From: Scott R (jse885@spinn.net)
Date: Sat Jan 25 2003 - 16:03:03 GMT
DMB, etc,
As I've complained before, the words "subject" and "object" used in
linguistics have little to do with the same words when used in metaphysics,
eg SOM. In linguistics, "subject" only means "what you are talking about",
and a sentence has a "predicate" (what you are saying about the subject),
not an object (though the predicate can contain a "direct object" and/or an
"indirect object"). (In fact Chomsky uses "noun phrase" and "verb phrase"
for these roles -- in pragmatic linguistics one uses the words "topic" and
"comment"). In other words, the subject/predicate distinction of linguistics
or logic has nothing to do with the subject/object distinction of SOM.
This is not to say that Chomsky has nothing of interest to say about
subjects and objects in the metaphysical sense -- I would guess especially
in his book Cartesian Linguistics, which I haven't read, but I don't know.
- Scott
----- Original Message -----
From: "David Buchanan" <DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org>
To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
Sent: Friday, January 24, 2003 9:44 PM
Subject: RE: MD Question
> 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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