History and Philosophy of Linguistics Reading group Next meeting: Tuesday, August 2, 2011, Woolley S302, 57pm. NOTE CHANGE OF ROOM
Reading: Harry M Bracken (1973). Minds and learning: the Chomskian Revolution. Metaphilosophy 4: 229245 It is by now a common-place that linguistics has been revolutionized by the work of Noam Chomsky. For those who have doubts, a glance at the work of the counter-revolutionaries should settle matters. Chomsky¹s work in linguistics¹ is under heavy and constant attack-but both the issues and the entire theoretical framework of the discussions would be unthinkable without his contributions. I think that a case could be made that those who are now his most vocal opponents, the proponents of ³generative semantics², are anti-chomsky for reasons rooted in political and philosophical disagreement. This possibility should not surprise us. Since language plays a central role in human activities, a revolution in linguistics has repercussions throughout the Republic of Letters. Rather than examining the revolution strictly within linguistics, I shall examine the Copernican style revolution Chomsky proposes for our thinking about minds as well as some of the implications for other disciplines and for social policy. Reading available by signing up to http://hplinguistics.pbworks.com. Enquiries: [email protected] All welcome!
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