Marx and Wittgenstein: Social Praxis and Social Explanation by David M. Rubinstein (review)

146 Books the I%Os (and he became one of their heroes); yet he disavows any commitment to Marxism. He simply insists on exposing “the hidden pattern” in the manipulation of America and Americans by their own propaganda system, their own kind of ideological control. That is. Chomsky is a responsible moral intelligence: he himself practices what he urges others to do, armed with “Cartesian common sense,” to challenge the establishment by acting as rational, responsible social critics. The remainder of Language and Responsibility is devoted to the scientific and philosophical implications of the study of human language. Part I1 is called “Generative Grammar,’’and readers who are unfamiliar with Chomskyan linguistics will find Chapters 5-9 intellectually challenging-perhaps, at times, opaque. The writing IS dense; the references to other scholars and their work, hasty: the necessary simplications, abstract; the terminology (e.g. “logical form” vs “semantic representation”, p. 145). puzzling and unsatisfying. Such characteristics are surely the consequence of attempting to reduce Chomsky’s visions, revisions and achievements to a corpus that will fit into less than 200 pages. “This is not a criticism. It isa characterization, which seems to me to be correct” (p. 57). For many readers it is likely that Chapters 2,3 and 4 will prove most engaging, although their inclusion under the title “Linguistics and Politics” is curious. The substance here is often scientific and philosophical; the mode of presentation, analogical and assertive: the result, provocative. “It is natural for advocates of social change to adopt theextreme position that human nature is a myth, nothing but a product of history. But that position is incorrect. Human nature exists, immutable except for biologicalchanges in the species”(Ch. 4, p. 91). “Empiricism insists that the brain is a tabula rasa, empty, unstructured. I don’t see any reason to believe that” (Ch. 4, p. 81). “In my opinion, one should not speak of a ‘relationship’ between linguistics and psychology because linguistics is part o f psychology” (Ch. 2, p. 43). “In the natural sciences . _ . the search is for the discovery of intelligible structure and for explanatory principles ... or for hidden structures that have some intellectual interest” (Ch. 2. p. 58: emphasis added). Here we seem to have found the link that Ms Ronat asks about at the beginning of the first chapter. Chomsky is aseeker after thosestructures that are both hidden and interesting, in politics and in language-of cognitive systems, the “most interesting case at the moment.’’ As Chomsky would say, “There is much to be said about all of these matters.” Fortunately, a significant part of it is said in this remarkable book. The Pattern of Expectation, 1644-2001. I. F. Clarke. Basic Books, New York, 1979. 344 pp., illus. $16.50.ISBN: 0-465-05457-9. Reviewed by J. C. Kapur* Human anxiety about the future is not a new phenomenon. From the dawn of history, Homo sapiens has lived in astate of resignation to panic concerning what was in store. Helplessness in the presence of overwhelming forces of nature, and a chain of continuity and interrelatedness of all phenomena, provided the sheet anchor for many human beliefs. All exercisesin prophecy were related to human psychic insights, perceptions through inherited wisdom, or position of the stars. The emergence of rational thought, and experimental knowledge with its many and continued successes,extended growing human confidence into arrogance. Man the conqueror also became the victim of his own conquests. The Pattern o f Expectation, 1644-2001 by I. F. Clarke..a professor of English studies, literally carries out a review of prophetic books by over 200 authors on a wide variety of related subjects. It brings into focus an entire range of intellectual influences which created the scientifictemper and stabilized the foundations of Western civilization in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries. The book also examines the changing relationships between science and society during the last 200 years. “The utopian impulse to anticipate the conquest ofall the obstaclesof time and space has always been a major element in futuristic fiction.” Jules Verne’s very successful and perceptive account of a spacejourney From the Earth to the Moon in 1860 is a case...