Soledad Barrionuevo/ Natalia Kramer

Plato’s problem. The Innateness Hypothesis. Rationalism vs. Empiricism.

Plato’s problem is a term invented by Noam Chomsky related to the question about whether
there is something innate to our knowledge. The main question is how the language is
acquired. According to Chomsky, the system of knowledge is represented in the mind/brain
and is ready to function (although it might not function if the person lacks the ability to use it-
brain injury). So the hearer identifies words, and on the basis of lexical properties, projects a
syntactic structure as determined by principles of universal grammar and the values of the
parameters1. Children exhibit surprising understanding of language because humans have
inborn knowledge of language, received as a gift of nature. Chomsky argues with empiricists
because they defend the position that acquiring language depends entirely on the
environment. They consider that the language is acquired or ‘learnt’ through the set of
operations that happens between the human mind and the outside world.

There are different approaches to the study of language.

1) Language as performance: a nominalist view: BEHAVIOUR & PERFORMANCE
The nominalist approach is closely related to the empiricism. They reduce psychology to
external factors.
- Language is a type or result of human behavior: utterances or marks on paper. Four uses are
involved: speaking, writing, listening, and reading. It involves a medium or substance: phonic
or graphic. - The utterance is a bit of performance. Its nature is concrete, physical, acoustic. It
takes place in time and space. It is produced and it is gone immediately.
- Performance involves certain features which are not linguistic: a) Differences in sex, age,
state of mind, etc. b) Mistakes, repetitions, pauses, breaks, etc. It is directly observable
(recorded on a tape or on paper) and it is the outcome of the interaction of several systems
(cognitive, physiological, physical, etc.). Grammar is only one of these.
Performance is “impure”: it incorporates elements derived from faculties other than the
language faculty, such as: a) the conceptual system b) Pragmatic competence c) common-
sense understanding: knowledge, beliefs, expectations, assumptions, conventions, evaluation,
judgement. According to this approach, man’s behaviour is determined by the interaction of
numerous internal systems operating under conditions of great variety and complexity.
2) Language as an infinite set of sentences: a realist or Platonist view: LANGUAGE
EXISTS IN THE WORLD OF IDEAS. Abstract view of the use of language: infinite set of possible
sentences.
A sentence is a unit of language, an abstract object (hypothetical construct or concept). It has
three levels of structure (rules to generate them): semantic, syntactic, phonological. The
sentence is constructed in the mind by means of the rules of the grammar (metal or
psychological), and then manifested or spoken. The relation between the sentence and the
utterance is one of abstraction or idealisation in one direction, and manifestation, realisation
or exponence in the other direction. The sentence is abstracted from the utterance by leaving
out all the non-linguistic features or elements in it. We have to impose some structure on the
utterance at the time we analyze. It is a process of scientific research: imposing structure and
discovering structure at the same time. We have to generalise from the use of language, from
the utterances.

1
Choamsky, Noam, Language and problems of knowledge, Teorema, Vol. XVI/2, 1997, pp. 5-33, p.20
Complete: Language is:
result of human behaviour- infinite set of sentences- can be recordable- a construction of the
mind.

CONCEPTUALISM ______ _____

PLATONISM ______ _____

NOMINALISM ______ _____