QUESTION: On many occasions you have criticized philosophic and scientific empiricism; Can you st... more QUESTION: On many occasions you have criticized philosophic and scientific empiricism; Can you state your objections more precisely? CHOMSKY: In a sense, empiricism has developed a kind of mind-body dualism, of a quite unacceptable type, just at the time when, from another point of view, it rejected such dualism. Within an empiricist framework, one approaches the study of the body as a topic in the natural sciences, concluding that the body is constructed of varied and specialized organs which are extremely complex and genetically determined in their basic character, and that these organs interact in a manner which is also determined by human biology. On the other hand, empiricism insists that the brain is a tabula rasa, empty, unstructured, uniform at least as far as cognitive structure is concerned. I don't see any reason to believe that; I don't see any reason to believe that the little finger is a more complex organ than those parts of the human brain involved in the higher mental faculties; on the contrary, it is not unlikely that these are among the most complex structures in the universe. There is no reason to believe that the higher mental faculties are in some manner dissociated from this complexity of organization.
QUESTION: On many occasions you have criticized philosophic and scientific empiricism; Can you st... more QUESTION: On many occasions you have criticized philosophic and scientific empiricism; Can you state your objections more precisely? CHOMSKY: In a sense, empiricism has developed a kind of mind-body dualism, of a quite unacceptable type, just at the time when, from another point of view, it rejected such dualism. Within an empiricist framework, one approaches the study of the body as a topic in the natural sciences, concluding that the body is constructed of varied and specialized organs which are extremely complex and genetically determined in their basic character, and that these organs interact in a manner which is also determined by human biology. On the other hand, empiricism insists that the brain is a tabula rasa, empty, unstructured, uniform at least as far as cognitive structure is concerned. I don't see any reason to believe that; I don't see any reason to believe that the little finger is a more complex organ than those parts of the human brain involved in the higher mental faculties; on the contrary, it is not unlikely that these are among the most complex structures in the universe. There is no reason to believe that the higher mental faculties are in some manner dissociated from this complexity of organization.
Uploads
Papers by va ga