Cerebral Hermeneutics

Abstract

Admirers of Chomsky often compare his contributions to contemporary thought with those of the greatest minds of the past. Justin Leiber, for instance, compares Chomsky to Freud and Einstein (Noam Chomsky 22–23); Howard Gardner also compares Chomsky to Einstein, as well as Shakespeare, Beethoven, and even Socrates (Language and Learning xix). Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini, who edited Language and Learning: The Debate Between Jean Piaget and Noam Chomsky (1980), claims that Chomsky inaugurated one of the two “major scientific revolutions of our time (xiii).¹ These exaggerated claims are echoed by Chomsky himself, who repeatedly argues that very little was known about human language before he developed his revolutionary theory of universal grammar in the late 1950s. For instance, in The Minimalist Program (1995), Chomsky asserts that his theory “constitute [s] a break from the rich traditions of thousands of years of linguistic inquiry [my emphasis]” (5).² Similarly, in Deviation by Phrase (1999), Chomsky claims that “the study of language … could hardly be considered seriously [until the development of his own theory]” (1). Not surprisingly, those who accept Chomsky’s claims to scientific authority tend to be less enthusiastic about his early philosophical text, Cartesian Linguistics (1966).

The history of philosophy consists less in the solution of its problems than in the fact that they are always being forgotten by the intellectual movements that crystallize around them.

—Theodor W. Adorno