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humans. At least that's the result of the work so far reported. For example, take the
properties that I mentioned before when I was beginning to list the most elementary
properties of language, for example, the fact that language involves a discrete infinity of
utterances based on recursive rules involving phrases, building more complex phrases by
recursive embedding of various structures, and so on. As I mentioned, these are the most
superficial and rudimentary properties of human language, and there seems to be nothing
even remotely analogous in the systems that are laboriously imposed on apes. That's
exactly what we should expect, I think. Why should we expect it? Because, if it turned out,
contrary to what has so far been shown, if it turned out that apes really did have something
like a capacity for human language, we would be faced with a kind of biological paradox.
We would be faced with something analogous to, say, the discovery on a previously
unexplored island that there is a species of bird with all the mechanisms for flight that has
never thought of flying, until somebody comes along and trains it and says, look, you can
fly. That's not impossible, but it's so unlikely that nobody would take the possibility very
seriously.
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Now, of course, there are capacities that are never realized; for example, take the number
capacity. That's a genetically determined capacity, no doubt, but it was never realized in
human life until long after human evolution was essentially completed. So that part is not
surprising. What would be quite surprising, however, is the following: suppose that an
organism has a certain capacity and suppose that circumstances exist in normal life for
that capacity to be used. And suppose furthermore that exercise of that capacity would
confer enormous selectional advantages. And suppose finally that the capacity is never put
to use. That would be a very strange phenomenon. I would be surprised if there were
examples of that in natural history or in biological evolution. I think any biologist would be
amazed to discover anything of the sort. But that's what people who are working with apes
somehow -- a lot of them, not all of them -- seem to believe to be true. And while you can't
rule out a priori, it seems to me quite a long shot, a very exotic belief, and certainly one for
which no evidence has been forthcoming. So I would tend to dismiss it as -- it seems to
me... Tom Sebeok once described it as an example of the "pathetic fallacy," the
long-standing tendency to invest nature with human properties. I suppose it's another case
of that.
It seems to me that this kind of investigation may make perfectly good sense as a
technique for learning something about the intellectual capacities of apes, although
whether this is the best way of pursuing that question is perhaps open to doubt. One might
find much more substantial manifestations of ape intelligence by studying what they do
naturally, rather than training them in tasks that are vaguely analogous to the early
manifestations of certain human capacities. Just as it would be a questionable research
strategy in the study of human intelligence to try to get human children to behave like apes.
One might learn something, but it doesn't seem obvious that this is the most reasonable
way to approach the problem of investigating the capacities of a particular species. In fact,
it's for this reason that it seems to me that Premack's work has been of considerable
interest. He's not just trying to make the apes behave as though they're funny-looking
people, but rather to investigate their intellectual capacities in a straightforward way.
There's nothing wrong with that, in fact, it is a very significant line of research. And it
seems to me, to repeat, that in regard to language, what has so far been found and what I
anticipate will be found is about what you'd expect, that apes lack the rudiments of
anything comparable to human language, at least in any domain in which anything is
known about human language and, evidently, the significance of analogies, dubious at
best, is essentially nil outside of such domains. Similarly you may get human beings to
jump farther and farther, but they're never going to fly.
QUESTION: What are the most important and promising applications of research in the
psychology of language and cognition? For example, in therapy, in teaching, etc.
CHOMSKY: My general feeling is that it's practitioners, therapists, teachers and so on who
will have to explore these questions. It would be terribly presumptuous of me even to
suggest anything. Because I have no experience, I have no particular knowledge about
these matters; It would be particularly inappropriate for me to venture off-the-cuff
comments or proposals because the questions are not academic but have important
human consequences. I have opinions, of course, and sometimes voice them, but they do
not derive from any special knowledge that I may have.
QUESTION: Do you feel that the field of language and cognition is, as some believe, in a
state of transition searching for a new theory or paradigm? If so, what kind of theory do you
believe will emerge or is at present emerging?
CHOMSKY: Well, I'm looking for a new theory too, and I always have been. In fact, I don't
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see how anybody can ever do anything different. You mention paradigms. I think when
Tom Kuhn was discussing paradigms, he had in mind major scientific revolutions. You [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]