinforcement and punishment (progressive approximation).

Modern Perspectives: Connectionism and Chomsky's Universal Grammar

  • Connectionism represents modern Empiricism, modeling cognition with artificial neural networks that 'learn' by adjusting connection strengths based on input-output data.

  • Modern Nativism was revived by Noam Chomsky, who argued against Empiricist mechanisms for language acquisition, asserting