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Durham University Philosophical Society [email protected] CRIŦIQUE Issue 3, June 2010 Critique A Durham University Philosophical Society Publication June 2010 Editor: Toby Newson Sub-editor: Sarah Brown Designer: Matt Lunberg Cover Image: Lyubov Popova, Portrait of a Philosopher, 1915 Contributors James Roberts Philosophy, Continentally Page 4 Stephen Ingram Anti-Paternalism and Quasi-Slavery Page 7 Robert White Is Logic Applicable at the Quantum Mechanical Level? Page 10 Nick Constantine Why Vegetarians Should Eat Meat : A Refutation of the Philosophy Bites Podcast “Jeff McMahan on Vegetarianism” Page 13 Sam Crutchley Modern Art: The Difficulty for Aestheticians Page 16 William van der Lande Does “Morally Right” Simply Mean “Approved of by a Certain Culture”? Page 19 Tamsin Boatman Language-Learning Page 21 Want to contribute to Critique? Contact us at: [email protected] Critique A Durham University Philosophical Society Publication Issue 3 Language-Learning Tamsin Boatman theory really comes to the fore is in process (think about trying to learn all non-normal language acquisition. those irregular verbs in French) and yet Europeans and North Americans Chomsky has explained why it appears relied strongly on the African slave so easy for young children to learn. trade in our (tragically) recent past. Unfortunately this extraordinary ability However, amongst the struggles these to pick up a language without effort is workers experienced was one that sup- lost within the first few years of a per- ports our nativist theory: that of the son’s life. The answer to our question struggle to communicate. These work- posed at the beginning of this article is ers invented a pidgin language required therefore, ‘yes’ we should be amazed for basic but necessary tasks. When at a child’s language-learning abilities. these workers had children their chil- It may appear easy to learn a language dren ‘creolised’ the language and intro- (as Descartes points out ‘there are no duced grammatical complexity which men so dull and stupid, not even idiots, had not existed in the original pidgin as to be incapable of joining together language. This example shows two different words, and thereby construct- things: firstly, that learning language ing a declaration by which to make requires exposure at the right time (the their thoughts understood’), yet this is adults were unable to learn a fully only the case because of the unique grammatical language) and that lan- situation nature has provided for us. guage-learning requires more than a simple experience of spoken language. Marcus, G. F., 1993. ‘Negative evi- Further support is given by Pinker who dence in language acquisition’. Cogni- provides the example of ‘Simon’, a tion 46(1) 53- deaf nine year old boy, who was only 85 exposed to sign language by his parents who learnt it in their teenage years and McNeill, D., 1966. ‘Developmental psy- therefore only had a rudimentary grasp cholinguistics’ The Genesis of Language of the language. Whilst he wasn’t com- F. Smith and G. Miller, ed. Cambridge, pletely isolated from language, Simon’s MA: MIT Press. ‘signing was far better ASL (American Sign Language) than theirs’ (Pinker, Pinker, Steven ‘The Language In- 1994) ; effectively Simon creolised his stinct’ (Penguin Group, London, 1994) parents ‘pidgin’ language. These chil- dren all developed their own grammati- Tomasello, M, 2000. ‘First steps to- cal language independently of the rele- wards a usage-based theory of language vant input. It remains to be seen how acquisition’, Cognitive Linguistics, 11- an empiricist can explain these aston- 1/2 (2000), 61-82 ishing feats of syntax learning. Language-learning is a difficult 22 Critique A Durham University Philosophical Society Publication Issue 3 Language-Learning Tamsin Boatman Everybody is used to seeing a child hits all the language-learning new mother ‘baby-talking’ to her pride benchmarks apparently without their and joy, or a proud grandparent ex- parents’ well-meaning interference. An claiming over the new words their answer is provided by Chomsky: lan- youngest relation has learnt. But is this guage-learning is unlike any other really necessary? Should we be so learning ability we possess in that we amazed at a child’s language-learning have a specific language-learning abil- abilities? After all, we all learnt to ity. We are born with a universal gram- speak and can now communicate in a mar, a (very) general grammar that (mostly) clear and coherent way. How- every child is born with and that every ever there does seem to be something language adheres to. When children magical about the speed children learn make mistakes, they make very specific a language, emphasised by our depress- mistakes that may not be mistakes in ing attempts at learning a second lan- other languages. Children learn lan- guage at secondary school. Further- guage by setting the parameters in more, children are incredibly uniform their native language and forgetting when it comes to learning language: other possible grammatical constructs. after only a few days old, infants can Chomsky argues children are simply not discriminate between their mother exposed to enough data to learn a lan- tongue and a foreign language from a guage at the speed they do without different rhythmic class (e.g. English some kind of innate knowledge (UG) and Mandarin), after 9-15 months they and innate ability (specific language- use words that have meanings of whole learning ability). This is just a theory, sentences (e.g. Milk! meaning ‘I would however, that not everyone accepts, like some milk’), and by the age of 4 but I shall try to show you that, in real- children have acquired a full grammati- ity, it is the only possibility. cal language. There is evidence that Normal language acquisition has this uniformity is in no way related to other explanations, just one of these any effort on the part of the parents to being Tomasello’s theory that children encourage their child to speak. Parents learn by imitating specific pieces of do sometimes try to correct their chil- language, then, as they come to under- dren’s grammar but this is inconsistent stand what is being said they discern (Marcus, 1993). Furthermore, McNeill patterns of language use. These pat- (McNeill, 1966), argues that in many terns lead to the construction of differ- cases any corrections are in vain, chil- ent categories of linguistic unit and the dren simply ignore them. ability to construct unique sentences So what are we to make of this? (unique in the sense the child is not Children learn languages with regular simply imitating what has been said) success and regularity. Every normal (Tomasello, 2000). Where Chomsky’s 21 Critique A Durham University Philosophical Society Publication Issue 3 Editorial Toby Newson Many thanks to all our contribu- you how a problem might, from a dif- tors and to the Philosophy Department ferent perspective, be seen as in fact for continuing to fund our publication. no problem at all. This edition of Critique is a little longer *** than usual, with the hope of making up My first K&R lecture was given by for the lack of an edition in first term. a now retired member of staff, but he Bearing in mind that this is the edition was such a good speaker I can still re- that hopefully a few first years will be member a lot of it even now. He spoke reading as they start courses or mod- about the importance of speech in do- ules in philosophy next academic year, ing philosophy, saying that, for exam- I thought I’d write a little with them in ple, though you should write notes and mind. essays to organise your thoughts, so I’m just finishing my last year of you should also try to discuss issues as a philosophy degree. Looking back, phi- much as you can with friends, in addi- losophy has for me, I think, been a tion to tutorials. Moreveover, the most worthwhile course of study. Of course useful tip he gave to my mind was that everyone involved in it from time to often the only way to understand a time feels that they’re wasting their really difficult text is to read it out time, slogging away at problems that loud, the intonation being what makes have been kicking around for hundreds, such a text comprehensible, as well as if not thousands of years. This means keeping you from getting bored. He it’s always tempting to look for hard also suggested you shouldn't be intimi- and fast answers as though one were dated by how reading philosophy is of- doing a natural science, but often to do ten such slow going; better that you so would not do justice to the irreduci- understand it rather than skim it super- ble complexity and ambiguity of life. ficially. My limit is about twenty pages Rather than definite answers, a day. Some of this he linked to Plato’s philosophy teaches you a certain flexi- Phaedrus, which has related things to bility of thinking about things from dif- say about the difference between writ- ferent perspectives. For Instance, the ten and spoken philosophy. most interesting areas I’ve studied in It’s often difficult to grasp the subject, and I think many fellow what’s being asked of you in philosophy students would agree, have not so essays. One thing it can take a while to much been particular solutions to par- realise is that the essay questions you ticular philosophical problems, rather are set are mostly far too general to be ways of approaching philosophical answered well in the word limit. Hence problems, or indeed problems in any in essays and particularly exams, don’t area.

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