Introduction

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 rationalist 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.

The aptness of the term “Cartesian linguistics” for these developments in linguistic theory may be questioned, on several grounds.

1. These developments have roots in earlier linguistic work
2. Their most active contributors are antagonistic to Cartesian doctrine (see note 3)
3. Descartes himself devoted little attention to language – hs few remarks are subject to various interpretations.

There is a coherent and fruitful development 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.