The contemporary discipline of biolinguistics is beginning to have the feel of scientific inquiry. Biolinguistics--especially the work of Noam Chomsky--suggests that the design of language may be "perfect": language is an optimal solution to conditions of sound and meaning. What is the scope of this inquiry? Which aspect of nature does this science investigate? What is its relation to the rest of science? What notions of language and mind are under investigation? This book is a study of such foundational questions. Exploring Chomsky's claims, Nirmalangshu Mukherji argues that the significance of biolinguistic inquiry extends beyond the domain of language.Biolinguistics is primarily concerned with grammars that represent just the computational aspects of the mind/brain. This restriction to grammars, Mukherji argues, opens the possibility that the computational system of human language may be involved in each cognitive system that requires similar computational resources. Deploying analytical argumentation and empirical evidence, Mukherji suggests that a computational system of language consisting of very specific principles and operations is likely to be involved in each articulatory symbol system--such as music--that manifests unboundedness. In that sense, the biolinguistics approach may have identified, after thousands of years of inquiry, a specific structure of the human mind.

The Primacy of Grammar (Bradford Books)

Politics & Social Sciences

Mukherji, Nirmalangshu

Philosophy

Bradford Books

A proposal that the biolinguistic approach to human languages may have identified, beyond the study of language, a specific structure of the human mind.
The contemporary discipline of biolinguistics is beginning to have the feel of scientific inquiry. Biolinguistics―especially the work of Noam Chomsky―suggests that the design of language may be “perfect”: language is an optimal solution to conditions of sound and meaning. What is the scope of this inquiry? Which aspect of nature does this science investigate? What is its relation to the rest of science? What notions of language and mind are under investigation? This book is a study of such foundational questions. Exploring Chomsky's claims, Nirmalangshu Mukherji argues that the significance of biolinguistic inquiry extends beyond the domain of language.
Biolinguistics is primarily concerned with grammars that represent just the computational aspects of the mind/brain. This restriction to grammars, Mukherji argues, opens the possibility that the computational system of human language may be involved in each cognitive system that requires similar computational resources. Deploying analytical argumentation and empirical evidence, Mukherji suggests that a computational system of language consisting of very specific principles and operations is likely to be involved in each articulatory symbol system―such as music―that manifests unboundedness. In that sense, the biolinguistics approach may have identified, after thousands of years of inquiry, a specific structure of the human mind.

Is the 21st century Che Guevara fighting in the forest belt of central India? In Tribals Under Siege, Nirmalangshu Mukherji delves into one of the most intractable but under-reported struggles in the global south – the battle between the Indian state and Maoist groups who control large swathes of the countryside.Mukherji explains the devastating impact on India's tribal population of both neo-liberalism and armed aggression by the State, and the armed struggle launched by the Maoists. Unlike many accounts he takes an honest and unflinching look at the Maoists' interventions, sometimes criticizing their actions as well as the contradictions and fallacies made by Maoist theoreticians.Tribals Under Siege goes beyond analyzing the Maoists purely in terms of security or military considerations. It focuses on the Maoists own political philosophy and looks critically at weather their political project can help to deliver real justice and liberation for India's rural poor.

Tribals Under Siege: The Maoist Upheaval in India

History

Asia

Pluto Pr

The Maoists in India: Tribals Under Siege

The Maoists in India delves deep into one of the most intractable but under-reported insurgencies in the developing world – the decades long battle between the Indian state and Maoist groups who control significant parts of tribal India. Nirmalangshu Mukherji explains the devastating impact on India's tribal population of neoliberalism and armed aggression by the State, as well as the impact of the armed struggle by the Maoists. Unlike most accounts, Mukherji takes an honest and unflinching look at each of the Maoists’ interventions and critically examines the ideology and programme proposed by their theoreticians and prominent intellectual sympathisers.The Maoists in India goes beyond analysing the Maoist insurgency purely in terms of security considerations. It examines the idea of armed struggle in the context of a well-established parliamentary democracy and focusses on the Maoists' own political philosophy, looking critically at whether their strategy can help to deliver social justice and liberation for India's poor.

Pluto Press

The Maoists in India delves deep into one of the most intractable but under-reported insurgencies in the developing world – the decades long battle between the Indian state and Maoist groups who control significant parts of tribal India.Nirmalangshu Mukherji explains the devastating impact on India's tribal population of neoliberalism and armed aggression by the State, as well as the impact of the armed struggle by the Maoists. Unlike most accounts, Mukherji takes an honest and unflinching look at each of the Maoists’ interventions and critically examines the ideology and programme proposed by their theoreticians and prominent intellectual sympathisers.The Maoists in India goes beyond analysing the Maoist insurgency purely in terms of security considerations. It examines the idea of armed struggle in the context of a well-established parliamentary democracy and focusses on the Maoists' own political philosophy, looking critically at whether their strategy can help to deliver social justice and liberation for India's poor.

Human Mind through the Lens of Language, The: Generative Explorations

Bloomsbury Academic

The Human Mind through the Lens of Language: Generative Explorations

This original volume examines forms and limits of human inquiry from a largely sceptical point of view. Human beings are endowed with cognitive agency. Our grasp of the world, and of ourselves, are not merely responses to external stimuli; they are reflective products of human inquiry. At one point in human history it was thought that modern science, especially theoretical physics, is the paradigm of human inquiry. Where does this form of inquiry significantly apply? Are there limits on its claims of truth and objectivity? How much of the vast canvas of human experience does it cover? Where do other forms of inquiry, such as philosophy, religion, and the arts, attain their salience?  With the emergence of the scientific study of the human mind itself, these critical questions have taken a more intriguing form in recent decades. Can human inquiry investigate its own nature? Can the scientific theory of language explain the richness of human expression? Can a science of the mind account for human experience? These probing questions on the scientific enterprise are usually addressed from the outside, as it were, by humanists and critical theorists. In these essays, they are examined from the inside by a philosopher whose primary academic work concerns the study of the human, linguistic mind. In that sense, the sceptical inquiry turns on itself.

Reflections on Human Inquiry: Science, Philosophy, and Common Life

Social Sciences

Springer

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Books by Mukherji, Nirmalangshu

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Mukherji, Nirmalangshu. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Primacy of Grammar (Bradford Books)

The Primacy of Grammar (Bradford Books)

Tribals Under Siege: The Maoist Upheaval in India

The Maoists in India: Tribals Under Siege

The Maoists in India: Tribals Under Siege

Human Mind through the Lens of Language, The: Generative Explorations

The Human Mind through the Lens of Language: Generative Explorations

Reflections on Human Inquiry: Science, Philosophy, and Common Life

Reflections on Human Inquiry: Science, Philosophy, and Common Life