Abstract

This book questions the absence of Immanuel Kant in Noam Chomsky's Enlightenment study of creativity in language that he presents most comprehensively in Cartesian Linguistics (1966). Chomsky has observed that Kant's omission was a serious error since a study of his work would be of considerable value to contemporary studies. In following Chomsky's methodology in his Enlightenment study, this gap 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 Enlightenment study for the first time. Ó Beagáin argues persuasively that Chomsky's own account of language and mind–which receives rigorous analysis–bears striking resemblance to Kant's, which is 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 that engender conceptualising 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, Ó Beagáin achieves a much-needed expansion of Chomsky's study and in doing so includes a reevaluation of the central figure within Cartesian Linguistics, Wilhelm von Humboldt. 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.