Materialism is just like anything we more or less understand -- it includes thinking, reasoning, etc. So we can't leave it behind until someone explains what it is. — Chomsky
For example, as I mentioned, an infant, presented with presentations which indicate that there's some kind of causality -- like when the ball rolls this way a light turns red or something -- they will invent a mechanical cause, and they don't care if it's not visible, because infants understand that most of what goes on is invisible but there's got to be some mechanical cause otherwise there's no way to influence anything else. So that does seem to be the way our minds work, and that tells us something about the limits of our understanding; in fact a classical, crucial case -- and it can go on to other cases — Chomsky
There's no problem if people disagree, in fact, it's welcomed. Others can build ideas on disagreements. — Manuel
Chomsky is arguing precisely that "bodies" and "the physical" does not really have a place in today's science. — Xtrix
That physical flux was the "least popular" explanation of causality around Leibniz's time is interesting, but I don't see the relevance here. — Xtrix
I couldn't make much of the brief note on language tucked in at the end, but that's because I have no familiarity with linguistics and Chomsky's work. — SophistiCat
I think people read into them whatever prejudices they happen to hold already: — SophistiCat
Yes, Stoljar is interesting, but I've mainly focused on Strawson. So I can say less about him than others. — Manuel
It’s just really odd to say we can’t refer to the word physical because Newton’s contemporaries once associated the word to mean things in the world worked like wheels and clocks. — Saphsin
And what, if we can't square our most advanced concepts of understading to the intellectual standards of literal infants this is supposed to be a comment on our understanding other than the fact that infants are literally the stupidest variety of human on the planet? — StreetlightX
Chomsky is arguing precisely that "bodies" and "the physical" does not really have a place in today's science.
— Xtrix
Right, and from this he wants to draw the conclusion that there are some things in the world that will always escape us. — StreetlightX
Again, the latter stands as a perfectly reasonable position (that things will always escape us), but movement from A to C simply doesn't follow. If bodies and the physical don't have a place in today's science then they were always insignificant from the beginning other than as conceptual holding-patterns whose time is done. We owe them nothing and they speak to nothing. — StreetlightX
The point is that these ideas are throughly historical - they had a date of birth and they will have a date of death. The idea that these senses of causality are deeply held eternal metaphysical notions is just rear-guard parochialism. — StreetlightX
Even if infants develop certain ideas along a relatively stable developmental path, this might speak to nothing other than the fact, of, I dunno, the necessity of avoiding being eaten by lions. Which is, shall we say, a regional issue at best. — StreetlightX
Chomsky's not very hidden agenda: innate ideas. — bongo fury
an apologia for his effective creationism about language — StreetlightX
"Physical" (in terms of contact action) was one of these common-sense based technical notions that was abandoned. — Xtrix
I think Chomsky is going from C to A, not A to C. — Xtrix
"Effective"? Chomsky has never once, in my reading, questioned whether language evolved. That it came about rapidly instead of gradually, as some propose, yes. That's "effective creationism"? — Xtrix
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