Jamesian Philosophy Refreshed

Continuing yesterday's thought. Imagine somebody DID make an argument for an innate culinary faculty that enables our learning what is or isn't curry. This somebody would likely be making four mistakes: he'd probably be underestimating the amount of "negative evidence" around for an empirical inquiry into what is and isn't curry; and might be idealizing culinary learning as if it were instantaneous, whereas actual culinary learning is gradual and piecemeal; and is probabilistic, not a realm of certainties; and, finally, he may be assuming that there is an endpoint where we all agree about what is curry, whereas in fact there will always be room for disagreements.  The second of these sounds odd, and those not familiar with these debates might not know to what she is making reference. But Chomsky has said, in his KNOWLEDGE OF LANGUAGE (1986), that in understanding language we can presume that the "order of presentation of data is irrelevant s...

Let's return to the Fiona Cowie book, we've been working through bit by bit. Today we move to the portion of the book that speaks specifically of Noam Chomsky, and of his influential arguments to the effect that, (a) all languages conform to the same structural principles, a 'universal grammar,' but that (b) growing children as they acquire their grasp of these languages, do not receive sufficient data from the outside world to allow us to see this universal grammar as learned, thus (c) we ought to see it as innate -- hardwired into our brains.  Further, the pertinent hard-wiring is specific to the linguistic domain.  Cow thinks this is misguided, and to show why, she invokes a culinary example of learning. She writes about curry, that dense use of spices and herbs associated with the Indian subcontinent. See pp. 211 - 17 of the book. Many humans, perhaps most, eventually learn to recognize curry as a type of cuisine. How do we learn about curry? Chomsky oft...