Introduction
Whitehead’s often quoted remark, cited here, provides a useful background
for a discussion of the history of linguistics in the modern period. As applied to
the theory of language structure, his assessment is quite correct with regard to
the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Modern linguistics, however, has
self-consciously dissociated itself from traditional linguistic theory and has
attempted to construct a theory of language in an entirely new and independent
way. The contributions to linguistic theory of an earlier European tradition have
in general been of little interest to professional linguists, who have occupied
themselves with quite different topics within an intellectual framework that is
not receptive to the problems that gave rise to earlier linguistic study or the
insights that it achieved; and these contributions are by now largely unknown or
regarded with unconcealed contempt. The few modern studies of the history of
linguistics have typically taken the position that “everything before the 19th
century, not yet being linguistics, can be dealt with in a few lines.”1 In recent
years, there has been a noticeable reawakening of interest in questions that were,
in fact, studied in a serious and fruitful way during the seventeenth, eighteenth,
and early nineteenth centuries, though rarely since. Furthermore, this return to
classical concerns has led to a rediscovery of much that was well understood in
this period – what I will call the period of “Cartesian linguistics,” for reasons
that will be sketched below.
A careful study of the parallels between Cartesian linguistics and certain
contemporary developments can be rewarding in many ways. A full account of
them would go well beyond the scope of this essay, and any attempt to give such
an account would, furthermore, be quite premature, in view of the sorry state of
the field of the history of linguistics (itself in part a consequence of the
disparagement of earlier work that has marked the modern period). I will limit
myself here to something less ambitious, namely, a preliminary and fragmentary
sketch of some of the leading ideas of Cartesian linguistics with no explicit
analysis of its relation to current work that seeks to clarify and develop these
ideas. The reader acquainted with current work in so-called “generative gram-
mar” should have little difficulty in drawing these connections for himself.2
Questions of current interest will, however, determine the general form of this
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58 Cartesian Linguistics
sketch; that is, I will make no attempt to characterize Cartesian linguistics as it
saw itself,3 but rather will concentrate on the development of ideas that have
re-emerged, quite independently, in current work. My primary aim is simply to
bring to the attention of those involved in the study of generative grammar and
its implications some of the little-known work which has bearing on their
concerns and problems and which often anticipates some of their specific
conclusions.
This will be something of a composite portrait. There is no single individual
who can be shown, on textual grounds, to have held all the views that will be
sketched; perhaps Humboldt, who stands directly in the crosscurrents of ration-
alist and romanticist thought and whose work is in many ways the culmination
as well as the terminal point of these developments, comes closest to this.
Furthermore, the aptness of the term “Cartesian linguistics” for these develop-
ments in linguistic theory may well be questioned, on several grounds. First,
these developments have roots in earlier linguistic work; second, several of the
most active contributors to them would surely have regarded themselves as
quite antagonistic to Cartesian doctrine (see note 3); third, Descartes himself
devoted little attention to language, and his few remarks are subject to various
interpretations. Each of these objections has some force. Still, it seems to me
that there is, in the period under review here, a coherent and fruitful develop-
ment of a body of ideas and conclusions regarding the nature of language in
association with a certain theory of mind4 and that this development can be
regarded as an outgrowth of the Cartesian revolution. In any event, the aptness
of the term is a matter of little interest. The important problem is to determine
the exact nature of the “capital of ideas” accumulated in the premodern period,
to evaluate the contemporary significance of this contribution, and to find ways
to exploit it for advancing the study of language.
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