The Innateness Debate & Language Acquisition
The Innateness Debate & Language Acquisition
Philosophy of language is the reasoned inquiry into the nature, origins, and usage of language. It is a philosophical topic that has a long history and has seen a great deal of interest since the beginning of the 20th century in particular. One of the lasting questions within the philosophy of language is the question of language acquisition. Is it acquired through innate ideas or through experience? There have been many notable discussions and ideas related to this question. A look into this debate will shed some light on what the idea of innate knowledge is and whether or not it is intelligible to believe that humans possess innate knowledge and use it to acquire language. Is it the case that the mind comes to the world equipped with certain items of knowledge? This question is given a look in Ian Hacking’s book Why Does Language Matter to Philosophy? He mentions two important players in this ever important philosophical debate, John Locke and G.W. Leibniz. Hacking mentions two examples that were used to illustrate the stances and points of both Locke and Leibniz. The first example employed by Locke is the ‘blank slate’ (or table of wax) example. This example is used by Locke as he compares how an infant new to the world and knowing nothing is impressed upon by the world and thus learns knowledge. This table of wax is then shaped into the knowledge that was impressed upon it by experience. The second example is the ‘block of marble’ example engaged by Leibniz. He describes that the child, like marble, is grained, so that only some shapes can be made from it by experience. The child is born with the form of possible concepts innate within it. These examples are the good illustrators of the debate at hand. This idea of innate knowledge is still of great importance as the foremost linguist, Noam Chomsky, revived it so as to use it to describe how language is acquired. It is thus significant to look more closely
Philosophy of language is the reasoned inquiry into the nature, origins, and usage of language. It is a philosophical topic that has a long history and has seen a great deal of interest since the beginning of the 20th century in particular. One of the lasting questions within the philosophy of language is the question of language acquisition. Is it acquired through innate ideas or through experience? There have been many notable discussions and ideas related to this question. A look into this debate will shed some light on what the idea of innate knowledge is and whether or not it is intelligible to believe that humans possess innate knowledge and use it to acquire language. Is it the case that the mind comes to the world equipped with certain items of knowledge? This question is given a look in Ian Hacking’s book Why Does Language Matter to Philosophy? He mentions two important players in this ever important philosophical debate, John Locke and G.W. Leibniz. Hacking mentions two examples that were used to illustrate the stances and points of both Locke and Leibniz. The first example employed by Locke is the ‘blank slate’ (or table of wax) example. This example is used by Locke as he compares how an infant new to the world and knowing nothing is impressed upon by the world and thus learns knowledge. This table of wax is then shaped into the knowledge that was impressed upon it by experience. The second example is the ‘block of marble’ example engaged by Leibniz. He describes that the child, like marble, is grained, so that only some shapes can be made from it by experience. The child is born with the form of possible concepts innate within it. These examples are the good illustrators of the debate at hand. This idea of innate knowledge is still of great importance as the foremost linguist, Noam Chomsky, revived it so as to use it to describe how language is acquired. It is thus significant to look more closely