LING 1010 LATEST QUESTIONS WITH DETAILED
VERIFIED CORRECT ANSWERS
Nature
ideas that are innate and come instinctively
Nurture
ideas that have to be learned from someone else
What do we mean by 'Plato's Problem'?
¥ Believes that all ideas are innate and come from our nature
¥ "How do people come to know so much on the basis of so little experience"
¥ very extreme idea, so we need something more moderate
¥ nativist
¥ forms/ideas represented the 'essence' of phenomena, things/events we observe or
experience; believed that our bodies and souls existed in a place (heaven) where they were
exposed to the forms, so our real knowledge is a form of memory of the initial acquaintance
with the forms of heaven
Empiricism
hypothesis testing: children use general reasoning strategies; belief that knowledge is derived
from experience and experimentation
Empiricism - Aristotle
Law of contiguity, similarity, contrast, frequency
Law of contiguity
things/events that occur together in time or space are linked in the mind
Law of similarity
things/events that are similar tend to be linked
, Law of contrast
things that are opposites tend to be linked
Law of frequency
the linkage will be strong if things/events occur together very often
Empiricism - Hume
genuine knowledge must either be directly traceable to objects perceived in experience, or
result from abstract reasoning about relation between ideas which are derived from experience
Rationalism
How do children acquire a language from the poor, limited input? Belief that there is innate
knowledge
Epistemology
A branch of philosophy concerned with the notion of knowledge
2 views of Epistemology
Rationalism and Empiricism
What is meant by 'The Innateness Hypothesis for language?
Idea that humans are born with innate Language Acquisition Device (LAD) that guides them in
constructing the mental grammar of L Universal Grammar (UG)
Why is the innateness hypothesis controversial?
the idea that humans are born with "instincts" - clashes with idea that human mind is
fundamentally different from the minds of other animals, notion of free will, ideas of the
American Dream and can lead to idea that not all people are equal
Who proposed innateness hypothesis
Noam Chomsky
VERIFIED CORRECT ANSWERS
Nature
ideas that are innate and come instinctively
Nurture
ideas that have to be learned from someone else
What do we mean by 'Plato's Problem'?
¥ Believes that all ideas are innate and come from our nature
¥ "How do people come to know so much on the basis of so little experience"
¥ very extreme idea, so we need something more moderate
¥ nativist
¥ forms/ideas represented the 'essence' of phenomena, things/events we observe or
experience; believed that our bodies and souls existed in a place (heaven) where they were
exposed to the forms, so our real knowledge is a form of memory of the initial acquaintance
with the forms of heaven
Empiricism
hypothesis testing: children use general reasoning strategies; belief that knowledge is derived
from experience and experimentation
Empiricism - Aristotle
Law of contiguity, similarity, contrast, frequency
Law of contiguity
things/events that occur together in time or space are linked in the mind
Law of similarity
things/events that are similar tend to be linked
, Law of contrast
things that are opposites tend to be linked
Law of frequency
the linkage will be strong if things/events occur together very often
Empiricism - Hume
genuine knowledge must either be directly traceable to objects perceived in experience, or
result from abstract reasoning about relation between ideas which are derived from experience
Rationalism
How do children acquire a language from the poor, limited input? Belief that there is innate
knowledge
Epistemology
A branch of philosophy concerned with the notion of knowledge
2 views of Epistemology
Rationalism and Empiricism
What is meant by 'The Innateness Hypothesis for language?
Idea that humans are born with innate Language Acquisition Device (LAD) that guides them in
constructing the mental grammar of L Universal Grammar (UG)
Why is the innateness hypothesis controversial?
the idea that humans are born with "instincts" - clashes with idea that human mind is
fundamentally different from the minds of other animals, notion of free will, ideas of the
American Dream and can lead to idea that not all people are equal
Who proposed innateness hypothesis
Noam Chomsky