Resuscitation Of Rationalism

Noam Chomsky is over-famous as a linguist, political critic, public intellectual and even a cognitive scientist etc. Yet fame is not the reason why1choose him as the subject of my study; just on the contrary,1insist that he is also a great philosopher who has long been ignored, especially in China. Through theoretical analysis and comparative study, this dissertation intends to prove it and makes a full Chomsky.Chomsky the philosopher rests on Chomsky the linguist. Chomsky’s philosophical findings rely on his studies on language which focus on the following three questions, namely, what is language? why should we study it? and how to study it? Firstly, Chomsky holds that language is a biological organ of human being. It is internal, individual, intensional (collectively called I-language) and non-public. Secondly, since language is a biological organ of human being and is closely collected with mind, any findings in the study of language might provide clues to reveal the mystery of our cognitive ability. Thirdly, Chomsky’s research is characterized by its internalization, idealism and formalization which emphasize on human innate biological basis, proved approaches to scientific findings and rigorous methods in theory construction respectively. Generally speaking, Chomsky is a rationalist, yet his study also bears apparent feathers of analytic philosophy.With the study of language, Chomsky seeks an answer for the "notorious" mystery in epistemology:how could we know so much despite the limited evidences available? This is the same question faced by Descartes, Kant, Quine and many other philosophers. Chomsky’s solution to the mystery is rationalist in nature:on the one hand he insists on the innateness of human cognitive abilities; on the other hand, he takes an internalized approach in his study by adopting logic computation. But Chomsky is never a rationalist in the traditional sense and he actually is a neo-rationalist in terms that his rationalist stance has been naturalized. To be specific, firstly, Chomsky’s innateness is biologically based, a gift of the nature through evolution; secondly, in his study Chomsky resorts to "hypothesis+testing", a popular model adopted in natural science. The latter resembles Pierce’s "abduction" and the widely accepted "Galilean-Newtonian style". In these two ways, Chomsky distinguishes himself from the traditional rationalists and resuscitates rationalism.With his resuscitation of rationalism, Chomsky presents his answer to the "epistemological mystery". According his hypothesis and findings in language study, Chomsky maintains our knowledge about the world is the co-consequence of both human biological basis and his experiences with the world, the former decides the form and content of our knowledge while the latter initiates the process of knowing and test its validity. Apparently, Chomsky provides a contemporary and more scientific answer to Descartes and Kant’s question and therefore deserves the honorable title of "rationalist rejuvenator". Comparatively speaking, Quine’s "Naturalized epistemology" is incomplete and enjoys few chances to be successful.Starting from Chomsky’s study on language, the dissertation focuses on his naturalized resuscitation of traditional rationalism. The dissertation is divided into7chapters. Chapter1is an introduction stating clear the subject selection, content arrangement, research methods, focuses and major difficulties of the study. Chapter2traces to traditional rationalism and modern analytic philosophy expecting to find out Chomsky’s theoretical origin. Chapter3discusses Chomsky’s views on language and their epistemological significance. Chapter4illustrates Chomsky’s research method which in Chomsky’s word is named "methodological naturalism". The above two chapters form the core of Chomsky’s theoretical stance. Chapter5is a comparative study of Chomsky and Quine in terms of their epistemological understandings since comparison with renowned epistemological philosopher Quine might be a shortcut to secure Chomsky position in philosophy. Structurally speaking, chapter6is the climax of the dissertation in which Chomsky’s study is concluded and expanded. Finally, Chapter7brings the dissertation into a natural conclusion.