The Exile of Grammar: 2 Cartesian Dualism in the Mind

When syntax becomes a separate substance

Building on the Platonic framing of Universal Grammar, Chomsky’s linguistic model inherits a second, equally decisive strategy of closure: Cartesian dualism. The mind itself is treated as a quasi-independent substance—a computational engine that manipulates syntactic structures while standing apart from social, semantic, and pragmatic contexts.

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1. The Mind as Computational Substance

Within this framework, the mind is conceived as a distinct, self-contained system:

• Syntax is the privileged domain.

• Semantics, pragmatics, and interaction are treated as peripheral or derivative.

• The learner’s experience is a trigger, not a constitutive factor.

Relationally, this is a classic exile: the observer (speaker/learner) is separated from the observed (the formal grammar). The mind becomes a vessel for Platonic forms, not a participant in the relational unfolding of language.

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2. Isolation of Syntax

Syntax enjoys ontological priority:

• It is internalised, innate, and species-specific.

• It is closed under derivational rules, largely independent of context.

• Other dimensions of language—meaning, intention, negotiation—are external or epiphenomenal.

The formal system thus stabilises syntax as an object, not as a relational achievement. Interaction is reduced to input-output transactions, the richness of relational dynamics bracketed.

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3. Exiling Relation

This dualist framing doubles down on the over-closure introduced by the Platonic ideal:

• Relation is not corrected; it is expelled.

• Social, environmental, and communicative contexts are treated as contingent noise.

• Perspective, embodiment, and horizon are systematically excluded.

The “observer” is no longer part of the system in any constitutive sense. What remains is the mind-as-substance manipulating grammar-as-form.

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4. Consequences for Linguistic Theory

The Cartesian move shapes both method and interpretation:

• Language acquisition is treated as parameter-setting rather than emergent interaction.

• Ambiguity, creativity, and usage variability are treated as peripheral, rather than intrinsic to linguistic competence.

• The study of pragmatics and discourse is relegated to separate subfields, never fully integrated with the “core” formal system.

The result is power within the closed domain of syntax, but blindness to relational dynamics that are central to language as a lived practice.

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5. Looking Ahead

Cartesian dualism in the mind compounds the Platonic closure of grammar. Syntax is stabilised, but at the cost of relational exile. The cut is deepened: the learner, the speaker, and the environment are treated as external triggers rather than constitutive participants.

In the next post, we will explore how Chomsky’s anti-Darwinian stance denies emergence, further cementing the isolation of the computational system and producing enduring anomalies in linguistic explanation.