Language as Vision: The Ocularcentrism of Chomskyan Linguistics
Chris Werry, Rhetoric & Writing Studies, SDSU
Note: this paper
is based on material in my dissertation, Rhetoric and Reflexivity in
Chomskyan and Cognitive Linguistics (Carnegie Mellon University, 2002). Please do not quote from this
paper. If you would like to read or quote from my dissertation, email
me at cwerry@mail.sdsu.edu.
1.0 Introduction
References to vision pervade Chomsky’s work.[1]
They are a key component of the figures he uses, the examples he provides,
the analogies he makes, and the argumentative warrants supporting his
central claims. When dealing with opponents Chomsky repeatedly exploits
the rhetorical potential of visual analogies and metaphors in order to
construct rebuttals. References to vision and to spatio-visual phenomenon
constitute a key component of the most characteristic rhetorical moves
Chomsky makes, and are central to the way Chomsky defines the project
of linguistics. From Syntactic Structures to his most recently
published texts, Chomsky’s writing is permeated by a constellation of
terms centered on space, vision, optics and form. This is perhaps not
altogether surprising, given that Chomsky is a thinker who identifies
so strongly with Descartes, and who describes his theoretical project
as “Cartesian”. In Modernity and the Hegemony of Vision David
Levin argues that Descartes is the modern philosopher most obviously indebted
to the metaphor of knowledge as spatio-visual, a writer whose work most
clearly exemplifies a discourse that is dominated by an ocular metaphoric.
Levin writes:
For Descartes, darkness is a nightmare. There is nothing to be learned from entering its domain. He is the philosopher obsessed with clarity and light. If a discourse in which light, vision, and its metaphorics are constitutive of its very logic may be called ocularcentric, then it would be difficult to deny that Descartes’ philosophy exemplifies ocularcentrism.[2]
Correspondingly, Chomsky is perhaps the post-war linguist most focused
on clarity, light, space and vision. While a range of figurative expressions
characterize generative discourse, ocular metaphors are assigned a place
of particular importance. It might be said that the generativist vision
of language has been articulated primarily in the language of vision.
It has tended to be heavily “ocularcentric”, to use the term coined by
Martin Jay.[3] The assumption that
language exists primarily as something visible; that it can be represented
in terms of comparisons with various forms of visual phenomenon, and that
linguistic analysis can be understood as a kind of visual perception,
has been integral to the objects, concepts, data and methodologies that
characterize generative inquiry, and is deeply embedded in its conceptual
logic. This tendency has shaped the field’s predominant “ways of seeing”
language, and in particular its treatment of grammar.
This paper explores the ocular metaphoric that characterizes generative
discourse. It demonstrates the degree to which vision constitutes the
central analogical figure in Chomsky’s writings. The paper examines the
role visual imagery plays in Chomsky’s main arguments, analyzes why it
is so important to his theoretical framework, and considers the rhetorical
work it is used to carry out. I discuss how ocularcentrism shapes Chomsky’s
understanding of what is central to linguistic inquiry and what is peripheral;
what is “visible” and “invisible” within his theoretical framework, and
what the nature and limits of linguistic inquiry are. The first section
of the paper provides examples that show how pervasively Chomsky makes
use of visual references.
1.1 Examples of Chomsky’s Vision-Centered Vision of Language
Chomsky’s discussions of linguistic theory often begin with references
to the rationalist tradition, and make reference to figures such as Plato,
Descartes, Leibniz and Cudsworth. The rationalist framework upon which
Chomsky’s work is built is articulated and justified largely in terms
of references to vision. When arguing for the basic soundness of rationalism,
and by extension his own theories of language, Chomsky regularly cites
the nature of the visual faculty as the central piece of evidence for
rationalism. For example, in a discussion of rationalism in Knowledge
of Language Chomsky writes that “the Platonistic conception would
suggest that knowledge of a particular language grows and matures along
a course that is in part intrinsically determined, with modifications
reflecting observed usage, rather in the manner of the visual system”
(Knowledge of Language, page 2). In Reflections on Language
Chomsky states that his views of language are based on rationalist
presuppositions, and that while certain aspects of rationalism must be
updated, the overall approach is valid. As evidence for the plausibility
of rationalism, Chomsky cites research indicating that the visual system
is “wired in”, and that human infants are equipped from birth with an
inbuilt ability to perceive and process three-dimensional space. Chomsky
argues that the same is likely true of the linguistic system, and the
idea that language can be considered in terms analogous to a bodily organ
such as the visual system is “quite natural and plausible” (11). The
plausibility of a rationalist theoretical framework is articulated primarily
through references to vision and the visual system.
Chomsky’s discussions of rationalism are typically used to introduce one of the central claims of generative linguistics, namely that language is an innate faculty of the human mind. Chomsky’s arguments about the innate character of linguistic knowledge turn repeatedly on references to and analogies with vision. His argument for the plausibility of innateness rests on establishing that vision constitutes a particularly compelling example of an innate, biologically based cognitive faculty, and that important similarities exist between language and vision.[4] From his earliest works to his latest writings, Chomsky uses ocular metaphors and references to support the innateness hypothesis. In Aspects of a Theory of Syntax he writes that “on the basis of the best information now available, it seems reasonable to suppose that a child cannot help constructing a particular sort of transformational grammar to account for the data presented to him, any more than he can control his perception of solid objects or his attention to line and angle.” (Aspects, 59.) In Reflections on Language Chomsky’s arguments for innateness are based on a series of references to the nature of visual perception: the “wired-in” character of the visual system; the inbuilt ability of the infant perceptual system to understand various aspects of 3-dimensional space; the notion that an innate “grammar of vision” may be built into the human nervous system (Reflections, page 8.) In Rules and Representations Chomsky states that the language faculty may be thought of as an innate “mental organ” analogous to the human visual system (39). In Language and Thought he asserts, “the child’s language ‘grows in the mind’ as the visual system develops the capacity for binocular vision.” (page 29). In a recent interview in which Chomsky outlines the main components of his theory of language, most of his major points are made through examples, comparisons, or research having to do with visual perception. On the issue of innateness, Chomsky writes:
If I say, "He thinks that John is intelligent," you know that "he" is somebody other than John. If I say, "his mother thinks John is intelligent," "his" may refer to John. Those are things we aren't taught. The basic features of language structure are built into our biological nature. They're like the principles that determine why mammals see things in a particular way and insects see things in a different way.[5]
Supporters and expositors of Chomsky’s works frequently use similar language
when discussing innateness. For example, throughout Smith’s book on Chomskyan
linguistics innateness is supported through appeals to the similarity
between language and vision. Comments such as the following are typical:
“in vision as in language our innate endowment is such that minimal input
can give rise to great richness of knowledge. Arguments from the poverty
of the stimulus are comparable in the two domains.” (Smith, page 94.)
Smith writes that development of the language faculty does not proceed
through learning or interaction, but is instead “more like the development
in the child of stereoscopic vision”. (Smith, 117).
Chomsky’s “innateness hypothesis” leaves little room for learning,
experience or practice in the development of linguistic abilities (the
marginal status of learning is signified by the fact that it is often
put in quotation marks.[6]) The
acquisition of language is represented in terms of the unfolding of a
biological program. The nature of this program, and Chomsky’s explanation
of why learning has such a minor role in the overall process, is typically
discussed in terms of analogies with visual perception. For example,
in Rules and Representations Chomsky writes:
If the general structure of binocular vision is genetically determined, then naturally we must seek to explain its origin in terms of biological (evolutionary) development rather than in terms of learning. Exactly the same is true when we turn to cognitive structures or the (unknown) physical mechanisms that underlie them. If, say, we find extensive evidence that the principles that underlie the wh-island constraint belong to universal grammar and are available to the language learner without experience, then it would only be rational to suppose that these mechanisms are genetically determined and to search for a further account in terms of biological development. (209)
The development of linguistic ability is described as activated through the triggering effects of experience, or, in Chomsky’s later work, as the setting of parameters. This process of development is also described and supported largely in terms of parallels with visual development. For example, in Reflections on Language Chomsky argues that development takes place via the triggering effects of external stimuli on innate faculties. Chomsky’s argument for this position is constructed through references to work on the development of visual perception. He writes that “work of the past years has shown that much of the detailed structure of visual experience is ‘wired in’, though triggering experience is required to set the system in operation”. (Reflections, page 8.) In Aspects of the Theory of Syntax Chomsky uses figures and examples that center on visual perception to describe the role that exposure to the environment has on the triggering of language acquisition. For example, when arguing that exposure to language is entirely “peripheral” to linguistic development, Chomsky draws on parallels between the role learning plays in the acquisition of language, and the role it plays in the “acquisition” of vision in humans and in animals. He writes:
This distinction [that acquisition requires exposure to the environment, yet this exposure plays no determining role in development] is quite familiar outside of the domain of language acquisition. For example, Richard Held has shown in numerous experiments that reafferent stimulation (that is stimulation resulting from voluntary activity) is a prerequisite to the development of a concept of visual space, although it may not determine the character of this concept…or, to take one of innumerable examples from studies of animal learning, it has been observed (Lemmon and Patterson, 1964) that depth perception in lambs is considerably facilitated by mother-neonate contact, although again there is no reason to suppose that the nature of the lamb’s ‘theory of visual space’ depends on this contact. 33-34.
And when Chomsky takes up the issue of the triggering effects of the environment in Rules and Representations, he turns once again to the example of visual development. He writes that the factors that shape the development of language “are on a par with the factors that determine that a child will have binocular vision”, in the sense that both language and vision:
develop in the individual along an intrinsically determined course under the triggering effect of appropriate social interaction and partially shaped by the environment - English is not Japanese, just as the distribution of horizontal and vertical receptors in the visual cortex can be modified by early experience. (Rules, page 44-5.)
The description of language development in terms of visual analogies
is common not just in Chomsky’s work, but also in the wider generative
literature. Consider, for example, Smith’s argument for the viability
of a Chomskyan theory of linguistic development:
We do not ‘learn’ how to see in color or in 3-D…. We obviously need some visual input for the process whereby we become able to see in this way to be triggered: being brought up in total darkness will guarantee that one sees not at all, hence not in 3-D or in colour. Similarly, we need to be exposed to faces for the appropriate development of the face recognition module to be triggered; and we need to be exposed to examples of language in order to acquire normal knowledge of a language. Smith, page 26.
Smith’s discussions of acquisition, linguistic development, and learning
are couched in similar terms. Smith argues we no more “learn” language
than we “learn” how to see, and uses a series of analogies with visual
perception to construct a distinction between the development of innate,
internal abilities, and the development of abilities derived from external
stimulation. In a statement that typifies Smith’s treatment of language,
he writes: “In vision, the contrast between developing stereoscopic vision
and learning to identify different kinds of moth is clear; in language
the contrast between acquiring the principles of binding theory and learning
the vocabulary of biochemistry is similarly not in dispute.” (133)
Visual references and examples are used not just to advance points concerning
the object of inquiry, but are also used when talking about the theoretical
approach to language adopted by generative linguistics. For example,
when explaining how generative theories of language can simultaneously
consider physical mechanisms, theoretical abstractions, and several other
levels of analysis, Chomsky frequently explains this practice in terms
of a hypothetical approach to the study of vision. For example, after
describing how generative theories of language refer to both physical
mechanisms and theoretical abstractions, Chomsky argues that a similar
situation exists in theories of vision. He writes:
In the same way, a theory of vision might be formulated in concrete terms, referring, say, to specific cells in the visual cortex, and their properties; or it might be formulated abstractly in terms of certain modes of representation (say, images or stick sketches), computations on such representations, organizing principles that determine the nature of such representations and rules, and so on. (Rules & Representations, page 5.)
Chomsky frequently supports the theoretical approach taken by generative linguistics via analogies with hypothetical theories of vision. For example, Chomsky states that a generative theory of language is similar to a theory of visual perception in that both do not concern themselves with evidence taken from the intuitions or self-report of particular subjects, but must instead focus on what the subject “actually” knows or sees:
A generative grammar attempts to specify what the speaker actually knows, not what he may report about his knowledge. Similarly, a theory of visual perception would attempt to account for what a person actually sees and the mechanisms that determine this rather than his statements about what he sees and why. Aspects, page 8.
Furthermore, Chomsky supports key aspects of his theoretical framework (idealization, abstraction, “systematic ambiguity” between theoretical and physical objects, the use of small amounts of data taken from introspection) via analogies and examples of how various studies of vision might, in principle, proceed. For example, in Rules and Representations he writes:
There is a familiar morass of problems about just what is meant when we take a theory to be true: what is the status of its theoretical entities, its principles, its idealizations…Consider again the study of vision. Suppose that some series of experiments leads to the conclusion that particular cells are sensitive to lines with certain orientations. In this case, no special problems are held to arise, though of course the conclusion is underdetermined by evidence, the cell is abstracted from its environment, nothing is said (at this level) about the mechanisms that might be responsible for what the cell is alleged to be doing, the results are obtained under highly idealized conditions built into the experimental situation and apparatus, and so on. (p. 105)
Chomsky presents hypothetical studies of vision in order to legitimate
the methodological principles adopted by generative linguistics. He assumes
that the study of vision is a natural analogue to the study of language,
and that methodological choices that are legitimate in the study of vision
therefore apply also to language. When defending the practice of abstraction
and idealization Chomsky turns to visual analogies particularly often.
The quotation below captures this rhetorical move nicely:
Consider the matter of ‘defining’ such notions as ‘human language’ or ‘French’. The former task poses questions of a familiar sort, as when we speak of the ‘human visual system’ as distinct from that of cats or bees. In speaking of these terms, we abstract away from individual differences and from interconnections among systems, focusing on one (idealized) element of a complex integrated whole…We might postulate that some principle for identifying the structure of a body in motion is a property (perhaps innate) of the human visual system, and that some principle (say, opacity or locality) is a property of the human language system. In this respect, it seems to me useful and appropriate to think of the human visual system or human language as analogous to an organ or bodily system, and to try to characterize their properties.
Throughout Rules and Representations, the text from which the
above two quotations are taken, issues concerning what is properly scientific,
what are adequate theoretical assumptions, and what the proper methodological
framework for the study of language ought to be, are discussed in terms
of figures, comparisons and hypothetical studies concerning vision.[7]
One of the most characteristic aspects of Chomskyan linguistics is the way it constructs a fundamental isomorphism between language and vision, an alignment that works to superimpose research on vision with generative research on language, and vice versa. This alignment takes many forms. To begin with, Chomsky singles out research on vision as the only other area of the cognitive sciences that has had success that is comparable to generative linguistics’. Thus he writes: “In the specific empirical areas of the so-called cognitive sciences, some have been doing pretty reasonably, like the study of vision and the study of language”, and “there are pretty successful computational theories of, say, vision, and language…they achieve some pretty surprising things”.[8] In considering whether “there other areas of human competence where one might hope to develop a fruitful theory, analogous to generative grammar”, Chomsky writes that one might “consider the problem of how a person comes to acquire a certain concept of three-dimensional space.” (Language & Mind, page 73.) Chomsky argues that visual processing is a prime candidate for being studied in a “similar way” to language, because the visual system operates in a way that is fundamentally akin to language (that is, vision is an innate system that develops “in a more or less uniform way on the basis of restricted data.”[9]) Chomsky often talks about vision as if it is amenable to the kind of analyses carried out by generative linguists. Chomsky is thus particularly interested in the work of researchers such as Richard Gregory, who have argued that language and vision are based on common cognitive ground, and thus must be considered together. Chomsky cites Gregory’s work, and states that this work suggests that:
There may be a ‘grammar of vision’, rather like the grammar of human language, and possibly related to the latter in the evolution of the species. Employing this ‘grammar of vision’ – largely innate – higher animals are able to ‘read from retinal images even hidden features of objects, and predict their immediate future states’, thus ‘to classify objects according to an internal grammar, to read reality from their eyes’. (Reflections, page 8)
One of the most frequent analogies Chomsky’s makes involves drawing parallels
between language and the faculty (proposed to exist by some cognitive
scientists) that infants have for visually identifying faces. Chomsky
proposes that children possess an innate “grammar of faces,” and writes:
Consider recognition of faces. A person can recognize an enormous number of human faces and identify a presentation of a single face with various orientations. This is a remarkable feat that cannot be duplicated with other figures of comparable complexity. It might therefore be interesting to try to develop a ‘grammar of faces’, or even ‘a universal grammar of faces’, to explain these abilities. Perhaps, at some stage of maturation, some part of the brain develops an abstract theory of faces and a system of projection that allows it to determine how an arbitrary human face will appear in a given presentation. Rules and Representations, page 248.
Some of the most explicit and extended comparisons between vision and
language occur in Chomsky’s discussions of the computational neurophysiologist
David Marr. Chomsky describes Marr’s work on vision as highly compatible
with his own research, as evidence for generative linguistics, and argues
that generative work on grammar and Marr’s work on vision constitute the
most advanced research in cognition. Chomsky reserves his highest praise
for Marr, calling his work “interesting”, “real science”, and “analogous
to what we are doing.”[10] Chomsky
writes:
They [Marr and his group] are interested in developing systems of representation and levels of representation which will on the one hand have a basis in physiology, if they can find it, and on the other hand will account for important perceptual phenomena…what they are doing is, in a sense, artificial intelligence, but what we are doing is in the same sense artificial intelligence…what they point out is that there are a number of different levels of investigation that you might imagine. First there is the level at which you deal with particular elements like diodes and neurons, and that is biochemistry, or physiology. Second, there is a level at which you talk about bigger units, assemblies or groupings of these units, and that is more abstract. Third, there is a level at which you talk about algorithms, actual procedures, parsing procedures, etc. And finally, there is what they call the theory of the computation, where you try to abstractly characterize the general properties of the system and how it functions and what its nature is. They argue, plausibly I think, that the theory of the computation is the most crucial and also the most neglected level of research, and that the most fundamental work will be at the level of the theory of that computation. Chomsky 1982, pp. 8 – 10
Chomsky argues that Marr correctly differentiates between levels of conceptual
analysis, just as his own theory does (and in stark contrast to Chomsky’s
critics, who Chomsky suggests unfairly criticize him in this regard.)
Chomsky notes that Marr’s research proposes that vision is innate, algorithmic,
and that the same kinds of restrictions on reflexive access to innate
knowledge characterize both vision and language. Both research programs
are strongly computational and focus on “real systems and their nature.”
(11) Chomsky often expresses a sense of kinship between his work and Marr’s.
He applauds Marr’s criticism of competing areas of AI that concentrate
on too “concrete a level” of analysis, or on human behavior rather than
on more conceptual/systemic considerations; he sympathizes with Marr’s
claim that scientific work on vision has neglected more abstract levels
of analysis, and in particular theoretical approaches that are computational
in character. Chomsky argues that the four levels of analysis described
by Marr provide an important methodological model for generative linguistics,
one that parallels and validates Chomsky’s own methodological choices.
Chomsky writes:
He [Marr] and his colleagues distinguish four levels:
At the lowest level there, there is basic component and circuit analysis – how do transistors (or neurons), diodes (or synapses) work? The second level is the study of particular mechanisms: adders, multipliers and memories, these being assemblies made from basic components. The third level is that of the algorithm, the scheme for a computation; and the top level contains the theory of the computation.
They suggest that the ‘top level is the most neglected [and] also the most important’, and that current research is misguided in constructing algorithms without appropriate prior understanding of the top level. Adopting this framework, we may consider the study of grammar and UG to be at the level of the theory of the computation.
Marr’s research is represented as homologous with Chomsky’s in terms
of scientific goals, approach, categories, concepts and methodology.
Marr’s work on vision thus functions as key exemplar, analogy and support
for generative linguistics.
The references Chomsky makes to Marr, along with the various other examples
cited above, help indicate just how central vision is to generative linguistics,
and the degree to which Chomsky constructs language in terms of an equivalence
with vision. One area of Chomsky’s writing that illustrates particularly
well just how powerfully this equivalence functions can be seen in the
sections devoted to rebuttals. Chomsky continually draws on references
to vision and visual perception in the counterarguments and refutations
he constructs (Chomsky is justly famous for his skill in dealing with
opponents, and for his ability to construct rhetorically powerful rebuttals
and refutations. Yet one of the most distinctive characteristics of these
rebuttals – his use of visual analogies, metaphors and examples - appears
to have gone unnoticed by both critics and admirers of Chomsky.) This
is a standard move, a rhetorical strategy that Chomsky returns to with
extraordinary frequency.[11] For
example, in Reflections on Language Chomsky engages in a sustained
debate with the communication theorist P.F Strawson, in which Strawson’s
criticisms are answered with rebuttals based on visual analogies. Chomsky
cites Strawson’s argument that linguistic rules are social, conventional,
public phenomena, and Strawson’s claim that generative linguistics ignores
this. Chomsky considers Strawson’s argument that ‘the function of communication
remains secondary, derivative, conceptually inessential’ in generative
linguistics, and a proper account of learning is not given. Chomsky responds:
The question whether communication is ‘primary’ and ‘conceptually essential’ is begged throughout Strawson’s counterarguments. Furthermore, the picture that Strawson rejects as perverse and arbitrary seems quite reasonable and probably correct…The organism is so constituted that it acquires a system of language that includes ‘meaning-determining rules’ (again, perhaps, in interaction with other faculties of mind.) These rules are then used by the speaker to express his beliefs (inter alia). The learner has no ‘reason’ for acquiring the language; he does not choose to learn, and cannot fail to learn under normal conditions, any more than he chooses (or can fail) to organize visual space in a certain way…As for the fact that the rules of language are ‘public rules’, this is indeed a contingent fact. Having acquired the system of language, the person can (in principle) choose to use it or not, as he can choose to keep to or disregard his judgments concerning the position of objects in space. He cannot choose to have sentences mean other than what they do, any more than he can choose to have objects distributed in perceptual space otherwise than the way they are…. It is a fact of nature that the cognitive structures developed by people in similar circumstances, within cognitive capacity, are similar, by virtue of their similar innate constitution. Thus we share rules of language with others as we share an organization of visual space with them. (Reflections on Language, page 71.)
As is often the case, the force of Chomsky’s counterargument rests largely
on an assumed equivalence between language and vision, and his critics’
failure to appreciate this. He consistently replies to criticism concerning
the methodological adequacy of generative linguistics (the focus on abstraction,
idealized conditions, data based on introspection, etc.) by comparing
the study of linguistic and visual systems. Chomsky argues that the same
issues arise in the study of vision, yet this isn’t considered a problem.
Since language is the same kind of object as the visual system, such criticisms
have no force for generative linguistics. Such a strategy is used throughout
the debates Chomsky conducts in Rules and Representations. For
example, Chomsky outlines the objections commonly leveled at generative
linguistics, and then argues for their irrelevance via an extended comparison
with vision.[12] He concludes his discussion
with the following statement:
Consider again the study of vision. Suppose that some series of experiments leads to the conclusion that particular cells are sensitive to lines with certain orientations. In this case, no special problems are held to arise, though of course the conclusion is underdetermined by evidence, the cell is abstracted from its environment, nothing is said (at this level) about the mechanisms that might be responsible for what the cell is alleged to be doing, the results are obtained under highly idealized conditions built into the experimental situation and apparatus, and so on. Suppose next that it is proposed that identification of objects involves analysis into stick-figures or geometrical structures, though nothing is said or known about neural mechanisms that might carry out such analysis. Is the situation fundamentally different in some way, apart from the physical and chemical properties of the brain? It is not clear why one should assume so.
(p. 105)
Chomsky’s rebuttal is predicated on the notion that the study of language and vision are largely equivalent when it comes to methodological considerations. Similarly, in response to Putnam’s objections to the generative concept of innateness and the marginal role assigned learning, Chomsky writes that ‘He [Putnam] makes the tacit assumption that language is cognitive in a way that vision is not, and hence that discussions of language have to meet additional criteria of adequacy.’ (172) In Knowledge of Language Chomsky engages the critiques of cognitivists who take a connectionist approach to the study of language and mind. Chomsky opposes the connectionist argument that preexisting structure and innate mechanism are not required in order to explain linguistic and cognitive structures. His frequent response to connectionist opponents consists of the counterargument that they cannot explain vision without reference to innate mechanisms and preexisting structure, yet they try to do with language. Since language is a system that is analogous to vision, such an approach must therefore be flawed.[13] Chomsky argues against the relevance of functional approaches to linguistic inquiry with this memorable riposte: ‘The child does not acquire the rule by virtue of its function any more than he learns to have an eye because of the advantage of sight.’[14] (Rules and Representations, page 231.) And when arguing against the notion that language is something constructed by its users, Chomsky often fashions rebuttals in terms of analogies between language and the visual system. Thus in Rules and Representations Chomsky opposes constructivist theories (as suggested by Vico and Rorty) in the following terms:
Have we, as individuals, ‘made’ our language? That is, have you or I ‘made’ English? That seems either senseless or wrong. We had no choice at all as to the language we acquired...there is no more reason to think of language as ‘made’ than there is to think of the human visual system and the various forms that it assumes as ‘made by us’. (Rules & Representations, page 11.)
For Chomsky, language is self-evidently the same kind of object as the visual system, and since we do not ‘make’ our visual faculties, it makes no sense to imagine language as socially constructed.
In general, vision is a central analogic figure in Chomsky’s writings.
His work is full of expressions that suggest fundamental parallels between
the visual and verbal domains. Often these parallels are broad (as for
example when Chomsky writes that research on vision “is highly suggestive
for the study of cognitive structures such as language”, or states that
when it comes to the biological development of the visual system, “comparable
conclusions seem to hold in the case of human language”.)[15] Sometimes they are
specific (as for example when he outlines his computational approach to
grammar, then writes that “by parity of argument, a scientist studying
vision might develop a theory involving certain types of computation and
representation for the identification of objects in motion.”)[16]
Ocular metaphors, examples, and analogies pervade Chomsky’s work, and
references to actual or hypothetical research on visual systems function
as important sources of support, authority and evidence for generative
linguistics. However, Chomsky’s comparisons between language and vision
rest on a very distinctive and selective understanding of vision. In
the sections that follow I examine Chomsky’s vision of vision, consider
where it comes from, and how it is used.
1.2 Chomsky’s Construction of Vision
It is worth looking in some detail at precisely how Chomsky understands
vision, for Chomsky’s comparisons between language and vision rest on
a very particular, and rather idiosyncratic understanding of vision.
He is very selective in the examples and research he cites, and he constructs
a model of vision that affords specific rhetorical uses. In this section
I look at the particular representation of vision Chomsky constructs,
how this relates to Chomsky’s theory of grammar, and consider some of
the rhetorical uses this model of vision is put to.
1.2.1 Chomsky’s Understanding
of Vision is Cartesian and Computational
Descartes’ theory of vision plays an important role in Chomsky’s linguistics.
Chomsky uses it as evidence for innateness, and describes the Cartesian
theory of vision as crucial for the development of computational approaches
to mind. Describing how his work is prefigured by the “Cartesian Revolution”
of the seventeenth century, Chomsky writes:
Inner mechanisms and inner processes appear to be computational systems, mentally representative and, in some unknown manner, physically instantiated. But that again is highly reminiscent of something that took place in the seventeenth century – in particular, Descartes’ theory of vision, which was a crucial breakthrough and developed a kind of representational, computational theory of mind.[17]
Descartes’ theory of vision is presented as a “crucial breakthrough”,
and as forerunner to the ‘cognitive turn’ that Chomsky has become synonymous
with. For Chomsky, the Cartesian model of vision is the foundation of
an internalist, computational approach to language and mind. Chomsky
is so interested in Descartes’ theory of vision, and draws on it so frequently
in his descriptions of grammar, because it so neatly fits Chomsky’s heavily
mathematized, computational account of language.[18] The above quotation nicely illustrates
an important chain of equivalences that exist within Chomskyan discourse.
The focus of linguistic science is “inner processes”, which are essentially
“computational systems”[19].
And computational systems can be likened to the operation of vision, since
vision (in its Cartesian form) is itself computational in character.
Language, vision, and computational systems constitute a set of foundational
concepts in generative linguistics. The generative object of knowledge
is evoked and given shape through a range of figurative comparisons, parallels,
and substitutions involving language, vision and computation. Throughout
Chomsky’s works these three domains are equated with each other to such
an extent that Chomsky often forgoes the use of overt verbal cues signaling
comparison, and will instead simply juxtapose references to language,
vision and computation when constructing a line of argument, as if their
equivalence can be taken for granted. Consider, for example, an argument
about innateness in Language and Mind. Chomsky introduces the
familiar rationalist distinction between inner and outer vision, between
the “eye of the mind” and the “eye of the body,” in order to argue that
knowledge proceeds from internal principles rather than exposure to external
objects. Chomsky endorses Descartes’ notion that when we see a triangle,
our knowledge of the triangle proceeds not from the “figure depicted on
paper,” but from the internal process of mentally envisioning “the authentic
triangle”.[20] Chomsky’s
discussion of innateness connects internal vision of a triangle with computational
processing and generative grammar:
In this sense the idea of the triangle is innate. Surely the notion is comprehensible; there would be no difficulty, for example, in programming a computer to react to stimuli along these lines…Similarly, there is no difficulty in programming a computer with a schematism that sharply restricts the form of a generative grammar, with an evaluation procedure for grammars of the given form, with a technique for determining whether given data are compatible with a grammar of the given form, with a fixed substructure of entities (such as distinctive features), rules, and principles, and so on – in short, with a universal grammar of the sort that has been proposed in recent years. For reasons that have already been mentioned, I believe that these proposals can be properly regarded as a further development of classical rationalist doctrine, as an elaboration of some of its main ideas regarding language and mind.
Chomsky’s discussion of innateness proceeds through a contrast between
‘outer’ and ‘inner’ vision, and its analogue in a hypothetical computer
system. Chomsky suggests that a computer could be made to simulate the
relationship between the exterior (peripheral) and interior (innate) aspects
of visual perception. Correspondingly, a computer could be programmed
to simulate many of the characteristics of universal grammar. Vision,
language and computers are comparable in that each consists of an internal,
formal-symbolic, computational center. The plausibility of this set of
equivalences rests on the assumption that vision should be understood
in neo-Cartesian terms as a computational system, and that vision and
language share fundamental similarities.
Another good example of the way Chomsky equates language, vision, and
computation occurs in Rules and Representations. In the passage
below, in which Chomsky distinguishes between different levels of theoretical
analysis, a fundamental correspondence is assumed between these three
domains. Chomsky writes:
Ultimately, the study of language is a part of human biology. In the study of any organism or machine, we may distinguish between the abstract investigation of the principles by which it operates and the study of the physical realization of the processes and components postulated in the abstract investigation. Thus, the study of visual perception might lead to the hypothetical construction of certain abstract components – for example, feature detectors – that enter in this system. A further inquiry might reveal the physical mechanisms that meet the abstract conditions postulated. In studying some automaton, we might attempt to determine its program at an abstract level, then proceed to inquire into the circuitry or mechanical principles by which this abstract program is realized. We may say that the same program is represented in devices of very different design and constitution. Rules and Representations, page 226.
The passage is organized around the conceptual dualism “abstract/physical.” This dualism is developed through a set of parallel linguistic constructions that align language, vision and computation. Chomsky writes that language can be studied at two different levels (“abstract investigation of principles”, and “physical realization of processes”). He follows this with the assertion that vision can be studied in terms of “abstract components” and “physical mechanisms”, and that an automaton can be studied in terms of the “abstract program”, or in terms of “circuitry or mechanical principles”. The correspondence between language, vision and computation is constructed without any explicit comparison, but is achieved through parataxis. The degree to which Chomsky equates language, vision and computation is signaled by the fact that after introducing the topic of studying language at different levels of analysis, he then describes potentially parallel studies of vision and automata, without giving any explanation as to how these three realms are logically related. The examination of each object is merely juxtaposed, as if it is obvious that they are conceptually equivalent. Passages such as the one above, in which language, vision and computation are equated, can be seen as enthymemes, in both the Isocratean and Aristotelian senses of the word.[21] Fahnstock notes that the Isocratean sense of the word “enthymeme” connotes a compressed recapitulation of assertions already explicit in previously argued material. Chomsky’s references to language, vision and computation often function this way – as a kind of short hand for a much larger, more explicit argument about language, mind, science, and methodology. The passage also functions as an enthymeme in terms of the more traditional meaning associated with the term. An Aristotelian “enthymeme” suggests a line of argument constructed from a truncated syllogism in which a mediating premise is left out. In the passage above, the missing premise involves the notion that language, vision and computational systems can in fact be treated as isomorphic. Many of the central arguments of generative linguistics can be formulated in the following terms: language is equivalent to vision; vision is a form of computation, therefore language can be understood as a computational system and all three objects can be studied in the same way.
1.2.2 Chomsky is Influenced by Marr’s Neo-Cartesian Account
of Vision
Another way in which vision is equated with computation, and both are
connected to language, occurs in Chomsky’s use of the work of David Marr.
As mentioned above, Marr’s work on vision is a central point of reference
for Chomsky. Of all the work done in cognitive science and neuroscience,
Chomsky focuses particular attention on the study of vision. And of all
the work on vision carried out within cognitive science and neuroscience,
Marr’s is selected for particular emphasis. Marr’s influence is apparent
in the explicit references Chomsky makes to him, but it can also be seen
in the many examples and turns of phrase that have their origin in Marr’s
work on vision.[22]
Chomsky is attracted to the work on vision by his colleague at M.I.T.
in large part because it so closely echoes key aspects of the generative
paradigm. Marr’s approach to vision is heavily formal, algorithmic and
computational.[23] Marr
“embarked on a vigorous research program seeking computational insights
into the working of the visual system, putting them to the test of implementation
as computer models”.[24] He
treats vision as an autonomous cognitive system, and maintains that within
this system there are different modules for computing different aspects
of visual information (Marr’s arguments about the modularity of cognitive
systems have been influential in cognitive science). His approach parallels
Chomsky’s, in that it focuses on the level of the theory of computation,
on internal representations and inner processing, and seeks an idealized,
purified version of the object of inquiry. Gardner writes that “just
as Chomsky wished to examine syntax in its pristine form (uncontaminated
by semantics or pragmatics), Marr wanted his analysis of visual processing
insulated as far as possible from the intrusion of ‘real world’ knowledge.”
Marr is heavily Cartesian; he emphasizes the abstract coordinate geometry
of visual perception, and focuses more on the computations that underlie
vision than their material manifestation in either physical or organic
“hardware”. And like Descartes, he equates external perception with mechanical
devices, assuming that both embody the same logic and can be studied in
similar ways. Marr’s work on vision thus functions as an important exemplar,
analogy and support for generative linguistics. Vision is the central
analogy, the root metaphor in generative linguistics, however it is vision
understood in largely computational terms, based on the example of writers
such as Descartes and Marr.
1.2.2 Problems with Chomsky’s Vision of Vision
A problem for Chomsky, and for generative linguistics, is that the
computational model of vision that Chomsky spends so much time comparing
language to has had a relatively brief shelf life in the cognitive sciences.
Marr’s work has not fared well in neurophysiological research and in the
cognitive sciences over the last 15 years.[25] More
generally, the computational-representational model of vision that Chomsky
advances has seen declining support across a range of disciplines. Edelman
and Vaina note that Marr’s computational theory of vision has been associated
with the idea that “constructing an internal model of the world is a prerequisite
for carrying out any visual task. The accumulation of findings to the
contrary in neurobiology and in the behavioral sciences gradually brought
to the fore the possibility that vision does not require geometric reconstruction.
This encouraged researchers to seek alternative theories”. Many of the
alternative theories that have since appeared propose that vision is distributed,
emergent, and nonrepresentational. These theories reject the notion that
vision is an autonomous system that can be understood in terms of traditional
information processing models.[26] Myin
summarizes some of the main precepts shared by nonrepresentationalist
theories of vision:
The heart of the nonrepresentational theory is that vision is seen as a process of active exploration of the environment, rather than the elaboration of an internal replica of the external world. The force of the perceptual poverty of the stimulus argument is denied in this approach, because vision is seen as a property of the whole animal (in its environment) and as extended in time. From the point of view of the whole animal, the stimulus is no longer fragmented. Neither is it ambiguous, in this theory, because movement in time disambiguates stimuli that are ambiguous when seen from a stationary position.[27]
More generally, the view of “the nervous system as a modular, information-processing
machine” has come under attack from connectionist and “dynamical systems”
approaches to cognition. For example, Thelen and Smith write that “recent
neurophysiology and developmental studies have turned this eminently plausible
[the modular-information processing paradigm] view on its head…studies
show vast and previously unimagined networks of interconnections both
within and among anatomically distinct areas. There is the primary sensory
organization within modalities, for example for color, form, and motion
in the visual system.” [28] They
write that there is
strong evidence of convergence of sensory information…multiple areas where projections from the visual, auditory, and somatosensory cortices converge…Indeed, some of the neural structures showing intersensory integration are subcortical, early maturing, and phylogenetically old. In their elegant book, The Merging of the Sense, Stein and Meredith (1993) build a compelling case for sensory convergence as a fundamental and enduring characteristic of animal nervous systems, universal in all phyla, and occurring at many levels of the neuraxis.
Chomsky has been consistently hostile to connectionist and dynamic accounts
of vision, cognition and language, continuing to ally his theory of language
with modular, information processing models.[29]
Chomsky has received a certain amount of criticism from linguists, psychologists
and cognitive scientists for hitching his theoretical wagon to what might
be deemed “outdated” paradigms. As far back as 1980, in a roundtable
discussion of Chomsky’s work in The Behavioral and Brain Sciences,
critics attacked what they saw as an anachronistic account of biology
and cognition. A number of the respondents argued that Chomsky’s focus on separate, modular systems, rather than
the more integrated terms of modern biological research, risked
resurrecting Gall’s organology.[30]
Lakoff’s charges are among the most severe. He argues that the biological
analogies and metaphors Chomsky uses, and in particular the analogies
with vision he constructs, focus exclusively on “the biology of separate
systems”.[31] Lakoff argues for the
relevance of modern biological models that foreground interconnection,
particularly between vision and language. He writes: “For me, the most
exciting question at present is what similarities there are in the various
cognitive faculties - language, thought, vision, motor control, and so
on.” (page 23) He also argues that Chomsky tends to base his biological
analogies on scientific work that is rather antiquated, since such work
tends to treat biological systems as isolated (Lakoff writes: “It is particularly
striking that the biological analogies Chomsky uses come not from contemporary
biology – molecular biology, genetics, and so on – but from earlier biology
– the biology of separate systems – the circulatory system, the visual
system, and so on.”)[32] While Chomsky’s opponents
make some important points, much of their criticism consists of charges
that generative linguistics lacks proper scientific legitimacy (ironically,
this is a rhetorical strategy used often by generativists against opponents
within linguistics.) What is ultimately of most interest to me is not
so much whether Chomsky has accurately based his arguments on the most
up to date research on vision and cognition. What does seem worth examining
is the selectivity with which Chomsky draws on scientific work
on vision (along with other areas of biology). Chomsky draws heavily
on Marr’s work, ignoring most other work on the neurophysiology of vision.
And as research on the neurophysiology of vision has moved away from Marr’s
approach, Chomsky’s analogies to the study of vision have not lessened,
but have become more general and abstract.[33] References
to research on vision are much more likely to be formulated in terms of
hypothetical cases and generalized examples. A more relevant criticism
of Chomsky’s use of biological and visual analogies can be found in the
way he reconstructs research to fit his particular agenda. This brings
us to the topic of how vision is used as a rhetorical strategy in generative
linguistics.
1.2.4 Constructing Vision as ‘Generative’
When describing how language is comparable to vision, Chomsky constructs vision in terms of the language and categories of generative linguistics.[34] A good example of this can be found in Aspects of the Theory of Syntax, where Chomsky argues that parallels can be drawn between vision and language with respect to the way development proceeds in infants. Citing the work of Held, Lemmon and Patterson on the visual development of children and newborn lambs, Chomsky writes:
Richard Held has shown in numerous experiments that reafferent stimulation (that is stimulation resulting from voluntary activity) is a prerequisite to the development of a concept of visual space, although it may not determine the character of this concept…or, to take one of innumerable examples from studies of animal learning, it has been observed (Lemmon and Patterson, 1964) that depth perception in lambs is considerably facilitated by mother-neonate contact, although again there is no reason to suppose that the nature of the lamb’s “theory of visual space” depends on this contact. 33-34.
Chomsky describes the work of Held, and Lemmon and Patterson as confirming his own hypotheses about the development of language. Yet he does this by extrapolating from their research, and by redescribing it in terms of the concepts and categories of generative linguistics. For example, nowhere do these researchers discuss “the development of a concept of visual space”, or of an animal’s “theory of visual space”. Nor do they argue that environmental stimulation exerts no influence on the development of a ‘concept’ of visual space. In a critique of Chomsky’s use of this research on vision, De Beaugrande argues that the three researchers in fact merely state that they observed the “facilitation” of development by external stimulation, and “not its irrelevance to some theory of visual space.”[35] De Beaugrande argues further that “the scientific, biological finding does not support his [Chomsky’s] thesis except through his own non-biological interpretation,” and he accuses Chomsky of distorting the work he cites. While there is much truth to De Beaugrande’s charge, what is more interesting from a rhetorical perspective is the way Chomsky’s treatment of these researchers illustrates several key argumentative strategies. Chomsky constructs vision and the study of the visual system in terms of the conceptual framework of generative linguistics in order to be able to argue several things: that the study of vision confirms his research on language; that language is a cognitive faculty just like vision, and is amenable to the same kind of analyses; and that linguistics ought to model itself on the study of vision (which just happens to be a mirror-image of the generative approach to language).[36] One can identify such rhetorical moves in a range of Chomsky’s writings. Consider, for example, this passage from Rules and Representations. Chomsky proposes that the study of language be modeled on the study of vision. He writes:
How can we proceed to investigate the properties of language? To clarify the issue, we might think about the less controversial task of studying the physical structure of the body. A rational approach would be to select some reasonably self-contained physical system of the body…Consider the kinds of questions we might ask about an organ of the body – say the eye, or more broadly the visual system regarded as an organ. We might organize our inquiry along the following lines:
(1) (a) function
(b) structure(c) physical basis
(d) development in the individual
(e) evolutionary development.[37]
Chomsky quickly rejects (1) (a) as a viable topic of study, and proceeds to talk about an analysis of the visual system based on the other questions, spending most of his time on 1 (b). Chomsky writes that we ought to begin with “some characterization of the structure of the visual system at the abstract level”, and might then proceed to a set of questions about the “structure of the visual system”, how physical mechanisms relate to structure, development in the individual, etc. This is all couched in terms of the language of generative linguistics, as can be seen in the passage below:
The organism begins in some genetically determined initial state common to the species with variations we may ignore at the outset. It passes through a sequence of states until it attains a mature final state which then undergoes only marginal further change. This ‘steady state’ is, it seems, attained at some relatively early stage in life. But though the organ of vision is essentially fixed in structure at that time, we may still ‘learn to see’ in new ways throughout our lives, for example, by applying knowledge gained later in life or through exposure to some new form of visual representation in the arts, say cubism.
The development of the visual faculty is discussed in terms of an “initial state”, “steady state,” and “final state,” familiar entries in the generative lexicon. It is said that “variation” in visual processing can be ignored. While the visual faculty is largely fixed, a person may produce novel visualizations and “learn” to see in new ways. Having described the study of vision in terms of the approach, methodology, categories, and questions posed within generative linguistics, Chomsky then proposes that linguistic inquiry ought to be modeled on the study of vision. That is, Chomsky argues that we should model linguistics on the study of visual systems represented in terms of the generative framework. After outlining what might be dubbed a “Chomskyan theory of vision”, Chomsky writes: “Suppose that we attempt to study language on the model of a bodily organ [the visual system], raising the questions (1a) – (1e).” (Rules and Representations, page 229.) Chomsky then outlines how the study of language might be based on the “model” provided by research on visual systems – that is, he describes the project of generative linguistics.[38]
1.3 Vision, Knowledge & the Study of Grammar
One of the main reasons that a visual metaphoric plays such an important role in generative linguistics is that Chomsky conceptualizes grammar largely in terms of knowledge, and he associates knowledge with vision. There is a long tradition in the West of representing knowledge in ocular terms.[39] For Plato, true knowledge is modeled on an act of vision – that of ascending to a realm in which the essence of things can be clearly seen, or of seeing behind the surface of things in order to discover the underlying regularities. (Eidos and idea, the words Plato gives for the Forms, both derive from the verb idein, ‘to see’.) In the Phaedrus Plato describes true knowledge as “seeing that which is well ordered and ever unchangeable”; in the Meno Plato describes knowledge as anamnesis, or the recollection of the soul’s experience of seeing the Forms in their pure state. Aristotelian philosophy is similarly visualist. In the first sentence of the Metaphysics, Aristotle writes: “Of all the senses, trust only the sense of sight”, and he defines vision as the “most noble sense” because it is the faculty that most closely resembles and guarantees true knowledge.[40] Dewey argues that in Western philosophy since Plato and Aristotle “the theory of knowing is modeled after what was supposed to take place in the act of vision”[41]. Rorty writes that the “ocular metaphor seized the imagination of the founders of Western thought”, and a focus on knowledge of universal concepts contributed to make “the Eye of the mind the inescapable model for the better sort of knowledge.” (Rorty 1979, p. 38-39) Arendt echoes these claims, stating that ‘from the very outset, in formal philosophy, thinking has been thought of in terms of seeing…The predominance of sight is so deeply embedded in Greek speech, and therefore in our conceptual language, that we seldom find any consideration bestowed upon it, as though it belonged among things too obvious to be noticed.’[42] Martin Jay argues that vision is “the master trope of the modern era”[43]. And in Wittgenstein’s later writings he considers how our language may predispose us to think about the world in visualist terms (“a picture held us captive. And we could not get outside it, for it lay in our language and language seemed to repeat it to us inexorably.”)
Nowhere is the representation of knowledge and mind more strongly visualist than in Cartesian philosophy. The metaphor of the mind as inner vision is central to Descartes’ conception of knowledge and cognition, and figures prominently in Chomsky’s writings also. Descartes states, "We shall learn how to employ our mental intuition by comparing it with the way that we employ our eyes"[44], and “when the mind understands, it in some way turns towards itself and inspects one of the ideas which are within it.” [45]. Descartes represents knowledge as a purified internal vision situated in the mind that stands in contrast to an impure, external vision that operates through the body. Rorty notes that this distinction dates back to classical Greek philosophy, where knowledge of universals and particulars are talked about primarily in terms of two forms of vision. The “eye of the mind” is associated with “knowledge of the highest and purest things: mathematics, philosophy itself, theoretical physics, anything which contemplates universals.” By contrast, “the eye of the body knows particulars by internalizing their individual colors and shapes.”[46]
Chomsky draws often on the work of Descartes and other rationalist writers to explain his understanding of knowledge and language. Chomsky writes that the rationalist account of knowledge, once updated and “purged of the error of preexistence” provides a fruitful and plausible framework for understanding cognition. [47] Chomsky talks of the rationalist assumption that the ‘natural light’ of common sense can lay bare the basic elements of human reasoning. (Reflections on Language, page 244).
Chomsky’s discussions of knowledge and the mind are strongly Cartesian,
and even include the familiar Cartesian distinction between the “Eye of
the Mind” and the “Eye of the Body”. Consider, for example, the following
statement in which Chomsky describes the mind in strongly visualist terms,
and in which he contrasts “inner” and “outer” vision in a way that closely
resembles the schema described by Rorty above. Chomsky writes:
The eye perceives, but the mind can compare, analyze, see cause-and-effect relations, symmetries, and so on, giving a comprehensive idea of the whole, with its parts, relations, and proportions.[48]
Chomsky’s concept of knowledge is modeled on the visual perception of conceptual objects in a field of ordered, geometric, Euclidian space. The mind “sees” objects, parts and relations, and is predisposed to view these objects in terms of relationships of symmetry and proportion. Chomsky follows Descartes in assuming that there exists a “natural geometry of the mind”.[49] He endorses Descartes’ notion that “the mind is so constituted that it constructs regular geometric figures as “exemplars” for the interpretation of experience.” (Rules & Representations, page 38). Chomsky writes:
Descartes and Cudworth believed the mind to be endowed with the principles of Euclidian geometry as an a priori property. We see a presented irregular figure as a (possibly distorted) triangle, straight line, circle, and so forth, because our minds produce these figures as ‘exemplars’, just as ‘the intelligible essences of things’ are produced by ‘the innate cognoscitive power’. In Kant’s phrase, objects conform to our ‘modes of cognition.’ Rules and Representations, page 246
There are thus as Chomsky puts it “first principles of geometry” that are internal to the mind – the mind both constructively envisions and makes visible objects of a certain orderly character, and inclines us to understand the objects we perceive with our external senses as ideals. Chomsky sometimes elaborates on this metaphor of the mind as a space of inner vision by drawing on another strongly optical metaphor, that of visually deciphering a piece of writing. For example, citing Cudsworth, Chomsky states in Reflections on Language:
The ‘book of nature’, then, is ‘legible only to an intellectual eye’….just as a man who reads a book in a language that he knows can learn something from the ‘inky scrawls’. [50]
The ocularcentrism
of rationalist philosophy is frequently expressed in terms of analogies
with written language, and Chomsky follows figures like Descartes, Cudsworth
and Berkeley in this regard (I take up this aspect of Chomsky’s ocularcentrism
in more detail in chapter 5 of my dissertation, Rhetoric and Reflexivity
in Chomskyan and Cognitive Linguistics.)
In the sections that follow
I examine three aspects of the way Chomsky’s epistemological premises
are grounded in visual analogies. First, I will consider how Chomsky
constructs both the subject and object of knowledge in terms of vision.
Second, I will examine how language is defined as a mirror of knowledge,
with both language and knowledge represented in terms of visual paradigms.
Third, I will address how Chomsky’s visualist representation of knowledge
defines some approaches to and aspects of language as knowable/visible,
and others as unknowable/invisible.
1.3.1 Chomsky’s
Ocularcentric Construction of the Subject and Object of Knowledge
Generative linguistics shares many of the tendencies that characterize
ocularcentric disciplinary discourses. This includes the epistemological
ideals of objectivity, certainty, transparency, universality, subject-object
duality, and corporeal transcendence. These ideals are embedded in the
visualist language and imagery Chomsky uses to discuss knowledge, language
and mind, and profoundly shape Chomsky’s understanding of the subject
and object of linguistic study. In Chomskyan linguistics knowing is seeing,
and the object to be known is best understood not only in terms of visual
perception, as a visually manifest phenomenon that can be observed with
clarity, determinacy and certainty, but ultimately as itself a kind of
vision. Chomsky’s ocularcentric construction of the subject and object
of knowledge is evident in the key analogies he uses to describe the perspective
from which an idealized knower could see/know language in its totality,
in its true essential form.
Chomsky frequently argues that while on the surface language seems ‘complex and defective’, mired in ‘difficult and
murky contingencies,’ this is only due to the distorting influence of
its physical realization in the body, and our inability to adopt a properly
scientific and objective perspective.[51] Chomsky
writes that ‘this apparent variety
and complexity is superficial, reducing to minor parametric differences.’[52] The reason language
appears ‘imperfect’ is that it must be materialized in the ‘sensorimotor
system’. Chomsky states:
A large range of imperfections may have to do with the need to "externalize" language. If we could communicate by telepathy, they would not arise. The phonological component is in a certain sense "extrinsic" to language, and the locus of a good part of its imperfection. (Chomsky, 1997b)
Chomsky associates ‘imperfection’, and deviation from the ideal, with the body, and with the requirement that language be voiced. He argues that the imperfections of language caused by its embodiment would disappear if humans communicated by telepathy - that is, without a body. The distorting effects of our physical embodiment mask the unity and singularity of the underlying language system. In ‘Minimalist Explorations’ Chomsky states that the sensorimotor system is ‘extraneous to language,’ a ‘nuisance’ that is ‘imposed by external systems,’ and that ‘the one unique computational process’ would become apparent ‘if we could think and communicate by telepathy.’[53] He jokes that ‘if you were God’ it would be obvious that the ‘imperfections’ of language result from the vagaries of its physical realization.[54] That is, if one could occupy the perspective of God, for whom the perfection and design of human cognition is visible in its totality, or if we were unshackled from the distorting influence of the body (a condition often associated with the divine), we would be able to perceive the essence of human language. Later in this same text, Chomsky states that if we could approach language with the objectivity afforded a Martian, a being that has not experienced the cultural conditioning humans undergo, a comparable clarity of vision might be achieved. He writes that ‘Martians looking at humans would say there’s one language with a bunch of lexical exceptions.’ Similarly, in Language and Thought Chomsky writes that the ‘computational system’ underlying language is invariant, and it follows that ‘there is only one human language, as a rational Martian observing humans would have assumed’. (page 50.) In “Language and Mind: Current Thoughts on Ancient Problems,” Chomsky writes:
In their essential properties, languages are cast to the same mold. The Martian scientist might reasonably conclude that there is a single human language, with differences only at the margins. For our lives, the slight differences are what matter, not the overwhelming similarities which we unconsciously take for granted. No doubt frogs look at other frogs the same way. But if we want to understand what kind of creature we are, we have to adopt a very different point of view, basically that of the Martian studying humans.
And in “Models, Nature and Language” Chomsky states:
There is fairly good reason now to believe that in a certain, rather deep sense, there is only one human language. If a Martian scientist looked at us the way that we look at frogs he might well conclude that with marginal, minor modifications, there is only one language. You and I might say "tree," and a German would say "baum," but we're using basically the same concepts from the same inventory, which is both rich and restrictive. (Chomsky 1994, p. 173.)
Chomsky argues that we are confused by the
existence of different languages and by variation in language use because
we cannot adopt the proper perspective that will allow us to see the object
as it really is. The ‘view from outer
space’ presumably enables the hypothetical Martian to see through the
surface irregularity and variation of language. A Non-terrestrial
Being that is outside human history, culture, and social life, free of
earthbound attitudes and prejudices, able to observe human language from
a privileged, culturally ‘uncontaminated’ perspective, would see that
there is only one underlying language system.[55]
Chomsky also equates the perspective of the Martian with the vantage point
afforded the child acquiring language. He writes that ‘from the Martian
point of view,’ as well as from ‘a child’s point of view,’ languages are
‘essentially identical’ (Chomsky 1995b). Chomsky argues that “languages
must look identical from the child’s point of view”, since ‘otherwise
it’s impossible to learn any.’ The speed and precision with which children
pick up new words “leaves no real alternative to the conclusion that the
child somehow has the concepts available before experience with language
and is basically learning labels for concepts that are already part of
his or her conceptual apparatus.”[56] Like God and
the Martian, the child is represented as encountering language in an idealized,
pristine form, his ‘knowledge’ of language untainted by experience and
bodily realization. In each case a universal, totalizing vision constitutes
idealized knowledge of language, and connects us to the truth as it distances
us from the body, history, culture and society. Objectivity, certainty
and knowledge of the ideal are associated with the visual apprehension
of an object by a transcendental subjectivity.[57] Chomskyan
linguistics thus privileges what Nietzsche describes as ‘an eye outside
time and history, an eye that no living being can imagine, an eye required
to have no direction, to abrogate its active and interpretive powers’.[58] Rorty notes that Western
philosophy is characterized by the visualist ‘wish to see the world from
above… as spectator of time and eternity,’ and has sought to constitute
itself as a ‘discipline which lets us stand over and against the world
of everyday practice by seeing it as God sees it, as a limited whole.”[59] Chomskyan
linguistics is characterized by similar aspirations, and is animated by
a similar set of root metaphors. Chomsky’s descriptions of idealized
knowers are permeated with the language of spectatorial epistemology –
‘observation’, ‘perspective,’ ‘point of view,’ ‘look,’ ‘see,’ ‘focus,’
etc. In the examples above, and in much of the rest of his work, knowledge
is figuratively characterized as a visual enterprise. The object of inquiry,
language, is represented in correspondingly ocular terms, and is assigned
many of the same characteristics, including disengagement, objectivity,
disembodiment, certainty and universality.
Chomsky’s investment in optical metaphors, analogies, evidence and examples
shows up at every level of his work. His philosophical commitments are
closely connected to the way vision has been culturally constructed, and
to the specific material properties assigned it in the context of its
use as a metaphor for knowledge.[60]
For example, vision is typically assumed to be the most immaterial of
the senses. [61]
Visual interaction with an object is thought not to involve the kind of
incorporation associated with touch or taste, taking place as it does
via the seemingly immaterial medium of light.[62]
Philosophers such as Hans Jonas who study the phenomenology of vision
have suggested that sight is preeminently the sense of simultaneity, enabling
the subject to instantly survey a wide visual field.[63] Furthermore,
while each mode of perception maintains objects at a distinctive distance
from the body, vision is typically understood as the most distancing.
Echoing Jonas’ arguments about vision, Fabian writes:
Vision requires distance from its objects; the eye maintains its ‘purity’ as long as it is not in close contact with ‘foreign objects’. Visualism, by instituting distance as that which enables us to know, and purity or immateriality as that which characterizes true knowledge, aimed to remove all the other senses and thereby the body from knowledge production. Fabian 1993, p. 99.
Ong makes a congruent argument, stating that “of all the senses sight is the most distancing sense: it requires always that eye and object be removed to a considerable extent from one another.’ [64] Sight is also considered the most disengaged sense, the least attuned to temporality and the body.[65] The externality of sight allows the observer to avoid contact with the object of perception. Vision is thus the sense most associated with objectivity and disengagement. Keller and Grontkowski state:
Although itself one of the senses, by virtue of its apparent incorporeality, it [vision] is that sense which most readily promotes the illusion of disengagement and objectification. At the same time it provides a compelling model for intangible communication. (p. 213)
Houlgate notes that Dewey’s critique of the spectator theory of knowledge centers precisely on the assumption of disengagement, on the idea that ‘the aim of philosophical or scientific inquiry is to come to know reality - as we seem to do in vision - without in any way interfering with it or modifying it through practical activity.’[66] In Chomskyan linguistics the ideal knowing subject is represented as an all-seeing, all-knowing observer who occupies a ‘view from nowhere,’ and above all, who is disengaged and objective. The perspective of God, a Martian, and the child is deemed perfect precisely because it is knowledge that is removed from the world.
Vision has been constructed
as the sense which registers objects of perception instantaneously. Visual
metaphors for knowing suggest immediacy, unity, and unmediated access
to reality. Rorty states that ocular theories of knowledge seem
to offer the hope of an ‘immediacy which would make discourse and description
superfluous.’ (Rorty 1993, p. 375) Visual metaphors for knowing are frequently
used to repress the role of language in knowledge production and suggest
that understanding can proceed in an essentially unmediated way. Ocular
metaphors efface the importance of rhetoric and reflexivity by suggesting
that knowledge occurs instantly, at a glance, unmediated by language.[67]
Ocularcentric discourses tend to background the metaphorical status of
vision (Derrida writes that with ‘photocentric’ discourses description
is conflated with, or projected onto, the object it is supposed to understand,
and that as a result ‘structure becomes the object itself.’[68])
Correspondingly, Chomskyan linguistics is characterized by a constant
drive to establish immediacy and efface signs of constructedness and mediation.
It seeks to escape the need for language to talk about language. This
rhetorical imperative depends on the conflation of the theoretical object
and the ‘natural’ object, on closing the gap between the object and the
language used to represent it. Chomsky represents knowledge in terms
of inner vision and in terms of the act of observation by a transcendental
subjectivity. In each case knowledge is immediate, disengaged, disembodied
and unmediated. Furthermore, the subject and object are once more aligned
by making the act of knowing and the object of knowledge similar in many
key areas. Knowledge and the object of knowledge are described primarily in terms of
vision, and both in their ideal form are dematerialized, immediate, unmediated
and noncorporeal. This tendency is also identifiable in Chomsky’s discussions
of the essence of language understood as a form of telepathy - which if
not exactly a form of vision, is associated with the same qualities attributed
to vision. As telepathy, communication is unmediated, transparent, disembodied
and immediate. The properties typically assigned vision are associated
with pure communication understood in terms of pure thought. In generative
linguistics perfect knowledge thus mirrors perfect communication - a disembodied
eye can perceive disembodied communication in its essential form.
Vision has also been associated
with certainty, universality, and with what is self evidently true. It
has been depicted as atop the hierarchy of senses with respect to reliability,
and is often presented as the most universal sense (in the sense that
perceiving subjects are assumed to see the same thing). Rorty talks of
how Western philosophy has sought to associate knowledge with the certainty
that appears to be provided ‘when staring at an object,’ (Rorty
1993, p. 159) and Descartes writes
that “sight is the most universal and the most noble of the senses.’[69]
Chomsky consistently associates the certainty attributed to vision
with knowledge of language (references
to vision in generative linguistics thus play a role somewhat akin to
Dr Johnson’s stone.) When confronted with skeptics or dissenters, Chomsky
argues that knowledge of language (as well as language as knowledge) is
as certain and well-grounded as knowledge of the visual system. For example,
when arguing against the notion that linguistic rules are cultural and
variable, and that linguistic meaning is conventional and context-dependent,
Chomsky writes that a language user
cannot choose to have sentences mean other than what they do, any more than he can choose to have objects distributed in perceptual space otherwise than the way they are…. It is a fact of nature that the cognitive structures developed by people in similar circumstances, within cognitive capacity, are similar, by virtue of their similar innate constitution. Thus we share rules of language with others as we share an organization of visual space with them.[70]
In passages like
the one above the universality and certainty commonly attributed to visual
perception is associated with language in order to authorize generative
linguistics and naturalize the object of inquiry. Chomsky’s frequent
appeals to the certainty of visual perception and the visual system thus
function as what Potter et al call an “undeniability device.” That is,
references to vision constitute rhetorical strategies designed to establish
beyond any doubt the existence of a brute reality, something external
to talk, discursively unmediated. Like hitting the furniture, kicking
a rock, invoking death, power or the Holocaust, Chomsky’s statements about
the distribution of objects in ‘perceptual space’ (in other words, the
undeniability of what we see) are used to establish that which cannot
be denied, a bedrock nonverbal reality that is present, self-evidently
true, an ultimately trustable form of experiential realism. Potter et
al analyze some of the most common undeniability devices, arguing that
each inevitably fails in its attempt to escape representation. For example,
they examine the ‘furniture argument’ (“The realist thumps the table.
What a loud noise! Much louder than talk. Much more gritty. Much more
real. And yet we insist that this noise, being produced in this
place, at this time, in the course of this argument, is
an argument, is talk”[71])
sometimes invoked by realists. They write:
The Furniture argument, as the argument of no argument, purports to be the one that ends the rhetoric, is above rhetoric, and demonstrates its limits: it is "the naked truth," unconstructed, unsupported, unclothed, needing no allies. The counter to this is to name it as a device, a rhetorical construct, occasioned and deployed. For example, we can place it amongst a set of similar devices for accomplishing undeniability. In discourse, the Furniture device shares features with other rhetorical ploys that, difficult to undermine in themselves, are deployed as shields behind which some rather more vulnerable entity is placed; thus positioned, they lend their robustness to some more contentious issue. Page 3.
Chomsky’s appeals
to the undeniability of visual perception might similarly be dubbed “the
Vision argument.” References to vision function to shield the ‘more vulnerable
entity’ of language, to establish its certainty, its status as a bedrock
nonverbal reality that is present, self-evidently true, discursively unmediated.
Idealized knowledge of language is depicted in terms of inner vision that
delivers universal understanding, or in terms of idealized observers who
occupy a vantage point that enables universal understanding. The linguistic
examples that accompany Chomsky’s description of ideal knowledge, and
which Chomsky uses to establish the universality and certainty of the
object of inquiry, also depend on visualist assumptions about language
and knowledge. Consider, for example, the passage cited earlier describing
a Martian view of language:
If a Martian scientist looked at us the way that we look at frogs he might well conclude that with marginal, minor modifications, there is only one language. You and I might say "tree," and a German would say "baum," but we're using basically the same concepts from the same inventory, which is both rich and restrictive. (Chomsky 1994, p. 173.)
Chomsky asserts that objective knowledge
would reveal a single, universal conceptual system that underlies and
is reflected in language. The universality of the conceptual and linguistic
system is suggested through the example of German and English words for
the concept “tree.” What is interesting about the example is that like
many other arguments for conceptual universals, it focuses on an individual
noun, one denoting a physical object with concrete physical characteristics,
and which in many contexts of use connotes availability to visual perception.
The plausibility of Chomsky’s example rests on an implicit appeal to the
universality of thought and language understood in terms of visual perception.
Chomsky does not consider a word expressing process, sensation, or some
culturally specific practice or expression.[72]
His example presupposes that when an English speaker hears the word “tree,”
s/he has in mind a mental image that can be compared and found equivalent
to the German word “baum”. Chomsky thus assumes that words and sentences
function primarily as pictures, rather than as the later Wittgenstein
would argue, as tools integrated into the fabric of human action and life.
His example presupposes Aristotle’s visualist dictum that “words are the
image of thought”[73],
and Wittgenstein’s remark that “the proposition is a picture of reality.” [74] Such a model of language
clearly depends on an assumed equivalence between thought, knowledge and
vision – if, for example, we imagine thought and knowledge in terms of
an alternative set of modal metaphors, the plausibility of such a universal
linguistic and conceptual system appears less convincing.[75]
Generally speaking, philosophical and linguistic appeals to universality
depend at some level on the epistemological certainty and universality
that has come to surround visual metaphors. Much of the suspicion toward
visual figures identifiable in poststructural and postmodern theories
centers on the claims of universality that often accompany visualist language.
Becker has produced an interesting interrogation of arguments for conceptual
and linguistic universals, one that can also be read as a critique of
visualist ontology. Becker examines the se