Kant’s Place

This book questions Immanuel Kant’s absence in the study of antecedents to Generative Linguistics. Indeed, Noam Chomsky observes that his omission is a serious error since a study of his work would be of considerable value to contemporary studies in linguistics. This gap is no more evident than in Chomsky’s own research presented in Cartesian Linguistics (1966) but is closed by the research Ó Beagáin presents in Kant's Place . In this book, Kant’s ideas on mind and language are placed within Chomsky’s genealogy for the first time. The author argues persuasively that Chomsky’s own account of language and mind––which receives rigorous analysis––bears striking resemblances to Kant’s, most readily found in their accounts of formal, generative, and creative aspects of mind. The analysis reveals how both Kant and Chomsky argue that formal capacities combine with imaginative and creative characteristics which engender conceptualizing abilities of mind. Furthermore, their models are not rigid but fluid since both posit epigenetic theses that place the capacity for conceptual development within the mind. By introducing Kant to Generative Linguistics, the author achieves a much-needed expansion of Chomsky’s genealogy and in doing so includes a reevaluation of Wilhelm von Humboldt’s place within Cartesian Linguistics . In reconsidering Humboldt, Ó Beagáin shows how Chomsky unknowingly included Kantian ideas in his seminal work, thereby making the similarities between Chomsky and Kant all the more convincing.