Eochair Caint i Lima | Keynote Talk in Lima

Comhdháil | Event: ‘300 Years of Immanuel Kant’

Áit | Place: Universidad Nacional Federico Villarreal, Lima, Peru.

Eochairchaint | Keynote Talk: ‘Kant and Generative Linguistics: Analogies and Homologies in thought’

Cathain | When: 25ú Meán Fómhair 2024 | 25th September 2024.

Suíomh: 300 Years of Kant

Dr Liam Tiernaċ Ó Beagáin
School of Philosophy
University College Dublin
Ireland

Immanuel Kant (1724–1802) is not counted among antecedents to Noam Chomsky’s (b. 1928) generative linguistics, nor has his philosophy of language been wholly appreciated (Mosser, 2001). This analysis outlines how such a “serious gap,” as Chomsky calls it, (1974: 32) might be corrected. The study has two parts. The first falls under Chomsky’s genealogical method, commonly termed ‘rational reconstruction,’ while the second is an ‘historical reconstruction.’ The analysis is initially concerned with ideas of significance wherein comparisons are made analogically but turns to ideas of meaning wherein comparisons are made homologically. Searching for homologies in thought requires constructing historical links, examining ‘climates of opinion’ and reducing the established analogies to homologies. Kant qualifies as part of Chomsky’s genealogy in Cartesian Linguistics (1966/2009) since he suggests we are imaginative beings not constrained by cause and effect (2000: 192). Furthermore, he posits innate generative capacities triggered by phenomena presented through sensibility. The imagination is the creative faculty that enables acquisition of new concepts by synthesising sensibility and understanding. In part two, homologies in thought are presented by examining the sociohistorical conditions of Kant, the Kantian linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767–1835), whose work (1903–36) is at the centre of Cartesian Linguistics, and Chomsky. This includes a comparative analysis of their climates of opinion which are ‘classically liberal.’ Finally, the homologies are fully drawn out in a closing analysis by forging a line of thought that examines the influences running from Kant to the American Humboldtians, their influence on American linguistics and its influence on Chomsky.