From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Sat Jan 25 2003 - 04:44:33 GMT
Joey, Matt, Joao and y'all:
Joey asked:
I talked to my English teacher about Zen and the Art of Motorcycle
Maintenance, and she brought up Noam Chomsky when we were talking about
subjective-objective split, especially in the sciences. Does anyone know
more about Chomsky's work and how it is relevant to MOQ?
Matt said:
Unfortunately, I don't know all that much about Chomsky (i.e. I'm not an
expert on him), but here is what I know: much of his work in linguistics
has been about a universal "deep structure" that is the same for all
language users and all languages. On the surface, this may seem similar to
Pirsig's description of all people universally experiencing Quality.
DMB says:
No, I think Chomsky's insights into language are related to the
subject/object distinction in a different way than Matt suggests here. It
has to do with the way the structure of language reflects the stucture of
our minds. It has to do with, for example, the fact that correct sentences
need a subject and an object. Chomsky says this is not an arbitrary choice,
but reflects the ways in which we are pre-disposed to percieve the world.
Matt said:
Pragmatists are, of course, deeply skeptical about the existence of a
"universal deep structure." How would we know? The linguists reply that
we have to posit this deep structure or else there would be no way to do
linguistics. The pragmatists, following Donald Davidson, reply that the
actual learning of a language has nothing to do with a positing of a deep
structure, so why should we continue with one in linguistics?
Universalists side with Chomsky (and so might offer a universalist reading
of Pirsig), while pragmatists side with Davidson (and so might offer a
pragmatist reading of Pirsig).
DMB says:
I think Matt has misunderstood "universal deep structures" to mean something
far different than what Chomsky is saying. Its not a universal principle
that one "posits", but is more like an "organ" in the mind. If you're
familiar with Kant's idea that all our perceptions are shaped by "the
categories of the mind" then you already have a good idea what Chomsky was
getting at. The analogy used by the Professor that taught me was a pasta
maker. The stuff of the world is like a blob of dough and our minds shape
that into spaghetti, linguini, or pasta shells or elbow macaronies or
whatever. So what Chomsky is saying is that subjects and objects are the way
we percieve things, not becasue this necessarily reflects the actual world,
but the way we see it. He's saying that subjectivity and objectivity, me and
the world are perfectly natural and totally anavoidable ways to see things.
Hope that makes sense,
DMB
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