Repository | Book | Chapter

Chomsky makes the case that Locke's critique of innate ideas addresses this doctrine in a superficial form, resulting in a historical misunderstanding that he intends to rectify. According to Chomsky, Locke did not criticize Descartes, but a figment of his imagination. The prevalent view that the doctrine of innate ideas has now been discredited, Chomsky asserts, "has to do with the issue between Locke and whoever Locke thought he was criticizing in his discussion of innate ideas [my emphasis]" (Language and Mind 80–81). In this view, the "real" Descartes offered a far more sophisticated theory of innate ideas than that of which Locke was aware. Whereas Chomsky tends to be dismissive in his remarks on Locke, he says little about the dialectical epis-temology of Kant that was developed as a response to the Cartesian doctrine of innate ideas. In fact, Chomsky claims that he has never been able to understand the meaning of the "pretentious' word dialectics (Understanding Power 229–230). Chomsky often asserts that he has successfully refuted Locke's criticisms of Descartes; however, his criticisms of Locke elide what was most central to Locke's concerns, which is that Descartes posits an untenable metaphysics of presence. Chomsky insists that it is possible to recuperate the Cartesian doctrine of innate ideas as a scientific theory of language acquisition, but his own doctrine of innate ideas is founded upon a metaphysical theory of knowledge.

DOI: 10.1057/9780230117051_4

Full citation: