Nativism: Noam Chomsky

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Nativism Noam Chomsky
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John Locke (1632-1704) Essay Concerning Human
Understanding

• Since it is the understanding that sets man
  above the rest of sensible beings, and gives him
  all the advantage and dominion which he has on
  them it is certainly a subject even for its
  nobleness, worth our labour to inquire into..
• Introduction, p.26 (Dover publication)

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Chapter 1 No Innate Speculative Principles

• There is nothing more commonly taken for granted
  than that there are certain principlesuniversally
  agreed upon by all mankind which therefore,
  they argue, must needs be the constant
  impressions which the souls of men receive in
  their first beings, and which they bring into the
  world with them, as necessary and really as they
  do any of their inherent faculties..

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• ...It would be sufficient to convince
  unprejudiced readers of the falseness of this
  supposition, if I should only showhow men,
  barely by the use of their natural faculties, may
  attain to all knowledge they have, without the
  help of any innate impressions (p.37-38)

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The concept of Infinity- competing explanations

• A Rationalist claim (Descartes) would be that a
  finite and limited creature, such as a human, has
  no capacity to learn of infinity from his
  experiences in a finite environment. And since,
  being finite, he could not invent the idea of
  infinity, this idea has to be innate in him.
• Descartes claims God has given it to us at birth.
  

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• An Empiricist claim (Locke) would argue that we
  can indeed acquire the idea of infinity through
  experience one should add to a number the number
  1, for instance, and then add to it another 1,
  and another 1, and find out that there is no
  constraint on continuing adding. In this way one
  acquires the concept of Infinity.

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• Every one that has any idea of any stated
  lengths of space, as a foot, finds that he can
  repeat that idea and joining it to the former,
  make the idea of two feet and by the addition of
  a third, three feet and so on, without ever
  coming to an end of his additions (p.278).
• This is an empiricist explanation, which does not
  require presupposing innate knowledge.

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• This argument of universal consent, which is
  made use of to prove innate principles, seems to
  me a demonstration that there are none such
  because there are none to which all mankind give
  an universal assent (p.39).
• Take, as an example, the law of contradiction-
  the most basic rule of logic- which the
  rationalists claim to be innate. Locke argues
  that it is an example of laws which

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• Are far from having an universal assentfor,
  first, it is evident, that all children and
  idiots have not the least apprehension or thought
  of them. (p.40)

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• Are children indeed knowledge-free, in the
  same status as idiots?

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Nativism

• Main question what is the cognitive code?
•  
• Infant is born with complete world knowledge
•  
• Infants count
• Infants have a concept of objects
• Infants have physics concepts
• Infants have language

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Nativism

• Evidence for the claim of complete world
  knowledge
• Youngsters learn an extremely complex system
  (language) effortlessly
• Youngsters learn an extremely complex system
  (language) in a short amount of time
• Youngsters do not need instruction to learn their
  mother tongue

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Nativism

• Do youngsters who are born deaf can learn an
  impoverished language at a level that is higher
  than the level they hear?
• Youngsters develop Creole from pidgin
• Infants do not hear grammar they hear a string
  of words and infer the syntactic rules language
  (impoverishment of the stimulus)
• Infants often hear ungrammatical sentences, yet
  they learn the grammar

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Nativism Learning Paradox

• Fodors learning paradox one learns something
  only if one knows it in advance
• To learn a language you have to know that
  language in advance
• What you know is at a higher level than what you
  learn

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Nativism

• In the case of language, infants are born with
• a universal grammar (UG) - a data base of
  grammar
•  language acquisition device (LAD) - hypothesis
  tester

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Nativism

• If the child is born with a LAD and no UG, he
  doesnt have anything to hypothesize on
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• If the child is born with a UG and no LAD, he
  cannot hypothesize about the language

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Nativism

• The UG is the cognitive code.
•  
• Unique to humans
• Universal for humans
•  
• If one can describe it, one has cracked the
  cognitive code.

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Nativism

• Relations between learning and development
• Only learning (deductive)
• No development
• Similar to classical behaviorism

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Nativism Language Acquisition Device

• hypothesize the grammar in the language you are
  exposed to
• see if the hypothesis fits the grammar
• if yes, continue with the hypothesis
• if no, make a new hypothesis

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Nativism

• If that is how children learn language, it is
  impossible, in principle, to develop to a higher
  level
• How can you hypothesize something that is not
  already there?
• Nativists say you cannot

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Nativism

• As a consequence, it is best to build the most
  powerful system so that it is there in infancy
•  

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Argument between Piaget and Chomsky

• CHOMSKYS POINT
• Chomsky One cannot construct more powerful
  structures because hypothesis testing cannot take
  place at a level that is higher than ones
  highest level
• e.g., conservation a child cannot hypothesize
  conservation if he is at the intuitive stage

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Argument between Piaget and Chomsky

• Chomsky One cannot construct more powerful
  structures because hypothesis testing cannot take
  place at a level that is higher than ones
  highest level
• Fodors learning paradox
• e.g., conservation a child cannot hypothesize
  conservation if he is at the intuitive stage

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Piaget Rebuttal

• Piaget I dont have to accept hypothesis testing
  as the mechanism for learning
• I believe children learn and develop through
  disequilibrium

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Piaget Rebuttal

• I can describe learning and development in
• Child development (ontogeny)
• History of disciplines (Piaget Garcia Kuhn)
• My system allows me to describe two disparate
  developments ontogeny and historical development

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Piaget Rebuttal

• You, the nativists cannot describe the
  development of disciplines in history in terms of
  innate modules within humans
• Bottom line
• I can describe two developments and you can
  describe one
• I dont believe the description you give to
  language acquisition

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Nativism Modularity

• 1. Encapsulation - it is impossible to
  interfere with the inner workings of a module.2.
  Unconscious - it is difficult or impossible to
  reflect on the operations of module.3. Speed -
  modules are very fast.4. Shallow outputs -
  modules provide limited output, without
  information about the intervening steps that led
  to that output.

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Nativism Modularity

• 5. Obligatory firing - modules operate
  reflexively, providing predetermined outputs for
  predetermined inputs regardless of
  thecontext.6. Ontogenetic universals - modules
  develop in a characteristic sequence.7.
  Localization - modules are mediated by dedicated
  neural systems.

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Nativism Modularity

• 8. Pathological universals - modules breakdown
  in characteristic fashion following insult to the
  system.9. Domain specificity - as discussed
  above.