Syntax, semantics, and the justification of linguistic methodology: An investigation into the source and nature of the disagreement between Noam Chomsky and W. V. O. Quine

This study investigates the ways in which Noam Chomsky and W. V. O. Quine view the relationship between formal grammars and natural languages, how their respective philosophical commitments shape their views, and whether or not we, their readers, have a basis for adjudicating between differences of opinion about the nature of grammar. I first argue that a popular reading of Quine's position which turns on his allegiance to behaviorism is problematic and based on a misconception. Quine's behaviorism must be distinguished from B. F. Skinner's behavioral psychology, I claim, for it is best understood as a theory of the evidential constraints which scientific methodology imposes on analysis and translation. This conclusion undergirds the further claim that the central theses of Quine's epistemology are scientifically well motivated and that his understanding of formal grammars as purely descriptive is therefore justifiable. Moreover, the legitimacy of Quine's position on language and meaning, i.e., its consistency with the principles and procedures of natural science, presents a serious challenge to those who purport to justify linguistic theory on the basis of a speaker's intuition about grammatical structure.; I then turn to Chomsky's early work, arguing that Chomsky both recognizes the seriousness of Quine's challenge and attempts to circumvent a reliance on intuition by appealing to formal standards of adequacy for grammars. Chomsky's reluctance to appeal to intuition as the justificatory foundation of linguistics is, I claim, the result of a strong and largely unrecognized allegiance to the central tenets of American structuralism. Once his work is recast in light of this allegiance, an answer to Quine's challenge presents itself—an answer which reveals the nature and significance of linguistic metatheory. However, this response assumes that the theoretical structure of one's metatheory can be justified on scientific grounds, an idea which ultimately compels Chomsky to interpret the study of grammar in psychological terms. I conclude by arguing that the philosophical significance of Chomsky's shift to the Language Acquisition Problem lies in the broadened conception of evidence which ensues and the way in which that shift changes the face of the debate between him and Quine.