Inquire about purchasing the book | Table of Contents | Annotated Bibliography | Class on Nature of Mind
These are excerpts and elaborations from my book "The Nature of Consciousness"
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The US linguist George
Lakoff is critical of Chomsky's theory on philosophical grounds: Chomsky's theory belongs to the old
logical-analytical tradition, because Chomsky embraced logical formalism and
several of Descartes' assumptions while
neglecting how thinking and language rest on bodily experience. Lakoff does not believe in an innate,
universal grammar. Lakoff does not
believe that the structure of language is independent of meaning. Lakoff's "cognitive linguistics" rests on the opposite assumption
that language (like anything else in mental life) is grounded in our bodily
experience. Language is embodied, which means that its structure reflects our
bodily experience. Syntax is a consequence (not a prerequisite) of concepts. Our bodily experience creates concepts that
are then abstracted into syntactic categories. Syntax is a direct consequence
of our bodily experience, not an innate property. It is shared (to some degree)
by all humans for the simple reason that we all share roughly the same bodily
experience. Back to the beginning of the chapter "Language: Minds Speak" | Back to the index of all chapters |
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