Debate Analysis

Debate Analysis

Debate Noam Chomsky & Michel Foucault - On human nature [Subtitled]

Channel: withDefiance

Primary speakers:Noam ChomskyMichel Foucault
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F1 [00:00] Toen Galilei en de 17e eeuw ontdekten dat de aarde om de zondrijden in plaats van omgekeerd, was dat voor veel mensen een grote schak. Ze hadden tot dan toe de overtuiging gehad dat de mensen in het centrum van de cosmostond en ze hadden daarop ook een hele levens overtuiging gebouwd en nu bleek dat ineens niet het geval te zijn. De Theorie van Foucault kan men verduidelijkend of vastestellen dat hij eigenlijk met betrekking tot een cultuur een soort van Galilei standpunde inneemt. Inmers met namen senseidheid van Galilei heeft men eigenlijk wat de cultuur betreft in de maatschappij gedacht dat de mens daar wel in het centrum stond, hij heeft ze ten slotte gemaakt. En Foucault ontkent dit. Niet het subject telt in de cultuur, zegt hij, maar de structuur, het algemeen. Iets wat op zich altijd begrijpen is, als men bedenkt dat de regels volgens welke mensen gedraagd voor verwege het grootste deel al uitgevonden waren voordat men werd geboren en dat de naam van de uitvinder ons volgens trekt onbekend is. Nu kan men Foucault met Galilei vergelijken, maar in een ander opzicht kan met Shomsky ook met Galilei vergelijken omdat hij in de taalwetenschap de linkwistiek zijn vak een geweldige revolutioneerende werking heeft gehad over de gehele wereld. Shomsky heeft in de linkwistiek een ware omwenteling veroorzaakt. En het interessante is nu dat de Theorieën van Shomsky in precies de tegenovergestelde richting wijzen als de Theorieën van Foucault. Shomsky zet het subject veel meer in het centrum. Bij de confrontatie dus van deze twee geheel verschillende denkers is het verder goed om te bedenken dat zet beide ook erg verschillend werk doen. Foucault is een cultuuronderzoeker, Shomsky is een taalonderzoeker. Of nog aan het gezegd, Foucault interesseert zich erg voor de geschiedenis van de wetenschappelijke taal Shomsky interesseert zich erg voor de taal die we gebruiken, de dagelijks de taal. Het is op zich interessant en misschien ook niet toevallig dat er de battus in deze twee paars echt fel en spannend wordt in de tweede helft als het gaat over de politiek. Toch is het geloof ik goed dat er een stuk Theorie aan voor afgaat. Want in een discussie over filosofie en maatschappij gaat het er een slatte niet om welk toevallig politiek standpunt bepaalde denkersen in nemen, maar is het natuurlijk van groot belang om te zien vanuit welke argumenten of ze dat zullen doen? Het is misschien ook wel leuk dat deze discussie plaatsvond in de hal van het auditorium van de technische hoogscholen eindhoven. Een discussie namelijk tussen twee filosofen, twee onderzoekers, weer werk zich kenmering door een grote preciesie, een grote gedetajeerdheid en ook een grote helderheid. En verder vond ik het wel symbolisch dat het plaatsvonden in een ruimte met veel glas binnen en buiten wereld liependorlkaar. Tijdens de uitzending zag je het verkeer buitenrijden. Symbolisch in de data omdat de relatie tussen binnen en buiten wereld voorop staat in het eerst te stukt van het vierde filosofendebat over menselijke natuur en ideale maatschappij. Laten we het verkeerden van de internationale filosofendebaters zijn?
Moderator [03:36] Toen ben ik de debaiters aan Mr. Michel Foucault, de college de Frans en Mr. Noem Chomsky, de Massachusetts Institute van Technologie. De college de Frans en Mr. Noem Chomsky van de Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Both philosophers have points in common and points of difference. Perhaps the best way to compare both philosophers is to look at them as mountain diggers working at the opposite sides of the same mountains with different tools, without knowing even if they are working in each other's direction. All learning, concerning men, ranging from history to linguistics and psychology are faced with the question, whether in the last instance we are the product of all kinds of external factors or if in spite of our differences we have something we could call a common human nature by which we can call each other human beings. So my first question is to Mr. Chomsky because you Mr. Chomsky employ often the concept of human nature and even in this connection you are using terms like innate IDs and innate structures. Which arguments can you derive from linguistics in order to give such a central position to this notion of human nature?
Noam Chomsky [05:12] Well let me begin in a slightly technical way. A person who is interested in studying language is faced with a very definite empirical problem. He is faced with an organism, a mature, let's say adult speaker, who has somehow acquired an amazing range of abilities which enable him in particular to say what he means to understand what people say to him, to do this in a fashion that I think it's proper to call highly creative. Now the person who has acquired this intricate and highly articulated and organized collection of abilities, the collection of abilities that we call knowing a language, that person has been exposed to a certain experience. He has been presented in the course of his lifetime with a certain amount of data, of direct experience with the language. And we can investigate the data that's available to this person. And having done so in principle, we're faced with a very clear and reasonably clear and well delineated scientific problem, namely the problem of accounting for the gap between the really quite small quantity of data, small and rather degenerate quantity of data that's presented to the person, to the child. And the very highly articulated, highly systematic, profoundly organized, resulting knowledge that he somehow derives from this data. Furthermore, even more remarkable, we noticed that in a wide range of languages, in fact all that have been studied seriously, there are remarkable limitations on the kinds of system that emerge from the very different kinds of experience to which people are exposed. Well, there's only one possible explanation in a one container rather schematic fashion for this remarkable phenomenon, namely the assumption that the individual himself contributes a good deal, an overwhelming part, in fact, of the general schematic structure, and perhaps even of the specific content of the knowledge that he ultimately derives from this very scattered and limited experience. That is, to put it rather loosely, the child must begin with the knowledge, certainly not with the knowledge that he's hearing English or Dutch or French or something else. But he does start with the knowledge that he's hearing a human language of a very narrow and explicit type that permits a very small range of variation. And it's because he begins with that highly organized and very restrictive schematism that he's able to make the huge leap from scattered and degenerate data to highly organized knowledge. And I would claim then that this instinctive knowledge, if you like, this schematism that makes it possible to derive complex and intricate knowledge on the basis of very partial data, is one fundamental constituent of human nature. But then I assume that in other domains of human intelligence and other domains of human cognition and even behavior, something of the same sort must be true. Well, the collection of this mass of innate schematisms, innate organizing principles, which guides our social and intellectual and individual behavior, that's what I mean to refer to by the concept of human nature.
Moderator [09:04] Well, Mr. Foucault, if I'm thinking at your books like Istvair de La Foulier et Lemole shows, I got the impression that you are working on a completely different level and also just with an opposite aim, opposite goal. If I'm thinking about the word schematism in relation to human nature, then you aren't just trying to work out that there are several periods, several schematisms. What do you think about this?
Michel Foucault [09:36] Well, if you permit, I will answer in French because my English is so bad that I would be ashamed to answer in English. It's true that I am a bit of this notion of human nature. But I am a bit of the following reason. I think that, among the concepts, among the notions of a science can be used, there are obviously notions that are of a level, that have an elaboration, which is a different function. For example, we take the case of biology inside the domain of biology, you have concepts that are more or less well established as the concept of reflexes. And then you have other notions that are in some sort of peripheral notions. peripheral notions that don't play a role in some sort of organizer inside the science, are concepts that are not familiar with analysis, concepts that are not descriptive, these are notions in some sort that simply serve to indicate problems or even to indicate the domain of object to study. For example, there is a notion, I think it was very important, in the history of biology. It's all simply the notion of life. So, on the 17th or 18th century, the people who studied nature did not serve as a concept of life. They were the natural beings who were living, or we were living, in a kind of large tableau or large hierarchy. Life was a notion that they did not serve, and that they did not need. And then, at the end of the 18th century, a certain number of problems were posed. Like, for example, the problems of the interior organization of these beings, which we had done the classification. Or, well, with the progress of the microscope, the microscope of the museum, we had seen all kinds of phenomena that had not been even perceived. And the mechanisms that work were not yet clear. The progress of the chimics also seemed to be the problems concerning the reports between the chimics reactions and the physiological processes of the organism. And here is that all the objects have appeared, objects absolutely new for the biologist. And that, which was called life. And life, it was a notion that served to indicate the field of objects and domains new that science had to occur. Well, and I would say, as that, in history, of science, if you want that the notion of life has been an educational indicator, an index of problems to occur. And I ask if we could not say the same thing as the nature of humans.
F1 [13:04] For centuries, it seems that human nature, with the meaning of life and the biology and the history of that fact. And it does that because it has the meaning of human nature to see as a warning for a research program, then as a warning for the fact that humans, themselves, can play so much clearly. For them, the meaning of human nature is actually a sort of interaction and not more than that. And Shomsky, wants to accept this, if it is clear that the lack of biology, physiology, neurology is still not able to understand the meaning of the human nature and the meaning of the fact that humans can describe it. In the past, the debate has been made at a point where the experts have taken the biggest problem to keep the partners in contact with each other. Of course, it is clear that Shomsky and Foucault are either in a different thinking world, so that he can clearly read clearly. We actually get the most important joke to see from two brains that are at the same time and to pick up the meaning of the other to prevent from his own thinking system. Shomsky has played a major role in creating creativity, where now a big piece of the debate is going on. Shomsky has created creativity actually a framework of all people. Each one has to think about the various parts in an unexpected situation, what I am going to do is to find the feeling that does not fall on authoritarian society. For all this creativity for the child, that is a very and that at the same time we learn to produce a new story. He asks for a sustainable thinking for the so-called epistemological field, where the human activity is going on. The epistemological field, profile to do if it is not far from the pure reality, the pure organisation of the material, and system of elements in the debate is going on. Leading against the Het zijn eigenlijk regels waar aan het denken van iedereen gehoorzaamd en met behulp waarvan iedereen zoek naar bepaalde identiteiten, samenhangen, enzovoort. En dit netwerk nu is niet de uitvending van bepaalde individuwen. Het bepaalt veel eerder regels van de denken en doeg gewoonten, van de denken en doegspel dat verkultuur noemen, en waaraan iedereen individu eigenlijk onderhoren is. Een dergelijk netwerk is ook geen ding of idee, maar het ligt precies tussen ding en idee in. En de geschiedenis van het denken is dan volkoop niet de geschiedenis van idee in, of zelfs zoiets als de ontwikkeling van de geest, of iets dergelijks, maar veel eer de avesseling van dyscontinuele transformaties, van dyscontinuele overgangen van het ene netwerk naar het andere. Dat is dus een heel andere aanzet dan die van Shomsky, bij wie die creativiteit in het centrum staat en het is duidelijk dat we op dit punt bij vokoop, weet hij zelf de ontroning van het subject tegenkomen, waarover we in verband met Galilei in het begin reisgesproken hebben. De filosofie van vokoop is een filosofie waarbij de filosof zelf eigenlijk voordurend uit het beeld verdwijnt. Ja, paradoxaal genoeg zou je moeten zeggen dat er zeker filosofie, zonder filosofie en je moet dit ook nog geen realiseren, want de mens is bij vokoop in zekere zin de grote afwezige in zijn eigen cultuur. En het is in dit verband ook heel begrijpelijk dat vokoop nogal fel een afwijsend reageert, wanneer de gespreksleider belangstelling begint de vertonen voor privé aspecten van zijn bestaan. Wanneer voko debateert, dan gaat het over alles behalve over voko zelf. Dit dus ter introductie op dit volgende vrij uitvoerige teoretische stuk van de pad, dat eigenlijk maar voordurend allerlei aspecten van één hoofdvraag behandeld en wel de vraag in hoe verder is de mens in staat iets nieuws te ontdekken en als dat zo is, hoe moeten we dat dan begrijpen? Het lijkt mij een erg relevante vraag, zeker als we bedenken dat we nogal wat nieuwe vormen van gedrag, kennis en wetenschap nodig zullen hebben, willen we het er in onze wereldmergelkaar levend afbrengen. We nemen nu de draad weer op waar vokoop toelicht waarom hij aan de creativiteit van het individu in de geschiedenis niet zoveel aandacht besteedt.
Michel Foucault [18:30] In de historie traditionel van de geschiedenis, we konden we de grootste van de creativiteit van de individu. De historie van de geschiedenis, tot zoveel jaar, is het geschiedenis essentieel, een science, op moment of wheneel. Not seulement, ze débarrassen in een certain nombre, d'obstakken en d'obscuriteit, maar in hetzelfde moment, ze supprimen in een certain nombre, de sabwaar en de connaissance existente, die op culte, die kachelen, zoals ze een grie, nouvel, die tot en per meten van de kachelen, kachelen, de connaissance, de ja, acquise. Een science, de progré, de science, de kizische, het is niet alleen de oude die vieuxen prejugeren, maar ook de obstakken die stonden, het is een veritabel, nouvel grie, die kachelen een certain nombre, en dus fait apparaat. Dus, als ik kritiek la notion de creativiteit, ik wil dire par dat, in fact, la vérité ne saak hier pas, comme een sort de creation continu et cumulé, maar als een jeu de grie, die s'appliek, lesune, sur les autres, kachelen.
Noam Chomsky [22:22] Ik denk dat in de part waar we sleutelijk de kachelen van de kachelen van de kachelen van de kachelen, koska van de跟你 universiteit recapit koudt en ik zou het ene wereld imuffalo die een vídeo eigenlijk is. Ik wil ik ook deze kind van de publicc추im dat aan het bekende mogelijkhoudt is, maar als ik kritiek permitte kbles natuurlijk maar ik zou naar het menen van de onts van het noする van de k place van de ko bestelver continu, dat is heel goed als we statement kunnen kreotiendoen. Je hoeft het probleem van de Achievements van een Newton. Maar in de context in which ik heb been over creatief. Het is een normaal human event. Ik hoef het kind van creatief, dat een persoonlijker demonstratie is als hij op de nieuwe situatie komt. Deze probleem geeft het probleem. het te tell us een beetje om het te denken om het in een nieuwe fashion voor het en zo aan. Er zijn, ik denk dat het verantwoordelijk om die creativiteit te zijn, maar natuurlijk, geen denkende acten van de acten van de acten van de Newton. Het is de levens van creativiteit dat ik heb been gekeken. Nu, als je wat je het op de historische deur is concerned, denk ik dat het correct is in het verantwoordelijk en particulierelevent in fact of het kind van het interprijd dat ik in psychologie en linguistiek in de philosophy of mind, dat is, ik denk, er zijn certain topics dat hebben been, wat was your word, depress, of put aside during the scientific advances of the say past in centuries, century to have. But now, I think we can overcome those, het is possible to put aside those limitations en forgettings en to bring in to our consideration precisely the topics that animated a good deal of the thinking and speculation of the 17th and 18th century, and to incorporate it within a much broader and I think deeper science of man that will give fuller role, though certainly not, will not hope to give complete understanding to such notions as innovation and creativity and freedom and production of new elements of thought and behavior within some system of rule and schematism. Those are concepts that I think we can come to grips with.
Michel Foucault [25:03] I think that between what Mr. Chomsky at the moment and what I have tried to show, there is in reality a lot of resemblance, that is to say that there is in fact of possible creation, of possible innovation, we can not, in order of language or in order of knowledge, produce something new when, in a certain number of rules, which will define the acceptability or the grammaticality of the announced or which will define, in the case of knowledge, the scientificity of the announced. So let's say that the linguists before Mr. Chomsky have mostly insisted on the rules of construction of the announced and less on the innovation that represents the new edition of the announced and then in the history of science or in the history of thought, we had a lot more of the habit of insisting on the individual creation and we had taken to the court, we had let go of the shadows, these kind of rules, like a general, which are, in a way, obscurely, through all scientific discoveries, all scientific inventions, or even, by the way, all innovation, philosophy, rules not only linguistically, but epistemological, which characterizes knowledge in contemporary.
Noam Chomsky [26:41] Well, perhaps I can try to react to those comments within my own framework in a way which maybe we'll shed some light on this. How is it that we're able to construct any kind of scientific theory at all? How is it that given a small amount of data, it's possible for various scientists, for various geniuses, even over a long period of time, to arrive at some kind of a theory, at least in some cases, that is more or less profound and more or less empirically adequate? This is a remarkable fact. And in fact, if it were not the case that these scientists, including the geniuses, had, if they didn't have built into their minds, somehow, obviously, unconscious specification of what is a possible scientific theory, then this inductive leap would certainly be quite impossible, just as if each child did not have built into his mind the concept of human language in a very natural way, in a very narrowing way, then the inductive leap from data to knowledge of a language would be impossible. So even though the process of, let's say, deriving knowledge of physics from data is far more complex, far more difficult for us, for organisms such as us. Far more drawn out in time requires intervention of genius and so on and so forth. Nevertheless, in a certain sense, the achievement of discovering physical science, or biology, whatever you like, is based on something rather similar to the achievement of the normal child in discovering the structure of his language, that is, it must be achieved on the basis of an initial limitation, an initial restriction on the class of possible theories, and the fact that science converges and progresses, that itself shows us that such initial limitations and structures exist, that is, I don't think that scientific progress is simply a matter of accumulative addition of new knowledge and absorption of new theories and so on. But I think it has this sort of jagged pattern that you describe for getting certain problems and leaping to new theories and so on and so forth. It can't fall more than that. Right. But I think that the explanation for that, so I think one can perhaps hazard an explanation for that fact. And oversimplifying grossly, I really don't mean what I'm not going to say literally. It's as if, as human beings, a particular biologically given organism, we have in our heads to start with a certain set of possible intellectual structures, possible sciences. Now, in the lucky event that some aspect of reality happens to have the character of one of these structures in our mind, then we have a science. And it's because of this, it's because of this initial limitation in our minds to a certain kind of possible science, especially that that provides the tremendous richness and creativity of scientific knowledge. That is, it's important to stress that this has to do with your point about limitation and freedom. If it were not for these limitations, we would not have the creative act of going from a little bit of knowledge, a little bit of experience to a rich and highly articulated and complicated array of knowledge. It's precisely because of that that the progress of science has the erratic and jagged and transformational character that you describe. And that doesn't mean that everything is ultimately going to fall within the domain of science, quite the contrary. Personally, I believe that many of the things we would like to understand, and maybe the things we would most like to understand, such as the nature of man, or the nature of a decent society, or lots of other things, might really fall be outside the scope of possible human sciences.
Moderator [30:29] Well, I think we have not two questions out of this statement. One question is, if you can agree, Mr. Foucault, do you agree with this statement about the combination of limitation, fundamental limitation?
Michel Foucault [30:43] Not a combination. It's not a combination. There is no creativity possible to go from a system of rules. It's not a mix of regularity and freedom. It's not a mix of reality that, on Foucault, is part of a network of regularity. The problem, then, that I pose to you, and I don't know if you agree with Mr. Chomsky, is that he plays his regularity inside, in some way, of the spirit or of the human nature. I wonder if the system of regularity, of content, which makes it possible a science, we can't find it. By the way, outside, even in the human nature, in social forms, in production reports, in class struggles, etc.
Moderator [31:40] But what is the reason for you to talk about time to time, about the death of a man, or the end of the period of 19th, 20th century?
Michel Foucault [31:52] Yes, with what we say.
Moderator [31:54] I don't know. Part of what I think is that when I apply what you said, an anthropological notion. You already talked about your own creativity and freedom. So what is the reason? What are the reasons, the psychological reasons, and the questions? But what are the reasons? Let's say, more objective, perhaps, for you, your conception of knowledge, of the science, to refuse to respond to personal questions. Isn't that right? Do you know what you do with your conception, of the society? So, when there is a problem here for you, what are the reasons for doing a personal question?
Michel Foucault [32:49] No, I don't do a personal question. I do a personal question, an absence of a problem. That is to say, in all the traditional history, of the thought of thinking, of ideas and of science, we always know to pose the problem of knowledge in which Newton had to be saved in order to save the universal gravitation. At that time, I had met his first master to finally finally discover the fossils of the anatomical comparator, etc. This kind of analysis, well, I'm caricatured, this kind of analysis, and I think, without interested, he is much more interested in saising the transformation of a knowledge in general, in the interior, in the faith, of the general domain of science, and also of this domain in some sort of vertical, that constitutes a society, a culture, a civilisation, and when we know the ensemble of the transformation, at that moment, we realize that the small individual of the life of the savannah is not important.
F1 [34:01] On the new point in this last notice of Foucault, the individual life of the scholars from the point of view. But how is it then, with the behavior of the people of their culture, if it goes about politics and maybe even about the question how the culture and the landscape can change? In fact, we can see that in the history of the scientists, in the history of the culture, the impact of the individual, a free, well-deserved role-playing, the question, how should I handle the political question, remains there is no one right over there. And it will be possible that the political question, in the perspective of Foucault, is very strong word to the question, and how can the people understand their own culture? There is the need for optimising that Foucault does not want to distort the politics. On the contrary, he says, ergens, that I should be an ideological blind, not interested in that, which is most essential in the human existence. Economical behavior, power behavior, and no matter what. Foucault is well-deserved over the need of the political question. It may also be informative to say, that Foucault is a political standpoint when it comes to politicalism. He is convinced that it is the different forms of capitalism to have and to break the debate of the direct participation of the workers in workers' radens and so on. Decentralisatie, socialisatie, and participatie that are sleutelwoorden in the political programme of Somsky. Somsky is well-deserved, that he does not often prevent between his scientific insights and his policies, but from the next opening, he is convinced that he is right from his scientific parallel. Well, let me
Noam Chomsky [36:08] begin by referring to something that I've already discussed. That is, if it is correct, as I believe it is, that a fundamental element of human nature is the need for creative work, creative inquiry, for free creation without the arbitrary limiting effects een verbeterere limitende effecten van de instituuties. En, natuurlijk, het zal worden gevalden dat een decennissiteit zou maximiseren de mogelijkheden voor de fundamental human characteristic om te worden gezien. Dat is om de elementen van repressionen en opressionen, de structie en koersen te worden gezien in z'n gesisting society, er is, voor example, als een historische residuul. Nou, een federale, decentralisde systemen van de geschevening in Corporate Economic as well as Social Institutions would be wat ik vertelde als anarcho-sindicalisme, en het is om me dat het is de appropriate form of social-organisation voor een advanced technologische society in which human beings do not have to be forced in the position of tools of cogs in a machine in which the creative urge the that I think is intrinsic to human nature will in fact be able to realise itself in whatever way it will. I don't know all the ways in which it will.
Michel Foucault [37:45] Ik ben in my research in a lot less advanced, I would say a lot less far than Mr. Chomsky, is to say that I want to be able to define niets meer forterezons de proposen een model de functionement social idéal voor notre société scientifiek oude technologie. En revanche een des tages die me parei urgent immédiat avant même tot autre chose is het sig. We hebben duidelijk in our société Européen de considere dat de politie de localisers entre de mannen en de governement en ze exerzen par een certain nombre d'institutions bien particulier die zijn de administratie en frans en dat is de perfecte oral, we hebben ook een ontwikkeld de administratie de politie de armen we weten dat alle d'institutions zijn en dat transmetten de orde de verappelijke en punien de gens die niet Maar ik denk dat politiek power is, hij is en ander, hij is en ander, plus, per intermediale, in een zetende nombre, niks en instituutie die soms leren, zoals dat, vanaf geen, een common, met politiek power, die in een gezicht is, independant, en die niet zijn. We zijn goed de universiteit. In een gescheinende, Toen de systeemscholeren, die in de apparense geïnterd voor distribueren, zullen we het apparaat scholeren, in de apparense geïnterd voor een soort klasse sociale en een soort klasse sociale geïnterd in de apparense geïnterd, Een andere als psychiatrie, die in de manier ook niet besteden, is de manier van de manier, de manier is nog een manier om een politieke politieke aan een groep social. De justice is ook. Het is dat de politieke politieke actuele in een société, zoals de andere, Dat is de kritie en de anymore door de initiatie waar we ons alle mensen overstanden zijn... ...de kenwelfd, de kritie van��ingen, de oude maniëren... ...waart de politiek-voltingen dat ze zich vastgekomen hebben... ...en inertussen in ons erbij van een ondergek. Maar de hele tijd is dus vanuit deuil bijna aanwezig. Dit is de hele tijd om te lopen aged af tetırd, ... TODENER de profiel en de formule van de sociëtse futuro inference. Saint-Avoort blijft de kriterstofen van alle rapporen van violence, politiek en erzoek. De risk is de raciteitsmaat de parcels vervoerd, maar ook binnen de zon Okayrits, die ook nog mensen van de politie econinkring.
Noam Chomsky [41:15] de visie van een feitige juste societie, een andere tas is om te veranderen, heel clearly, de natie van poder en oppresie en terror en destructie in onze societie. En dat is natuurlijk de instituutjes die je hoeft, zoals de centriële instituutjes van een industrielle societie, namelijk de economiek, commercial en financiële instituutie in het coming period, de grote multinational-corporations, die er niet heel veel van us vizig is, die zijn de basic instituutie van oppression en coercion en autocratic rule dat erop opgevallen moet worden, als ze zeggen dat we de democratie op de marktijpen Sure, but I think that that would be a great shame to lose or to put aside entirely the somewhat more abstract and philosophical if you like to ask of. Trying to draw the connections between a concept of human nature that gives full scope to freedom and dignity and creativity. And other fundamental human characteristics. de mannen تم en iedere ene dat in dienst die die betekingsmeerde zieken van een ruimte, die een antwoordelde moeilijsten ook in die dat we die meteen in ons voelemen mannen kunnen komen. In fact, die we geen ook van de derde Minnie dekkel zijn, die door de tottee loopt zich aan het vervoer dat we echt niet in het stoel zouden kunnen hebben. De point dat we horen wanting toeren, daarom nadat we nog niet soms afvergetekend zijn, waar we dan we dan gaan, in eenłości marein.
Michel Foucault [42:57] Ja, maar daarna is het niet dat het niet is. Als je kunt zeggen dat er een soort natuurhumende is, dat het natuurhumende niet opzien in de actuele societyen, de droogs en de possibiliteit die het vergeten is. Dat is best wel wat je hebt gezien. En als we het beteken, is het niet dat we niet het betekent naar de oude echter en reale? Dit betekent niet de echter van de echter. Is het niet dat we niet het betekent in de termen dat we ons in het tonen aan de oude sociale en natere cultuur hebben? Ik zou een exemplen om het een beetje caricatural te zijn. Maar de Marxisme, d'une certaine époke, a la fin du 19e, au début du 20e siècle. Le Marxisme had meteen in effect dat in de sociëtse capitalist de mannen recheven geen deur de possibiliteit van de devlogment en de realisation. De mannen van de natuur is indeed aliening in de capitalisme. En de Marxisme rijdt van de natuurhumène en de libereren. Or, het natuurhumène. KEL model utilisertel de Marxisme van het populair, de 19e en de 19e, de 21e. KEL model utilisertel voor de concevoer, voor de rijdt. Het was in realiteit de model bourgeois. De Marxisme had considere, een sociënte heuereus, een sociënte, die een plaats voor een sexualiteit, een soort bourgeois, een familie, een soort bourgeois, een soort bourgeois. En dat is vanzij, dat is omdat het niet in het miljoen is. Omdat hij de realsen een sociënte, waarom de man realiseren hun natuur, maar ook een soort storte, oorrel en utopik, die is transposen de la Société Bourjois, de 19e siècle. De sortekeus, is het de natuuruman? Je hoeft ook, ik denk dat het niet goed was dat het natuuruman is. Dus is het niet dat we het in de eeuwen niet inderdaad hebben? Je hoeft ook dat het natuuruman is. Bourjois is het natuuruman, prolet ergens. Het is niet hetzelfde.
Noam Chomsky [45:31] Ik denk dat in de elektrische domaine van politieke actie, is de domaine van trying om een visie van een gesprek en een gesprek op de basis van een notion van human nature, in dat domaine, we faceen hetzelfde problem dat we in een mediën politieke actie, voor exemple, dat is een heel concreet. Een veel van mijn eigen actie moet doen met de Vietnam War, en een goede deel van mijn eigen energie naar de civil-disabidien. De civil-disabidien in de U.S. is een actie ondergek in de feest van de geweldige uncertainen van het effect. Voor exemple, het betekent de Social Order in de wies, waarin het een van de manier kan brengen aan de fascisme. Dat is heel bedrijf voor de Amerika, voor Vietnam, voor de hoeveel mensen. Dus er is een actie dat is een actie ondergek in deze concreet actie. In de andere hand is het een groot actie en niet ondergek. Dat is niet ondergek. De societie van de Indochina wordt van de schrijven van de American Power. En in de feest van de uncertainen van het effect is het een actie ondergek. Wel, in de elektrisch domaine, een is vergelijker met de uncertainen van het effect dat je het betekent. De deel van de humaniteit is een hele hele deel van de politie, de sociale konditione, de deel van de deel van de effect en de deel van de deel van de elektrisch kultuur in het effect. Yet, op dezelfde keer, we hebben het ingeelde effect dat we weten wat die enkele hoek zou kunnen behe Archieven. Dat is dat we ontvuldig zijn om te speculeren en te steven op de basis van de basis van de depen van het tekeken, While remaining very open to the strong possibility in fact overwhelming probability that at least in some respects we're very far off the mark.
Moderator [47:43] Well, perhaps that is interesting to go on a little bit further on this problem of strategy. So for example, in the case of Holland, we had something like a population census. You were obliged to fill in your papers and so on, you know. So you would call if you are not filling in your papers civil disobedience.
Noam Chomsky [48:07] Right. Now I would be a little careful about that because going back to some very important point that Mr. Foucault made, one does not necessarily allow the state to define what is legal. The state has the power to enforce a certain concept of what is legal, but power doesn't imply justice or correctness even. So the state may define something as civil disobedience and may be wrong in doing so. For example, in the United States, the state defines it as civil disobedience to let's say derail an ammunition train that's going to Vietnam. And the state is wrong in defining that as civil disobedience because it's legal and proper and should be done. It's proper to carry out actions that will prevent the criminal acts of the state, just as it's proper to violate a traffic ordinance in order to prevent a murder. If I was standing at a street corner and the traffic light were red, let's say I was standing in my car, and I drove across the traffic light to prevent somebody from, let's say, machining a group of people. Of course, that's not violation of law. It's an appropriate and proper action. No sane judge would convict you for such an action. Similarly, a good deal of what the state authorities define as civil disobedience is not really civil disobedience. In fact, it's legal. In fact, obligatory behavior. In violation of the commands of the state, which may or may not be legal commands. So one has to be rather careful about calling things illegal, I think.
Michel Foucault [49:35] Yes, but now I'd like to ask you a question. When you are in the United States, when you do a really illegal action. Which I regard as illegal, not just the state. No, the state is illegal. The state in the United States considers illegal. Do you do this action because you found it just in virtue of an ideal justice? Or do you do it because the rule of law is useful and necessary?
Noam Chomsky [50:12] Well, again, very often, when I do something which the state regards as illegal, I regard it as legal. Yes, because I regard the state as criminal. But in some instances, that's not true. That is, let me be quite concrete about it. And move from the area of class war to imperialist war, where the situation is somewhat clearer and easier. Take international law. A very weak instrument, as we know. But nevertheless, it incorporates some rather interesting principles. Well, international law, in many respects, is the instrument of the powerful. That is, international law permits much too wide a range of international, forceful intervention in support of existing power structures that define themselves as states. And against the interests of masses of people who happen to be organized in opposition to states. But in fact, international law is not solely of that kind. And in fact, there are interesting elements of international law, let's say embedded in the United Nations Charter, which permit, in fact, I believe, require the citizen to act against his own state in ways that the state will falsely regard as criminal. But nevertheless, he's acting legally. Because international law also happens to prohibit the threat or use of force in international affairs, except on some very narrow circumstances of which, for example, the war in Vietnam is not one. Which means that, in the particular case of, let's say, the Vietnam War, the one that interests me most, the American state is acting in a criminal capacity, and people have the right to stop criminals from murdering people. Just because the criminal happens to call your action illegal when you try to stop him, that doesn't mean it is illegal. I mean, a perfectly clear case of that is the present case of the Pentagon papers in the United States, which I suppose you know about. Reduced to its essentials and forgetting legalisms, what is happening is that the state is trying to prosecute people for exposing its crimes. That's what it amounts to.
Michel Foucault [52:17] It is therefore the name of a more pure justice that you criticize the work of justice. Because it's for me if you want to be important to know this, because we currently have a debate on the problem of justice and on the purpose of the institutional institution, a popular one, on the purpose of justice, you know the problem of this. And a certain number of people, like Sartre, for example, think that to do currently the criticism of the penal system in France or to do the criticism of the policemen, in the way of the police, you have to do a sort of tribunal, which is the name of an ideal justice, of a superior justice, of a human justice in general, will condemn the practice of the French judges, or the French policemen. And then there is another group of people, and I feel, well, I work with these people here, who say, no, you don't have to do that by yourself. When you refer to the ideal justice, that the tribunal would be applied, you refer to a certain number of ideas of justice that were formed at our time by a certain individual group, who are even maligrated in a direct or indirect way, the products of the society in which we find ourselves. You have to attack the practices of justice, you have to attack the police, you have to attack the police practices, but in terms of war and not in terms of justice.
Noam Chomsky [54:29] And the only, see, I would like to slightly reformulate what you said, it doesn't seem to me that the differences between legality and ideal justice, it's rather between legality and better justice. Now, this better system may have its defects, certainly will, but comparing the better system with the existing system and not being confused into thinking that our better system is the ideal system, we can then argue, I think, as follows, that the concept of legality and the concept of justice are not identical, they're not entirely distinct either. Insofar as legality incorporates justice in this sense of better justice, referring to a better society, then we should follow and obey the law and force the state to obey the law and force the great corporations to obey the law and force the police to obey the law. If we have the power to do so, of course not. But now, in those areas where the legal system happens to represent not better justice, but rather the techniques of oppression that have been codified in a particular autocratic system, well then a reasonable human being should disregard and oppose them at least in principle. He may not, for some reason, do it in fact.
Michel Foucault [55:51] Well, I simply want to answer to your whole first sentence, when you said, but the war that you do against the police, if you do not consider that it is just, you do not. So, I will answer you a little bit in terms of spinosa, I will tell you, the proletariat does not make the war to the right class because it considers that this war is just. The proletariat does the war to the right class because it wants to, for the first time, in the history, take power. And that is because it wants to take power that it considers that this war is just. I do not agree with that. We do the war to win and not because it is just.
Noam Chomsky [56:32] I do not personally agree with that. For example, if I could convince myself that attainment of power by the proletariat would lead to a terroristic police state, in which freedom and dignity and decent human relations would be destroyed, then I wouldn't want the proletariat to take power. In fact, the only reason for wanting any such thing, I believe, is because, when things rightly or wrongly, that some fundamental human values will be achieved by that transfer of power.
Michel Foucault [57:09] So, I would like to answer this. When the proletariat will take power, it can be said that the proletariat exerts, in terms of the classes that he just did, he exerts a violent, dictatorial power and even without a glance. I do not see that the objection can be made to this. When you say it, you say it, and if the proletariat exerts this power without a glance, tyrannical and unjust in the eyes of the proletariat itself, then I would answer this. It can not be said that if the proletariat does not really take power, but it is that a class outside the proletariat, or a group of people inside the proletariat, a bureaucracy, or the rest of the small bourgeoisie, etc., it is in Paris.
Noam Chomsky [58:09] Well, I am not at all satisfied with that theory of revolution for a lot of reasons, historical and other, but even if one were to accept it for the sake of argument, still that theory is holding, that it is maintaining, that it is proper for the proletariat to take power and exercise it in a violent and bloody and unjust fashion, because it is claimed, in my opinion, falsely, that that will lead to a more just society in which the state will wither away, and the proletariat will be a universal class and so on and so forth. If it weren't for that further justification, the concept of a dictatorship of the proletariat, violent and bloody, would certainly be unjust. For example, I am not a committed pacifist, that is, I would not hold that it is under all imaginable circumstances wrong to use violence even though use of violence is in some sense unjust. I believe the one has to estimate relative injustices, but the use of violence and the creation of some degree of injustice can only itself be justified on the basis of the claim and the assessment which always ought to be undertaken very, very seriously, and with a good deal of skepticism, that this violence is being exercised because a more just result is going to be achieved. If it does not have that grounding, it really is totally immoral.
Michel Foucault [59:41] I do not think that the ideal of the war of class is the goal, that the proletariat proposes to be a war of class, I do not think that we can say, in fact, it is enough to say that it is a greater justice, because what the proletariat wants to do in the current class of power, and in the prenant of power, is the suppression, precisely, of a power of class in general, because the proletariat is the further justification, that is the further justification, but it is in terms of justice,
Noam Chomsky [60:22] it is because the end that will be achieved, it is claimed, is it just end. If the no, you know, leninist or whatever you like, would dare to say, we have a right to take power, let's say, we the proletariat, and then throw everyone else into crematorium, let's say. I mean, if that were the consequence of the proletariat taking power, of course, it would not be appropriate. The idea is, and as for reasons I mentioned, I'm skeptical about it, that a period of violent dictatorship of perhaps violent and bloody dictatorship is justified, because that will mean the submergence and termination of class oppression, a proper end to achieve in human life.
Michel Foucault [61:06] But it seems to me that, in any case, the notion of justice works inside the class, as revendication on the side of the class oppressed, and as justification on the side of the class oppressed. I don't agree with that. And in a, in a class, I'm not sure that we are still using this notion of justice.
Noam Chomsky [61:34] Well, here I really disagree. I think that there is sort of an absolute basis, if you press me too hard, I'll be in trouble, because I can't sketch it out. But some sort of an absolute basis, ultimately residing in fundamental human qualities, in terms of which a real notion of justice is grounded. And I think that our existing systems of justice, I think it's too hasty to characterize our existing systems of justice as merely systems of class oppression. I don't think that they are that. I think that they're, that they embody systems of class oppression, and they embody elements of other kinds of oppression. But they also embody a kind of a grouping towards the true human, humanly valuable concept of justice and decency, and love, and kindness, and sympathy, and so on, which I think are real.
Michel Foucault [62:32] Bon, est-ce que j'ai du temps pour répondre? Combien? Combien? Parce-que?
Moderator [62:38] Do you mean it?
Michel Foucault [62:41] Well, me, I'd say that it's unjust.
Noam Chomsky [62:44] Absolutely.
Michel Foucault [62:47] No, but, well, I don't want to respond in such a short time. I'd just say that I can't sketch it out, contrary to what you think. I don't think you can't prevent it from believing that this notion of human nature, this notion of goodness, justice, decency, human realization, and decency. All that, I'm talking about notions and concepts that have been formed inside of our civilization, in our kind of knowledge, in our form of philosophy, and that by the way, when it makes itself part of our class system, and that we can't, as regretable as it is, we can't make values and notions to decry or justify a fight that must, in principle, to reverse the foundations of our society. There is an extrapolation where I can't find the historical justification.
Moderator [63:53] Well, I think we can start immediately the discussion.
Questioner 1 [64:03] Mr. Chomsky, I would ask you one question. In your discussion, you had the vocabulary of proletariat. We as proletarians, it's the irony of history that, at the moment, young intellectuals coming from middle class and upper class, call themselves proletarians, and say, we must join the proletarians, but I don't see any class-conscious proletarians. That's a great dilemma.
Noam Chomsky [64:31] It is not true in our given society that all people are doing useful, productive work, or self-satisfying work. Obviously, it's very far from true. Lots of people who are excluded from the possibility of productive labor, and I think the revolution, if you want, should be in the name of all human beings. But it will be have to be conducted by certain categories of human beings, and those will be the, I think, the human beings who really are involved in the productive work of society. Now, what that is will differ depending on the society. In our society, it, I think, includes intellectual workers. So, I think that the student revolutionaries, if you like, have a, they have a point, a partial point, that is, it's a very important thing in a modern advanced industrial society. It's very important how the trained intelligentsia identify themselves, if they're going to be technocrats, let's say, or servants of either the state or private power, or alternatively, whether they're going to identify themselves as part of the workforce, who happen to be doing intellectual labor. If the latter, then they, they can and should play a decent role in a progressive social revolution. If the former, then they're part of the class of the oppressors.
Questioner 2 [65:54] I have an additional, one small additional question, or more remark to you, that is that you wish your very courageous attitude towards the war in Vietnam. How can you survive in an institution like MIT, which is known here as one of the great war contractors, and intellectual makers of this war?
Noam Chomsky [66:16] There are two aspects to that. One is the question on how MIT tolerates me, and the other question is how I tolerate MIT. Well, as to how MIT tolerates me, here again, I think one shouldn't be overly schematic. It's true that MIT is a major institution of war research, but it's also true that it embodies very important libertarian values, which are, I think, quite deeply embedded in American society, fortunately for the world. They're not deeply embedded enough to save the Vietnamese, but they're deeply enough embedded to prevent far worse disasters. And here I think one has to be a bit qualified, that is there is imperial terror and aggression, there is exploitation, there is racism, lots of things like that. But there's also a real concern coexisting with it for individual rights of a sort which, for example, are embodied in the Bill of Rights, which is by no means simply an expression of class oppression. It is also an expression of the necessity to defend the individual against state power. Now, these things coexist, it's not that simple, it's not just all bad or all good. And it's because it's the particular balance in which they coexist that makes an institute that produces weapons of war, be willing to tolerate, in fact, in many ways, even encouraged, to be quite honest, a person who's involved in civil disobedience against the war. Now, as to how I tolerate MIT, that raises another question. There are people who argue, and I've never understood the logic of this, that a radical ought to dissociate himself from all oppressive institutions. That is, the logic of that argument is that Karl Marx shouldn't have studied in the British Museum, which if anything was the symbol of, you know, the most vicious imperialism in the world, the place where all the treasures of empire were gathered, you know, the rape of the colonies was all poured in there and so on and so forth. But I think Karl Marx was quite right in studying in the British Museum. He was right in using the resources and, in fact, the liberal values of the civilization that he was trying to overcome against it. And I think the same applies in this case.
Questioner 2 [68:38] But aren't you afraid that your presence at MIT gives them a clean conscience?
Noam Chomsky [68:44] I don't see how, really. I mean, I think my presence at MIT serves marginally to, I hope a lot, I don't know how much, to increase student activism against a lot of the things that MIT stands for, for example.
Moderator [69:00] Ladies and gentlemen, I think this has to be the end of the debate. Mr. Chomsky, Mr. Foucault, I thank you very much for your far-going discussion, both the technical and theoretical way as the political way. I thank you very much both at the part of the audience here and at home.
F1 [69:29] Thank you very much. Thank you very much.
The Question at the Heart of the Debate
How can we justify resistance to domination without either smuggling local norms in as universals or dissolving judgment into historical struggle alone?
What this analysis found

Chomsky and Foucault are not debating whether human nature exists — they are debating what critique is allowed to rest on. Chomsky argues that without grounding in real human capacities, resistance dissolves into force. Foucault argues that without genealogical scrutiny, moral grounding quietly reinstalls the civilization it claims to oppose. The analysis found both are right, and that the missing variable is a test neither introduced: which claims about human flourishing survive historical exposure? That question would have moved the debate from a standoff between foundation and suspicion into something more useful — a shared practice of earning the norms that resistance actually needs.

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Noam Chomsky

3.5Formal/Systemicreasoning
3.0Ideologicalworldview
What do these labels mean? →

Michel Foucault

4.0Metasystemicreasoning
3.5Rationalworldview
What do these labels mean? →
Good-Faith Summary
He argues that human beings possess innate structures that make language, creativity, and moral aspiration possible, and that politics needs this kind of grounding to condemn oppression as genuinely wrong. He is trying to preserve the reality of the subject against accounts that make persons mere effects of systems.
Good-Faith Summary
He argues that concepts like human nature and justice are historically formed and often conceal the norms of a particular class or civilization while claiming universality. He is trying to keep critique from being captured by the very categories through which domination legitimates itself.
3.5Rational
Human Nature
3.5Social Contract
Normative Vision
3.5Formal/Systemic
Creative Subject
3.5Humanist
Emancipatory Vision
Historical Formation
4.0Pluralistic
Historical Genealogy
4.0Metasystemic
Decentered Subject
4.0Pluralistic
Situated Resistance
4.0Egalitarian
Epistemic Style
He begins from empirical puzzles, builds explanatory arguments, and then extends them into moral-political reasoning with visible caution about uncertainty. He prefers explicit standards, public justification, and distinctions such as legality versus justice.
Epistemic Style
He analyzes concept-function, institutional power, and historical conditions of intelligibility rather than starting from universal norms. He is strongest when exposing how neutral language is authorized by systems of knowledge and power.
The Tell
He repeatedly returns to better justice when strategic or historical analysis threatens to leave critique without grounds.
The Tell
He repeatedly shifts from normative challenge to historical formation whenever universal claims are presented as foundations.
Blind Spot
Cannot fully see how his own vocabulary of freedom, dignity, and justice may carry historically local assumptions even when it points toward something real.
Blind Spot
Cannot perceive how his own politics of struggle still depends on provisional criteria for why some victories should count as emancipatory rather than merely successful.
Synthesis
He is protecting the need for publicly defensible moral judgment, without which resistance to war and domination collapses into a contest of force.
Synthesis
He is protecting the need for genealogical vigilance, without which emancipatory language easily becomes the moral mask of existing power.

Noam Chomsky

3.5Formal/Systemicreasoning
3.0Ideologicalworldview
What do these labels mean? →
Good-Faith Summary
He argues that human beings possess innate structures that make language, creativity, and moral aspiration possible, and that politics needs this kind of grounding to condemn oppression as genuinely wrong. He is trying to preserve the reality of the subject against accounts that make persons mere effects of systems.
Human Nature
3.5Rational
Normative Vision
3.5Social Contract
Creative Subject
3.5Formal/Systemic
Emancipatory Vision
3.5Humanist
Epistemic Style
He begins from empirical puzzles, builds explanatory arguments, and then extends them into moral-political reasoning with visible caution about uncertainty. He prefers explicit standards, public justification, and distinctions such as legality versus justice.
The Tell
He repeatedly returns to better justice when strategic or historical analysis threatens to leave critique without grounds.
Blind Spot
Cannot fully see how his own vocabulary of freedom, dignity, and justice may carry historically local assumptions even when it points toward something real.
Synthesis
He is protecting the need for publicly defensible moral judgment, without which resistance to war and domination collapses into a contest of force.

Michel Foucault

4.0Metasystemicreasoning
3.5Rationalworldview
What do these labels mean? →
Good-Faith Summary
He argues that concepts like human nature and justice are historically formed and often conceal the norms of a particular class or civilization while claiming universality. He is trying to keep critique from being captured by the very categories through which domination legitimates itself.
Historical Formation
4.0Pluralistic
Historical Genealogy
4.0Metasystemic
Decentered Subject
4.0Pluralistic
Situated Resistance
4.0Egalitarian
Epistemic Style
He analyzes concept-function, institutional power, and historical conditions of intelligibility rather than starting from universal norms. He is strongest when exposing how neutral language is authorized by systems of knowledge and power.
The Tell
He repeatedly shifts from normative challenge to historical formation whenever universal claims are presented as foundations.
Blind Spot
Cannot perceive how his own politics of struggle still depends on provisional criteria for why some victories should count as emancipatory rather than merely successful.
Synthesis
He is protecting the need for genealogical vigilance, without which emancipatory language easily becomes the moral mask of existing power.

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They Agreed, Then Lost It

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Every debate has a surface argument and a deeper one. This section maps both — what each speaker is explicitly claiming, what they're actually trying to protect, and where their real disagreement lives. Start here to understand what's actually at stake before the analysis begins.

Noam Chomsky

Chomsky’s core claim is that human beings possess an underlying nature with innate structures that make knowledge, creativity, language, and moral aspiration possible. He begins from what he treats as a concrete scientific puzzle: children acquire rich, rule-governed linguistic competence from sparse and imperfect input. From this he infers that the mind contributes substantial prior structure. He then extends this orientation beyond linguistics, more cautiously but still affirmatively, toward a broader picture of human nature that includes a need for creative work, freedom, dignity, and self-directed activity. His worldview assumes that explanation is not complete if it only catalogs external systems or historical conditions; one must also account for the internal capacities that make learning, innovation, and judgment possible at all.

The motivational stakes for Chomsky are high. He is protecting the reality of the human subject as an active, creative being rather than a passive effect of systems. He fears losing any basis for criticizing domination except as a contest of forces. He also fears being accused of naïveté or metaphysical essentialism, which is why he repeatedly qualifies his claims, admits uncertainty, and distinguishes “better justice” from any final ideal. Emotionally, he seems invested in preserving a moral vocabulary that can justify resistance to war, oppression, and authoritarian institutions without collapsing into mere strategic struggle. His dominant narrative metaphor is that of latent human capacities being stunted or liberated: institutions can turn people into “cogs in a machine,” while a decent society would create conditions in which creative powers can realize themselves.

The strongest version of Chomsky’s argument is that any serious account of knowledge and politics must explain both constraint and generativity. Rules matter, but rules alone do not explain how people produce novel utterances, theories, and forms of life. Likewise, power matters, but power alone cannot explain why domination is objectionable or why emancipation is desirable. He argues that a social order should be judged by whether it enables the flourishing of basic human capacities for free inquiry and creative work. There is, however, a tension in his position between scientific modesty and philosophical reach. In the theoretical portion he acknowledges that questions like “the nature of man” or “a decent society” may lie partly outside the scope of human science; yet in the political portion he relies on a fairly robust moral anthropology to ground judgments about justice, legality, and revolutionary aims. That is not a simple contradiction, but it is a real pressure point in his view.

Michel Foucault

Foucault’s core claim is that appeals to “human nature,” creativity, justice, or the subject often function less as explanatory foundations than as historically situated concepts produced within specific regimes of knowledge. He does not deny novelty or transformation; rather, he relocates them within systems of rules that define what counts as sayable, knowable, scientific, or acceptable in a given period. His worldview assumes that before asking whether a claim is true in universal terms, one should ask what historical conditions made that claim intelligible and authoritative. He is less interested in the interior powers of the subject than in the discursive, institutional, and social regularities through which subjects and truths are formed.

The motivational and emotional stakes for Foucault center on resisting disguised domination. He is protecting critique from being captured by the very categories it seeks to oppose. He fears that universal moral language can smuggle in the norms of a particular class or epoch while presenting them as timeless truths. He especially resists being accused of relativism or quietism; throughout the political exchange he makes clear that he is not indifferent to domination, police power, psychiatry, schooling, or penal institutions. What he fears losing is the sharpness of struggle if critique is rerouted through idealized notions of justice that are themselves products of the existing order. His dominant narrative metaphor is not liberation of an inner essence but strategic struggle within a field of force: knowledge is organized by rules, institutions distribute power, and political work begins by exposing and contesting these concrete mechanisms.

The strongest version of Foucault’s argument is that one cannot safely ground political transformation in concepts like human nature or ideal justice because those concepts are historically formed and often encode bourgeois assumptions while claiming universality. He points to Marxist invocations of “human nature” as an example: what was supposedly universal often turned out to mirror a specifically bourgeois model of family, sexuality, and social life. Therefore, critique should begin not from abstract moral tribunals but from analysis of institutions, practices, and power relations as they actually operate. There is, however, a tension within his position between anti-foundational critique and political commitment. He wants to avoid legitimating struggle through universal justice, yet he still speaks in ways that clearly distinguish oppressive from desirable arrangements and calls for attacking institutions of domination. He thus enacts a politics of resistance while refusing the kind of normative grounding that many listeners would expect to justify it explicitly.

Good arguments can still contain weak evidence, logical slippage, or rhetorical moves that substitute for reasoning. This section examines each speaker's argumentative integrity — not to declare a winner, but to identify where the strongest and weakest links are in each case.

Noam Chomsky

Coherence strengths

Chomsky is highly coherent when speaking within his home domain: the acquisition of language, the gap between limited input and rich competence, and the inference to innate structure. His argument is well organized, cumulative, and transparent about its inferential steps. He also does a relatively good job of carrying that framework into political philosophy without pretending the extension is deductively proven. He repeatedly signals tentativeness where appropriate: “I assume,” “I believe,” “if you press me too hard, I’ll be in trouble,” and “we’re very far off the mark” all show a willingness to mark the limits of certainty rather than overstate finality.

He is also intellectually honest in acknowledging uncertainty in political action. His Vietnam example is not presented as a frictionless moral formula; he explicitly notes that action occurs under uncertainty and that resistance can have dangerous consequences. That gives his moral reasoning a seriousness that is stronger than simple sloganizing. He does not deny complexity in existing institutions either; his discussion of MIT and the Bill of Rights shows that he can recognize mixed structures containing both domination and genuine protections.

Weaknesses and logical issues

Chomsky’s biggest vulnerability is epistemic extension. His linguistic argument is presented as empirical and domain-specific, but he sometimes moves from that domain to broader claims about human cognition, morality, creativity, and political order with less evidence than the initial case supports. Those broader claims are best classified as epistemically sloppy when treated as if they follow straightforwardly from linguistics. For example, the move from innate linguistic schematism to a general human need for creative work and freedom is philosophically suggestive, but not established by the linguistic evidence he cites.

He also occasionally overstates exclusivity. Early on he says there is “only one possible explanation” for the language acquisition phenomenon. As stated, that is too strong. Even if one finds nativist explanations compelling, “only one possible explanation” is an overreach rather than a demonstrated conclusion. This is epistemically sloppy, not necessarily false, because it compresses a contested theoretical field into a single necessity claim.

On legality and Vietnam, Chomsky’s reasoning is morally forceful but legally imprecise in places. His claim that actions against the Vietnam War could be not merely morally justified but legally required under international law is directionally plausible within his framework of Nuremberg-style obligations and UN Charter principles, but as stated it is insufficiently sourced and too broad for a settled legal conclusion in this transcript. That is epistemically sloppy rather than adjudicated or straightforwardly false. He also uses analogies—crossing a red light to stop a murder, stopping a criminal state—that clarify his moral intuition but compress major differences between domestic emergency exceptions and complex questions of international legality. The analogies are rhetorically effective, but they simplify the legal terrain.

Epistemic style

Chomsky’s dominant epistemic style is a mix of rationalist and evidence-driven inquiry, supplemented by moral realism. He begins from empirical puzzles, seeks explanatory depth, and treats innate structure as the best explanation for observed capacities. In politics he shifts toward moral-philosophical reasoning grounded in what he takes to be real human goods. The style is mostly consistent, but there is a gap between the evidentiary rigor he uses in linguistics and the looser justificatory basis he uses for broader normative claims. He partly acknowledges that gap, which strengthens his integrity even where the argument outruns the evidence.

Michel Foucault

Coherence strengths

Foucault is highly coherent in his methodological critique. He consistently distinguishes between concepts that function as robust scientific descriptors and concepts that function as historical indicators or problem-markers. His analogy between “life” in biology and “human nature” in the human sciences is a strong piece of conceptual analysis: it clarifies that some terms may organize inquiry without naming timeless essences. He is also consistent in emphasizing that innovation occurs within systems of rules rather than outside them, and that analysis should attend to the historical conditions that define what counts as knowledge.

His political argument is strongest when he moves from abstraction to institutions. His remarks about police, schools, psychiatry, justice, and diffuse forms of power show a concrete analytic sensibility. Rather than treating power as located only in the state, he insists that it circulates through institutions that appear neutral or independent. That is a genuine coherence strength: his political analysis follows directly from his broader method of examining how regimes of truth and social practices are organized.

Weaknesses and logical issues

Foucault’s main weakness in this exchange is that he often converts normative questions into genealogical ones without fully engaging the original claim. When Chomsky asks, in effect, what could justify struggle or distinguish desirable from undesirable outcomes, Foucault frequently responds by historicizing the concepts involved—justice, human nature, goodness—rather than squarely answering whether any trans-historical norm is available or necessary. This is a clear case of frame conversion at several points: a concrete normative question is elevated into a question about the historical production of concepts. That move is philosophically substantive, not mere evasion, but it does function here as a way of avoiding direct engagement with the justificatory demand on its own terms.

He also makes some unsourced and broad historical claims. His example that Marxist appeals to human nature reproduced a bourgeois model of sexuality, family, and social life is plausible as a genealogical critique, but in the transcript it is asserted rather than demonstrated. As stated here, it is epistemically sloppy: directionally intelligible, but too compressed and unsupported to carry decisive argumentative weight. Similarly, his claim that one should attack justice and police “in terms of war and not in terms of justice” is rhetorically sharp but analytically underdeveloped in the exchange. It risks a false dilemma between strategic struggle and normative critique, as though the latter must always be ideological capture.

There is also a tension in his treatment of power and revolution. He suggests that the proletariat wages war to take power, not because the war is just, and implies that violent exercise of power by the proletariat is not objectionable in the same way if it is genuinely proletarian. Chomsky presses him here effectively. Foucault’s response appears to rely on a definitional maneuver: if domination persists in an objectionable form, then perhaps it was not really the proletariat exercising power. That risks circularity. It weakens the argument because it makes the criterion of legitimacy track the outcome rather than providing an independent standard.

Epistemic style

Foucault’s dominant epistemic style is genealogical and historical-structural, with strong suspicion toward universal moral vocabularies. He treats concepts as products of discursive formations and social struggle, and he privileges analysis of institutions, practices, and historical conditions over appeals to essence or universal norm. This style is well suited to exposing hidden assumptions and the contingency of categories. It is less well suited, at least in this exchange, to answering direct questions about why one form of political victory should be preferred to another except in strategic terms. The gap between his critical method and his political commitments is noticeable: he clearly has commitments, but he resists articulating them in the normative language his interlocutor is asking for.

Epistemic Mismatch Note

The two speakers are operating from fundamentally different epistemic styles. Chomsky treats explanation as requiring underlying generative structures and treats moral judgment as answerable, however imperfectly, to real human goods. Foucault treats explanation as requiring analysis of historically contingent rules and power formations, and treats universal moral language with suspicion because it often conceals local historical interests. As a result, they regularly treat different things as proof: Chomsky asks what must be true for knowledge and justice to be possible, while Foucault asks what historical conditions made those very categories available and authoritative.

Net Assessment

Both speakers are rigorous, but in different ways. Chomsky is more direct, more willing to state his premises plainly, and more responsive to the demand for explicit justification; Foucault is sharper at exposing hidden assumptions and historical contingency, but more prone in this exchange to shift from normative challenge to genealogical reframing. On factual record, neither speaker makes major plainly false empirical claims in the transcript, but both make broad unsourced assertions outside their most disciplined domains; Chomsky’s overreach is mostly from domain extension, while Foucault’s is mostly from compressed historical generalization and frame conversion.

Polarity: Human Nature vs. Historical Formation

Summary: The debate turns on whether human capacities and political judgment are best grounded in enduring human structures or in historically produced rules and institutions. Integration: Nature through history Lever: Scope of explanation

Pole 1 name: Human Nature Pole 1 tagline: Innate structures shape possibility Pole 1 protects:

  • A basis for explaining creativity beyond social conditioning
  • A grounding for dignity, freedom, and moral judgment Pole 1 neglects:
  • How concepts are historically shaped
  • How institutions define lived possibilities Pole 1 pathology:
  • Smuggling local norms in as universals
  • Overextending findings from one domain to all domains

Pole 2 name: Historical Formation Pole 2 tagline: Subjects emerge through systems Pole 2 protects:

  • Attention to contingency, institutions, and discursive rules
  • Vigilance against universal claims masking domination Pole 2 neglects:
  • Stable features of human agency
  • Clear grounds for normative judgment Pole 2 pathology:
  • Dissolving agency into structures
  • Undermining critique by historicizing its own standards

Speaker enactment:

  • Speaker: Noam Chomsky Enacts: Pole 1 Pole Center line: worldview Pole Center: 3.5 Achiever Pole Center rationale: He defends Human Nature as a rational-universal explanatory worldview grounded in generative capacities that can support inquiry and politics, so worldview is the right line and the center is 3.5 because the pole coordinates evidence and normativity rather than merely inheriting doctrine. Perspective Structure: 3.5 Managed Perspective Structure rationale: He recognizes historical shaping as a real variable and sometimes integrates it, but he still mainly holds the polarity by subordinating history to nature rather than fully inhabiting both poles from the inside. Contributes: He insists that explanation must include the subject’s generative capacities, not only external conditions. Misses:
    • Historical shaping of moral language
    • Institutional production of subjects Cues:
    • “the child must begin with the knowledge”
    • “one fundamental constituent of human nature”
  • Speaker: Michel Foucault Enacts: Pole 2 Pole Center line: worldview Pole Center: 4.0 Pluralist Pole Center rationale: He defends Historical Formation as a perspectival worldview about how subjects and truths are constituted through historically contingent systems, making worldview the right line and 4.0 the best fit for the pole itself. Perspective Structure: 3.0 Oppositional Perspective Structure rationale: In this exchange he recognizes the human-nature pole but mostly treats it as ideologically suspect rather than as protecting a legitimate explanatory truth he must preserve. Contributes: He shows how what seems natural may be an effect of historical rules and social arrangements. Misses:
    • Enduring capacities across contexts
    • Normative basis beyond critique Cues:
    • “human nature” as an “indicator” of problems
    • regularities found in “social forms, production reports, class struggles”

Mismatch: Chomsky hears denial of the subject; Foucault hears universalization of historically local categories. Mismatch A→B: When Speaker A says human nature, Speaker B tends to hear bourgeois norms disguised as universals. Mismatch B→A: When Speaker B says historical formation, Speaker A tends to hear that agency is being erased. Bridge move: Ask which human capacities appear cross-culturally while still requiring historically specific forms for their expression and distortion. Synthesis: Chomsky is protecting the intuition that explanation cannot stop at external conditions because human beings demonstrably generate more than they receive. His language of innate structure, creativity, and the need for free creation is meant to preserve the subject as a real source of novelty and judgment. Foucault is protecting a different but equally serious truth: what a culture calls reason, justice, sexuality, madness, or even “man” is never innocent of historical formation. His insistence on rules, regularities, and institutions is a safeguard against mistaking a local arrangement for a timeless essence. Both poles make sense because human life does seem to involve durable capacities, yet those capacities are always interpreted, organized, and disciplined through historically contingent forms.

The talking-past dynamic arises because each treats the other’s corrective as a total replacement. Chomsky hears Foucault’s historical analysis as if it leaves no one there to know, choose, or resist. Foucault hears Chomsky’s appeal to human nature as if it bypasses the genealogy of the very concepts being used. But the deeper question is not whether humans are natural or historical; it is how enduring capacities become legible only through social forms that can both cultivate and deform them. A more fruitful inquiry would ask: what would count as evidence of a genuine human capacity that persists across epochs, while still allowing that every society codes, ranks, and institutionalizes that capacity differently? That threshold would let nature and history function as partners in explanation rather than rival absolutes.

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The Crux

The deepest disagreement here is not simply whether there is such a thing as human nature, nor simply whether justice is real. It is first a dispute about what kind of explanation counts as responsible. On the factual and argumentative record, Chomsky is more direct about his premises and more willing to state what would justify political judgment, while Foucault is stronger at showing how concepts arrive already shaped by institutions and history. Those are not equivalent contributions. Chomsky more often answers the question being asked; Foucault more often changes the question to expose what the original question leaves out. The real crux sits inside the polarity of Human Nature vs. Historical Formation: Chomsky fears that if we dissolve the subject into history, we lose any basis for saying war, terror, and domination are wrong. Foucault fears that if we start from “human nature” or “justice,” we will unknowingly reinstall the moral furniture of the present and call it universal truth.

What neither speaker fully introduced is the missing variable of validation conditions: by what process do we tell when a claimed human universal is genuinely cross-contextual, and when it is only a local norm wearing universal language? Chomsky kept asserting that some such universals must exist if creativity and judgment are to make sense. Foucault kept showing that many alleged universals are historically manufactured. But neither gave a shared test for separating durable human capacities from historically specific moral packaging. Without that missing variable, the conversation could only oscillate between grounding and suspicion.

The Higher-Order Reframe

A more adequate frame is this: the real political task is not to choose between human capacities and historical formation, but to ask how institutions either distort or cultivate capacities that are real but never encountered in a pure state. That is the integration handle of nature through history. On this view, Chomsky is right that critique needs some account of what in human beings can be damaged, stunted, or enabled; otherwise “oppression” becomes only a change in who holds power. Foucault is right that we never meet those capacities outside historically specific arrangements of schooling, punishment, sexuality, labor, and discourse; otherwise “human nature” becomes a smuggling route for bourgeois self-description. The larger truth is that institutions do not merely repress an already finished human essence, nor do they create persons from nothing.

Made by Corey deVos · About this analysis

Integral Life is a member-driven digital media community that supports the growth, education and application of Integral Philosophy and integrative metatheory to complex issues in the 21st century. Integral Life offers perspectives, practices, analysis and community to help people grow into the full capacities of integral consciousness in order to thrive in a rapidly-evolving world.

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