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This book is an examination of the philosophical and methodological ideas behind Noam Chomsky's revolutionary theory of human linguistic competence--ideas which are increasingly influential in cognitive and perceptual psychology, and which can be seen as the basis for a distinctive view of the human condition. D'Agostino discusses six key ideas: Chomsky's ontological subjectivism with regard to linguistic entities, his individualistic methodological orientation, his rationalistic account of language acquisition, his rules-based account of linguistic behavior, his distinctive account of human creativity, and the political relevance of his general theory of human nature.

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CHOICE Review

A defense of Chomskian linguistics in its major points against all, with sufficient name recognition, who ever criticized Chomsky. From Saussure to Ryle, Quine, Nagel, Nickles, et al., the objections that ``threaten'' are laid out and dissected with the explicit intent to ``undermine'' them. All the while Chomsky is shielded from the possibility of being undermined in turn. Yet, the book does not annoy-it is credible. Chomsky's critics are undermined in firm analytic style. Sentences, phrases, words are meticulously scrutinized. They are turned over and over for an exhaustive account of interpretations. Inconsistencies are then held up against various reference points: logic, intuition, etc. In the process, the reader gets an education on Chomsky's mentalism, intellectualism, representationalism, novelty, and libertarianism. Chomsky's position on the biological grounding of language and the phylogenetic character of grammar keeps recurring, but only peripherally-the central determination is to do a thorough job on the critics. Whether they agree with D'Agostino (University of New England) or not, linguists should certainly welcome this work. Undergraduates should profit from the summaries of the positions of figures of note in the vast field of language, where Chomsky is the giant.-B.S. Llamzon, Loyola University of Chicago