论乔姆斯基的哲学贡献及其理论特质

On the Contribution and Attributes of Chomsky's Philosophical Studies

准确认识乔姆斯基的理论贡献,既需从其语言研究出发,也需跳出语言本身,探究其语言理论背后的哲学诉求。乔姆斯基语言研究的出发点可被概括为:人类是如何在证据如此之少的情况下知道的如此之多?这明显是一个哲学认识论问题。对此问题,乔姆斯基通过语言研究做出了自己的回答,他认为人类知识的获得是两个方面共同作用的结果:人类进化而来的生理基础与人接触世界的经验,前者决定了认识的形式与内容,后者激发认识活动开始并检验认识结果。该回答延续了笛卡尔、康德以来的理性主义认识论传统,却又对其进行了自然化改造,客观上促成了理性主义的当代复兴。

To clarify Chomsky's contribution in philosophy,researchers should pay attention to both his linguistic studies and his philosophical undertaking behind these studies.From the philosophical perspective,Chomsky's studies in linguistics aim at answering the question of how we could know so much with limited evidence.This is for sure a question in epistemology.With his findings in the study of language,Chomsky proposes that our knowledge is the achievement of combinatory efforts of both the innate biological basis and the experience we derived from the outer world.The biological basis determines the form and content of our knowledge while the experience activates our cognitive abilities and later verifies what has been known.Chomsky's answer apparently goes in accord with the rationalist tradition led by Descartes and Kant,and at the same time he reforms the tradition with naturalism and resuscitates it in modern sense.