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I don't think it's trivial, I just think it's often applied in an unproductive and straight up incorrect way, devolving any discussion into uncharitable, pedant
by bedobi 6y ago
I don't think it's trivial, I just think it's often applied in an unproductive and straight up incorrect way, devolving any discussion into uncharitable, pedantic, needless and pointless arguing about semantics.
I would happily grant there are more laws about human language. You could come up with all kinds of pointless truisms like "human languages facilitate communication" etc. No reasonable person would find much point in coming up with or debating "laws" like that. (but I'm sure there are plenty of "epistemologists" and "philosophers" who could debate them in minute detail until the end of time)
But Chomsky isn't claiming obvious truisms - he's claiming fairly detailed laws about universal grammar (and fairly detailed means through which they derive)
Critics point out such fairly strong claims need fairly strong, in your face evidence. The onus is on Chomsky to provide it. You don't get to turn around and shift the burden of proof on the critics and start arguing nonsense about how criticism of Chomsky's claims are "self refuting" or what have you.