Page 503 - Encyclopedia of Philosophy of Language

and genuine linguistic performance, involving the ability to respond appropriately to an indefinite range of inputs. Thus a magpie can be 'taught to say good day to its mistress,' but this will merely be 'the expression of one of its passions, for example the hope of eating, if it has always been given a titbit when it says the word' (letter to Newcastle of November 23, 1646). Human language-users, by contrast, can 'give appropriately meaningful answers to whatever is said in their presence' (Discourse on the Method: part 5).
Because of his grasp of this crucial difference be- tween human speech and animal utterance, Descartes has been seen as a precursor, or inspirer of the Chomskyan approach to linguistics. But Descartes's 'modernity' in this respect should not be exaggerated. For what Descartes himself takes his observations about human linguistic capacities to show is the truth of his metaphysical dualism—the thesis of the essen- tially incorporeal nature of the human mind. In general, Descartes's scientific program was robustly physicalist and reductionist; thus, all the capacities of animals were to be explained by reference to the purely mechanical operation of their internal organs. But a physical organ, Descartes argues, needs 'some par- ticular disposition for each particular action'; so, bear- ing in mind the indefinite range of responses which a language-user can deploy, 'it is for all practical pur- poses impossible' for there to be a physical organ or set of organs responsible for language. The upshot is that language must depend on the activities of a 'rational soul' (awne raisonnable) which is 'not derived in any way from the potentiality of matter, but which must be specially created' (Discourse: part 5).
2. CartesianDualismandItsConsequences
Cartesian dualism involved an 'all or nothing' approach to consciousness: either something belongs in the special realm of res cogitans—it is a fully con- scious 'thinking substance'—or else it is mereextended matter, and its operations are explicable simply on mechanical principles. This led Descartes to posit an unbridgeable gulf between mankind and all other species, which he regarded as mere mechanical auto- mata. The doctrine of the bete machine (as it came to
be known after Descartes's death) is something which Descartes argues for very carefully and explicitly, on linguistic grounds. Predecessors of Descartes, such as Montaigne, had suggested that there was often more difference between one human and another than between a human being and an animal, but Descartes replies that 'it requires very little reason to be able to speak, and it would be incredible that a superior specimen of monkey or parrot should not be able to speak as well as the stupidest child if their souls were not completely different in nature from ours.' The upshot is that 'the beasts' do not merely have less reason than man, but 'have no reason at all' (Dis- course, loc cit). Descartes is admirably clear that this difference has nothing to do with the presence or absence of organs of speech; for men born deaf and dumb lack speech organs, but can nonetheless invent signs (signes) which constitute a genuine language (langue).
It is impossible to say whether Descartes would have maintained his insistence that language-capacity could not be explained in physical terms had he known of the enormously complex electrochemistry of the brain as revealed by modern science. That issue aside, what gives his arguments an enduring interest for modern linguisticians and philosophers is his clear articulation ofjust how far genuine linguistic behavior diverges from the output of a machine (whether organic or artificial) programed with a set of finite responses. The label 'Cartesian linguistics' remains an apt one for any research program that takes seriously the problems posed by the seemingly infinite flexibility and creativity of human language.
See also: Chomsky, Noam.
Bibliography
Adam C, Tannery P (eds.) 1976 Oeuvres de Descartes,rev. edn. Vrin, Paris
Chomsky N 1966 Cartesian Linguistics A Chapter in the History of Rationalist Thought. Harper and Row,New Y ork
Descartes R 1991 (trans. Cottingham J, Stouthoff R,Mur- doch D, Kenny A) The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, 3 vols. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Herder, in his early adult years a leading figure in the German Storm and Stress movement of the 1770s, is known to linguists primarily for his essay on the origin
of language (Abhandlung fiber den Ursprung der Sprache 1772). His early writings include studies in folk literature and the advocacy of simple language
Herder, Johann Gottfried P. B. Salmon'
Herder, Johann Gottfried
481