Psychological Reality of Grammars: Devitt’s ‘Ignorance of Language’ Peter Slezak ([email protected]) Program in Cognitive Science, School of History & Philosophy of Science University of New South Wales, Sydney 2052 AUSTRALIA Abstract intuitions do not reflect information supplied by the language faculty … that there is little or nothing to the Devitt makes a sustained critique of Chomskyan linguistics, language faculty … (2006b, vi) articulating persistent complaints about the “psychological reality” of generative grammars. I suggest these complaints are Devitt’s critique rests on two pillars: his negative arguments merely terminological and that Devitt fails to appreciate the status of Chomsky’s computational formalisms found against Chomsky’s psychological realism regarding elsewhere in cognitive science. Devitt ascribes an intentional grammars, and his positive case for an alternative conception conception of representations that Chomsky repudiates and of a “linguistic reality” that grammars are about. Thus, in that is independently implausible. I argue that Devitt’s part, Devitt’s book depends on attributing a certain doctrine proposed alternative “linguistic reality” constituted by physical concerning mental representation to Chomsky despite symbol tokens neglects the problems of tokens as opposed to Chomsky’s explicit rejection of it. As an exegetical types and he misses the force of Chomsky’s case against principle, beyond a certain point, such severe uncharitability Behaviourism and nominalism. I suggest that Devitt’s case is itself a symptom of mistaken attributions and we must ask against intuitions as data misunderstands their standard role how such errors of substance and interpretation are possible. throughout perceptual psychology. I argue that Devitt’s position exemplifies pervasive errors concerning mental Answering this question provides insight into deep and representation seen throughout cognitive science. pervasive philosophical puzzles. Devitt’s work may be seen as a case study in what Rorty (1979, 60) has called “the Keywords: Linguistics; grammar; competence; psychological original sin of epistemology” – to model knowing on seeing reality; behaviorism; nominalism; Chomsky; Devitt. (1979, 146). In a telling metaphor, Devitt suggests “If we could look into the brain and simply “see” if there were Rather Idle Controversy representations of this and that, as we can look in a book and In his recent book Ignorance of Language, Michael Devitt see if there are representations …, then that would of course (2006b) has mounted an extended, scathing critique of the settle the matter” (2006b, 51). generative enterprise and compares the situation to quantum A certain “Representational Thesis” (discussed below) is physics where there are not only successful explanatory attributed to Chomsky not only in the face of Chomsky’s theories but also controversy about foundations. Devitt says repudiation, but also despite the familiar merits of his quite in linguistics, by contrast, “There is not a similar controversy different computational conception found elsewhere about how to “interpret” these theories but I think that there throughout cognitive science. In this way, Devitt’s rejection should be.” However, on the contrary, there has been just of Chomsky’s psychological, computational conception and this controversy from the earliest days of generative his own alternative program entails nothing less than linguistics, and Devitt is simply rehearsing the most undoing the mentalism of the “cognitive revolution” in a persistent objection to the “psychological reality” of return to certain nominalistic aspects of Skinnerian, grammars as internal representations (see Quine 1972, Stich Bloomfieldian behaviourism – the second pillar of Devitt’s 1972, Searle 1980b, Ringen 1975, Botha 1980). By 1978, book. Devitt is concerned with what he regards as a one philosopher remarked that “More has been written, “linguistic reality” – the real subject matter of grammars – much of it exasperatingly shallow, about the confusions constituted by the “outputs/products” such as “physical surrounding the concept of competence and knowledge-as- sentence tokens” and “the spoken, written, etc., symbols that competence than almost any other topic in recent speakers produce” (2006a 483). We may recall Chomsky’s philosophy” (Nelson 1978, 339). (1965) remarks on “this rather idle controversy” being Devitt’s verdict is a calamitous judgment on Chomsky’s revived by Devitt. In a lengthy footnote to his famous conception of his linguistics: methodological chapter of Aspects he wrote: I urge that linguistics is not part of psychology; that the In fact, the issue of mentalism versus antimentalism in thesis that linguistic rules are represented in the mind is linguistics has to do only with goals and interests, and implausible and unsupported; that speakers are largely not with questions of truth or falsity, sense or nonsense. ignorant of their language; that speakers’ linguistic (1965, 193) 647 incomprehension of Descartes’ critics for several centuries. Remarkably, it remains apt to characterise Devitt’s work in Of specific relevance here is Cecilia Wolf-Devine’s (2000) Chomsky’s (1967) words forty years ago as “a paradigm treatment of Descartes’ analogy of a blind man holding two example of a futile tendency in modern speculation about sticks whose separation and angle permits him to know the language and mind.” distance of an object. Wolf-Devine takes this account of For Fodor (1968) the generative approach provided a knowing to invoke a homunculus, despite Descartes’ explicit model for psychological explanation of the sort also disavowal of such question-begging pseudo-explanations articulated in Pylyshyn’s (1984) seminal work – namely, the and despite the manifest virtues of the proposed computational view of cognition that “presupposes that we computations on their own. The parallels with Chomsky’s take seriously such distinctions as those between critics are noteworthy. Wolf-Devine draws attention to competence and performance.” A decade earlier, Pylyshyn Descartes’ use of the verbs savoir and connaître to suggest (1972, 1973) gave important analyses of the notions of that Descartes is guilty of “a hopeless over- “psychological reality” and competence in psychology in intellectualization of perception” (2000a, 513). These which he explained above all, “One reason why the notion of complaints are striking to a modern reader familiar with the competence is particularly important is that it is the first interminable disputes surrounding Chomsky’s use of the clear instance of the influence of … mathematical words “know” or “cognize” to characterise his generative imagination on the study of cognition,” referring to studies grammars. We will see that these worries are a constant by Turing, Gödel, Church and others in the foundations of refrain in the chorus of criticism that Devitt joins. mathematics and the theory of computation. Chomsky has referred to his approach in this regard as Galilean and The “Natural” Interpretation of Chomsky Pylyshyn explains the allusion as reflecting the fact that, like In seeking to reconstruct Chomsky’s views, Devitt chooses the great advances in physics, “Chomsky’s work is to depart from Chomsky’s own terminology and to insist permeated with the belief that the secrets of the universe upon terms and conceptions that Chomsky has explicitly (both physical and psychological) are, as Galileo said, repudiated, namely the philosophical ideas of intentionality “written in the language of mathematics.” The extraordinary and propositional attitudes. Devitt (2006b, 5) persists in his persistence of the same disputes suggest that their underlying semantic, intentional sense of ‘representation,’ indeed, sources are deep ones that deserve to be diagnosed. I suggest remarkably, illustrating it with the very example of a picture that these misunderstandings are not unique to linguistics but that Chomsky (2003, 276) uses to distinguish it from his pervasive throughout cognitive science and philosophy of th own. Devitt characterises Chomsky’s view of linguistic mind since the 17 century (Slezak 2006). knowledge as “propositional knowledge of syntactic rules” (2003b, 108), using the philosophical idiom which entails Savoir and Connaître that speakers have access to the linguists’ theories. Indeed, Devitt (2006a, b) dubs a certain view of our intuitions about Devitt (2006b, 69) suggests that Chomsky has made the language “Cartesian” – because of the introspective elementary confusion of a theory and its object. However, immediacy and certainty such evidence seems to possess. for Chomsky, the rules are not the intentional object of the However, the characterisation is perhaps more apt than speaker’s knowledge, but rather constitute this knowledge. Devitt intends. Beyond the notion of privileged access to our Chomsky’s frequent comparisons with insects and bird-song mental states, Descartes also held views concerning our could hardly make sense on any other interpretation. Aside inaccessible “tacit knowledge” – views that are remarkable from the intrinsic implausibility of the idea that naïve anticipations of contemporary conceptions in cognitive speakers might “have propositional knowledge of syntactic science and linguistics. Specifically, in his Dioptrics facts,” Devitt ascribes to Chomsky the very errors he has Descartes proposes that in binocular vision the mind been careful to warn against. Devitt defends this determines the