Reflections on Chomsky

Noam Chomsky, one of the century's leading linguists, has made major contributions to the systematic study of language. From the late 1950s to this day, his work has generated much discussion among philosophers concerned with language and the light its study throws onto the workings of the human mind. These original philosophical essays were presented to Chomsky to honour him on the occasion of his 60th birthday. The contributors are Sylvain Bromberger, Tyler Burge, Martin Davies, Michael Dummett, Jerry Fodor, Alexander George, James Higginbotham, Jaakko Hintikka, Norbert Hornstein, Christopher Peacocke, Hilary Putnam and Crispin Wright. The range of topics discussed in the volume reflects the breadth of Chomsky's thought; they include the social versus ideolectal conceptions of language, the factuality of linguistics, the psychological reality of grammar, the nature of a semantic theory, the proper object of linguistic inquiry, logical from, the modular organization of mind, tacit knowledge, and the relevance to linguistics of Wittgenstein's remarks on rules.