prospect of reducing it to the laws of behaviour so
carefully studied in lower animals [he means Skinner's rats] has
grown increasingly remote. We have been forced more and more into a
position that non-psychologists probably take for granted, namely,
that language is rule-governed behaviour characterized by enormous
flexibility and freedom of choice. Obvious as this conclusion may
seem, it has important implications for any scientific theory of
language. If rules involve the concepts of right and wrong, they
introduce a normative aspect that has always been avoided in the
natural sciences. . . . To admit that language follows rules seems
to put it outside the range of phenomena accessible to scientific
investigation.' [20] What a very odd notion of the purpose and
methods of 'scientific investigation'!
The nature of the code which regulates behaviour varies of course
according to the nature and level of the hierarchy concerned. Some codes
are innate -- such as the genetic code, or the codes which govern the
instinctive activities of animals; others are acquired by learning --
like the kinetic code in the circuitry of my nervous system which enables
me to ride a bicycle without falling off, or the cognitive code which
defines the rules of playing chess.
Let us now turn from codes to strategies. To repeat it once more:
the code defines the permitted moves, strategy decides the choice of the
actual move. The next question is: how are these choices made? We might
say that the chess-player's choice is 'free' -- in the sense that it is
not determined by the rule-book. In fact the number of choices confronting
a player in the course of a game of forty moves (while calculating the
potential variations which each move might entail two moves ahead) is
astronomical. But though his choice is 'free' in the above sense of not
being determined by the rules, it is certainly not random. The player
tries to select a 'good' move, which will bring him nearer to a win,
and to avoid a bad move. But the rule-book knows nothing about 'good'
or 'bad' moves. It is, so to speak, ethically neutral. What guides the
player's choice of a hoped-for 'good' move are strategic precepts of a
much higher complexity -- on a higher level of the cognitive hierarchy --
than the simple rules of the game. The rules a child can learn in half
an hour; whereas the strategy is distilled from past experience, the
study of master games and specialized books on chess theory. Generally
we find on successively higher levels of the hierarchy increasingly
complex, more flexible and less predictable patterns of activity with
more degrees of freedom (a larger variety of strategic choices); while
conversely every complex activity, such as writing a letter, branches into
sub-skills which on successively lower levels of the hierarchy become
increasingly mechanical, stereotyped and predictable.* The original
choice of subjects to be discussed in the letter is vast; the next step,
phrasing, still offers a great number of strategic alternatives but is
more restricted by the rules of grammar; the rules of spelling are fixed
with no elbow-room for flexible strategies, and the muscle-contractions
which depress the keys of the typewriter are fully automatized.
* Cf. the ethologist's 'fixed action patterns'.
If we descend even further down into the basement of the hierarchy,
we come to visceral processes which are self-regulating, controlled by
homeostatic feedback devices. These, of course, leave little scope for
strategic choices; nevertheless, my conscious self can interfere to some
extent with the normally unconscious, automated functioning of my
respiratory system by holding my breath or applying some Yoga technique.
Thus the distinction between rules and strategies remains in principle
valid even on this basic physiological level. But the relevance of this
distinction will only become fully apparent in later chapters when
we apply it to such
carefully studied in lower animals [he means Skinner's rats] has
grown increasingly remote. We have been forced more and more into a
position that non-psychologists probably take for granted, namely,
that language is rule-governed behaviour characterized by enormous
flexibility and freedom of choice. Obvious as this conclusion may
seem, it has important implications for any scientific theory of
language. If rules involve the concepts of right and wrong, they
introduce a normative aspect that has always been avoided in the
natural sciences. . . . To admit that language follows rules seems
to put it outside the range of phenomena accessible to scientific
investigation.' [20] What a very odd notion of the purpose and
methods of 'scientific investigation'!
The nature of the code which regulates behaviour varies of course
according to the nature and level of the hierarchy concerned. Some codes
are innate -- such as the genetic code, or the codes which govern the
instinctive activities of animals; others are acquired by learning --
like the kinetic code in the circuitry of my nervous system which enables
me to ride a bicycle without falling off, or the cognitive code which
defines the rules of playing chess.
Let us now turn from codes to strategies. To repeat it once more:
the code defines the permitted moves, strategy decides the choice of the
actual move. The next question is: how are these choices made? We might
say that the chess-player's choice is 'free' -- in the sense that it is
not determined by the rule-book. In fact the number of choices confronting
a player in the course of a game of forty moves (while calculating the
potential variations which each move might entail two moves ahead) is
astronomical. But though his choice is 'free' in the above sense of not
being determined by the rules, it is certainly not random. The player
tries to select a 'good' move, which will bring him nearer to a win,
and to avoid a bad move. But the rule-book knows nothing about 'good'
or 'bad' moves. It is, so to speak, ethically neutral. What guides the
player's choice of a hoped-for 'good' move are strategic precepts of a
much higher complexity -- on a higher level of the cognitive hierarchy --
than the simple rules of the game. The rules a child can learn in half
an hour; whereas the strategy is distilled from past experience, the
study of master games and specialized books on chess theory. Generally
we find on successively higher levels of the hierarchy increasingly
complex, more flexible and less predictable patterns of activity with
more degrees of freedom (a larger variety of strategic choices); while
conversely every complex activity, such as writing a letter, branches into
sub-skills which on successively lower levels of the hierarchy become
increasingly mechanical, stereotyped and predictable.* The original
choice of subjects to be discussed in the letter is vast; the next step,
phrasing, still offers a great number of strategic alternatives but is
more restricted by the rules of grammar; the rules of spelling are fixed
with no elbow-room for flexible strategies, and the muscle-contractions
which depress the keys of the typewriter are fully automatized.
* Cf. the ethologist's 'fixed action patterns'.
If we descend even further down into the basement of the hierarchy,
we come to visceral processes which are self-regulating, controlled by
homeostatic feedback devices. These, of course, leave little scope for
strategic choices; nevertheless, my conscious self can interfere to some
extent with the normally unconscious, automated functioning of my
respiratory system by holding my breath or applying some Yoga technique.
Thus the distinction between rules and strategies remains in principle
valid even on this basic physiological level. But the relevance of this
distinction will only become fully apparent in later chapters when
we apply it to such
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