Piattelli-Palmarini M
Dipartimento di Scienze Cognitive, Istituto San Raffaele, Milano, Italy.
Cognition. 1994 Apr-Jun;50(1-3):315-46. doi: 10.1016/0010-0277(94)90034-5.
The central arguments and counter-arguments presented by several participants during the debate between Piaget and Chomsky at the Royaumont Abbey in October 1975 are here reconstructed in a particularly consice chronological and "logical" sequence. Once the essential points of this important exchange are thus clearly laid out, it is easy to witness that recent developments in generative grammar, as well as new data on language acquisition, especially in the acquisition of pronouns by the congenitally deaf child, corroborate the "language specificity" thesis defended by Chomsky. By the same token these data and these new theoretical refinements refute the Piagetian hypothesis that language is constructed upon abstractions from sensorimotor schemata. Moreover, in the light of modern evolutionary theory, Piaget's basic assumptions on the biological roots of cognition, language and learning turn out to be unfounded. In hindsight, all this accrues to the validity of Fodor's seemingly "paradoxical" argument against "learning" as a transition from "less" powerful to "more" powerful conceptual systems.
1975年10月在罗亚蒙修道院举行的皮亚杰与乔姆斯基辩论会上，几位参与者提出的主要论点和反驳观点，在此以特别简洁的时间顺序和“逻辑”顺序进行重构。一旦这场重要交流的要点如此清晰地呈现出来，就很容易看出，生成语法的最新发展以及语言习得的新数据，尤其是先天性失聪儿童代词习得的数据，证实了乔姆斯基所捍卫的“语言特异性”论点。同样，这些数据和这些新的理论完善反驳了皮亚杰的假设，即语言是基于感觉运动图式的抽象构建而成的。此外，根据现代进化理论，皮亚杰关于认知、语言和学习的生物学根源的基本假设被证明是没有根据的。事后看来，所有这些都支持了福多尔看似“自相矛盾”的论点，即反对将“学习”视为从“较弱”概念系统向“较强”概念系统的转变。
