Four ways from universal to particular: how Chomsky's principles-and-parameters model is not selectionist

DOI10.1080/11663081.2016.1214803MaRDI QIDQ4586162zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Authors David P. Ellerman

Publication date 12 September 2018

Published in Journal of Applied Non-Classical Logics (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/1410.4501

zbMATH Keywords

logic of partitionsgenerative mechanismsChomsky's principles-and-parameters modelinstructionistselectionist

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Problems related to evolution (92D15) Logic of natural languages (03B65) Logic in the philosophy of science (03A10) Other applications of logic (03B80)

Abstract: Following the development of the selectionist theory of the immune system, there was an attempt to characterize many biological mechanisms as being "selectionist" as juxtaposed to "instructionist." But this broad definition would group Darwinian evolution, the immune system, embryonic development, and Chomsky's language-acquisition mechanism as all being "selectionist." Yet Chomsky's mechanism (and embryonic development) are significantly different from the selectionist mechanisms of biological evolution or the immune system. Surprisingly, there is an abstract way using two dual mathematical logics to make the distinction between genuinely selectionist mechanisms and what are better called "generative" mechanisms. This note outlines that distinction.

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