Williams, T.C.

Kant's Philosophy of Language: Chomskyan Linguistics and its Kantian Roots

1993 0-7734-9366-2
This volume demonstrates the incontestability of the historical, as well as conceptual, linkage between (a) the theory of generative/transformational/universal grammar associated with Noam Chomsky and (b) the philosophical synthesis achieved by Immanual Kant in the Critique of Pure Reason. Specifically, it also traces a clear line of theoretical development regarding that topic from (1) the Essay on Language by J.G. Herder; through (2) the massive contribution of Kant in the Critique to (3) the pioneering terms of W. von Humboldt in On the Structural Difference of Human Language and, hence, to (4) its computer-age culmination at the hands of Chomsky.

Unity of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason

1986 0-88946-301-8
By noting some striking similarities between the first Critique and Herder's 1772 essay On the Origin of Language, Williams approaches Kant through emphasis on questions of meaning.