|
|
|
|
|
|
The present chapter introduces the subject matter of this book, namely, formal models of empirical inquiry. We begin by indicating the issues that motivate our study. Next come illustrations of models, followed by discussion of their principal features. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Many people who have reflected about human understanding and its origins have noticed an apparent disparity. Bertrand Russell [164] (cited in Chomsky [40]) put the matter this way: |
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
How comes it that human beings, whose contacts with the world are brief and personal and limited, are nevertheless able to know as much as they do know? |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Focusing attention on intellectual development, the disparity is between the information available to children about their environment, and the understanding they ultimately achieve about that environment. The former has a sparse and fleeting character whereas the latter is rich and systematic. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
To better understand the issue, consider the acquisition of a first language.1 A few years of casual contact with the ambient language suffices for the infant to master a grammatical system so complex that it still defies description by linguists. Within broad limits, the particular sample of language to which the infant is exposed does not seem to affect the grammatical principles induced, since children raised in different households within the same linguistic community are able to communicate effectively. Moreover, the child's learning mechanism is apparently built to acquire any human language, for children of different racial or ethnic backgrounds are able to acquire the same languages with the same facility. Evidently, some mental process (perhaps largely unconscious) allows children to convert the fragmentary information available about the ambient language into systematic principles that describe it generally. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The same kind of process underlies other tasks of childhood. By an early age the child is expected to master the moral code of his household and community, to assimilate its artistic conventions and its humor, and at the same time to begin to understand the physical principles that shape the material environment. In each case the child is |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
1 For an overview and guide to the literature, see Pinker [148]. |
|
|
|
|
