The Science of Language by Chomsky Noam

Author:Chomsky, Noam [Chomsky, Noam]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781139341011
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2012-02-23T23:00:00+00:00

II.4 Biology: function-of-an-organ

With that caveat in place, and leaving aside the to-be-determined final status of the explanatory reach of adaptation and adaptive function in evolutionary theory, it is time to acknowledge that biology does seem to provide a place for functional explanation that several centuries of scientific research have convincingly excluded from most forms of physical science. By way of background, Ernst Mayr (2004) argues against reducing biological explanation to physical because, he suggests, biological theories are committed to speaking of function where physical theories are not. It is not clear what Mayr has in mind by the physical, nor – in a related vein – by biology offering an ‘autonomous’ mode of explanation. Granted, biology is not physics, but it – like linguistics, if Chomsky is right – is a naturalistic and thus in an important sense physical science. Ignoring, however, the issue of what is or is not physical, and focusing on the most plausible kinds of cases where functional explanation makes good contributions, let us look at a “system-within-an-organism” or “organ-within-an-organism” notion of function. It may not be quite what Mayr had in mind, but it looks reasonably close to it.

An “organ-within-an-organism” notion of function is interesting for our purposes for two reasons. One is that it allows for clearly stated and falsifiable hypotheses, unlike far too many claims made in dealing with issues of function in biology. And second, on the face of it, it suits Chomsky's conception of a computational theory of language, where language is thought of as an ‘organ’ – which is how Chomsky construes the language faculty – or at least, how he conceives its computational core and its specified ‘contributions’ to other mental systems. ‘Doing a specific job’ (fulfilling a function within the organism by interacting with specific other systems in specific ways over interfaces) seems to be built into the idea that a computational theory of language is a formal science of a system that “interfaces” with other systems by providing them information that they can use, and apparently even doing so in an optimal way, so that the design of the language faculty can be conceived as perfect – or at least, a lot closer to perfection than was thought not long ago. Language – using Chomsky's informal term – “instructs” production/perception and conceptual/intentional systems and, in order to do so, must provide them with ‘instructions’ (relevant forms of information) that they can ‘use’ or put to use – that is, come into operation in the way(s) characteristic of the relevant system(s). Note that ‘use’ here is not “use by creature” or “use by organism as a whole,” and especially not “use by agent.” It is “employment by other (designated) systems in specific ways,” which is what places this notion of function in the ranks of empirical investigation.

Plausibly, in fact, we could entirely abandon the term “function” in dealing with specific system-internal system transactions and thereby avoid the obscurity that this term seems to invite. That is probably the wisest strategy – but not one, apparently, that people are fully willing to adopt.

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