On The Margins

Wednesday October 05, 2005

[ Philosophy ] Chomsky and Dreyfus

My understanding of Noam Chomsky's work, or at least the essence of it, relates to his pursuit of one central question: Given the "poverty" of linguistic experience a child has, how is it possible for it to learn so much about the language he or she masters? To make his point, Chomsky gives examples of sentences which we have not heard before with grammatical subtlties that we have never been taught before—and yet, we can understand these sentences, and our sense of these sentences agree with the corresponding subtle grammatical points.

Chomsky concludes that we must have some innate faculties, which are tuned by the little experience we have for a particular purpose—in this case the mastery of a particular human language. He then explores whether the same mechanisms are involved in other sorts of mental faculties.

Of course, Chomsky is also interested in the syntactic structure of spoken language, but I don't think he believes that the child actually learns the rules. In fact, what drives his research is the fact that these rules cannot often be articulated by speakers, all of whom agree about the logical sense of a particular sentence. In a sense, and in accord with Hubert Dreyfus' wishes in his American Philosophical Association Pacific Division Presidential Address, Chomsky fits among the analytical philosophers who try to connect the foundation of perception with the higher, abstract modes of conception.

The question remains whether Chomsky believes the perceiving individual needs to grasp (i.e. think in the terms of) the higher level concepts in order to be able to cope with the world of language. It is this question, along with Chomsky's emphasis on logic and his early inspiration from Quine, that might set him widely apart from Dreyfus.

I would love to see Chomsky and Dreyfus to lead a seminar together, or at least their works to be presented side-by-side. The debates, the varying perspectives and concerns should lead to a great dialogue.

Note: A comment by Robin Wilton on my last post has led me to write this bit about the variation between Chomsky's and Dreyfus' takes on what it means to learn. I think there's a lot more to say about how the work and practice of these two American philosophers differ.

2005-10-05 06:11:32.0 -- Comments [1] ; Permalink ; Trackback.
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Tuesday October 04, 2005

[ Philosophy ] Perception vs. Conception

In his 2005 presidential address to the American Philosophical Association, Hubert Dreyfus draws on a large number of sources to clarify the distinction between perception and conception.

We're in the world primarily as perceiving bodies.

Dreyfus suggests further research needs to be conducted both by the analytical philosophers and the phenomenologists in order to better disclose how conceptual thinking arises from coping action and perceptual experience.

Given the availability of rich descriptions of perceptual affordances and of everyday know-how, however, couldn’t analytic philosophers profit from pursuing the question of how these nonconceptual capacities are converted into conceptual ones — how minds grow out of being-in-the-world — rather than denying the existence of the nonconceptual?

To demonstrate the subtlties of this question, he reviews how experts become experts, and what it means to act expertly. (See section IV of his APA presidential address.)

While infants acquire skills by imitation and trial and error, in our formal instruction we start with rules. The rules, however, seem to give way to more flexible responses as we become skilled. We should therefore be suspicious of the cognitivist assumption that, as we become experts, our rules become unconscious. Indeed, our experience suggests that rules are like training wheels. We may need such aids when learning to ride a bicycle, but we must eventually set them aside if we are to become skilled cyclists. To assume that the rules we once consciously followed become unconscious is like assuming that, when we finally learn to ride a bike, the training wheels that were required for us to be able to ride in the first place must have become invisible. The actual phenomenon suggests that to become experts we must switch from detached rule-following to a more involved and situation-specific way of coping.

Indeed, if learners feel that they can act only if they have reasons to guide them, this attitude will stunt their skill acquisition.

2005-10-04 22:40:34.0 -- Comments [3] ; Permalink ; Trackback.
conception freedom perception philosophy

Monday September 26, 2005

[ Philosophy ] The Freedom We Have

People hardly ever make use of the freedom which they have, for example, freedom of thought; instead they demand freedom of speech as compensation. Søren Kierkegaard

2005-09-26 23:14:22.0 -- Comments [0] ; Permalink ; Trackback.
existential freedom individual philosophy