[Buddha-l] S. Pinker (linguist, cognitive psychologist)

[Stanley J. Ziobro II]

On Mon, 27 Jun 2005, Peter D. Junger wrote:

> "Bruce G. Seidner Ph.D." writes:
>
> : Lots of folks have taken on Chomsky-like idealism. One of my favorites was
> : Herbert Terrace who debunked the claims of "nurturing" an ape to use
> : American Sign Language in the case of Nim Chimpsky.
>
> I am afraid that the Nim Chimpsky project was an effort to prove
> Chomsky wrong.  Chompsly's major linguistic postition, as I understand
> it, is that all human beings have an inherent language faculty that
> is not shared with other species and that is the same in all human
> beings.
>
> Nor would Chomsky be happy with having his position referred to as
> idealism.  He claims that he is a dualist and traces his intellectual
> ancestors to Descartes and  the school of Port Royale.  Or at least
> he once claimed that and I am quite sure that he is no more capable
> of admitting that he was wrong than is the President of the United
> States.  But then he---like most people---is much less likely to be
> wrong than is the president of the United States.

Yes, an less likely to be wrong than Bill Clinton was in so much of his
presidency.

Stan Ziobro