0:03 - Introduction to Chomsky and Foucault
13:21 - The Nature of Language and Communication
17:18 - Chomsky's Perspective on Language Acquisition
30:19 - The Role of Intelligence in Human Nature
44:46 - Foucault's Concepts of Science and Knowledge
52:24 - Chomsky on the Body-Mind Problem
1:02:25 - Conclusion and Reflection on the Debate
This lecture explores the famous 1970s debate between renowned philosophers Noam Chomsky and Michel Foucault, addressing fundamental questions about human nature, justice, and power. The discussion is contextualized by the moderator Fons Elders' introductory remarks, suggesting that both philosophers approach the same intellectual mountain from opposite sides, using different tools, which ultimately underscores the complexity of their perspectives on human nature.
Chomsky initiates the debate by articulating his view on human nature through the lens of linguistics. He presents the challenge of explaining how humans acquire complex language capabilities despite being exposed to a limited and often substandard amount of linguistic data. He emphasizes the idea of innate ideas and structures that allow for a highly creative use of language, arguing for a biological basis in understanding these cognitive abilities. The lecturer highlights Chomsky's focus on how the brain's inherent structuring underpinnings may contribute to language acquisition and competence, while raising questions about the implications of his views—particularly concerning the role of environment and input in shaping human intelligence.
In response to Chomsky, Foucault expresses skepticism about the concept of human nature, suggesting that it has been utilized variably across different disciplines without being adequately defined. He critiques the philosophical discourse around human nature, positing it as an epistemological indicator rather than a scientific or definitive construct. This leads to a broader discussion on how knowledge evolves and transforms as scientific practices advance and as concepts like "life" shift in their meanings with new discoveries.
The dialogue shifts back and forth between Chomsky and Foucault as they dissect various aspects relating to knowledge, interpretation, and the complexities of human cognition. Chomsky advocates for an exploration of the biological basis for language acquisition, while Foucault critiques the foundation and classification of concepts used in scientific discourse, ultimately framing the discourse around linguistic and cultural historical contexts.
The lecture sustains a critical examination of both philosophers’ contributions, with the presenter reflecting on the implications of their arguments and the potential disconnect between complex academic theories and their practical applications in society. This leads to a pointed critique of the intellectual elite, suggesting that their work often lacks real value for the average citizen, who supports their existence through labor. The discussion culminates in a call for clarity in definitions and the need for philosophers and intellectuals to provide tangible benefits to the society that funds their inquiry.
In summary, this lecture offers an extensive and nuanced exploration of the Chomsky-Foucault debate, highlighting the intricate interplay between language, cognition, and societal obligation. Through careful analysis, it underscores the importance of defining terms and concepts within philosophical discourse while critiquing the impact of elitist intellectualism on ordinary lives.
[0:00] All right. This is a little project I've had on my plate for a while.
[0:04] I've got a little bit of time today. I thought I would do it. So this is a famous debate from the 1970s between Noam Chomsky and Michel Foucault. And human nature, justice versus power, this is a debate. And these are two people who take money from the government, in many ways, Michel a little bit more than Noam. And they take taxpayer money, they take state privileges, and of course, in return for this, you would think that they would feel a certain obligation to provide value in return, to help society in this issue.
[0:49] So, I have not listened to this, I have not read it, I'm going in blind, because I'm going in from the point of view of the mindset of a general-purpose layman, an intelligent layman who is looking to get value out of these heavily coddled and protected and coercively subsidized intellectuals. Are you providing value to society as a whole? So to frame it, Fons Elders, the moderator, says, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the third debate of the International Philosophers Project. Tonight's debaters are Michel Foucault of the Collège de France and Mr. Noam Chansky of the MIT. Both philosophers have points in common and points of difference. Ooh, big brain stuff. He says, perhaps the best way to compare both philosophers would be to see them as tunnelists through a mountain working at opposite sides of the same mountain with different tools, without even knowing if they are working in each other's direction.
[1:47] I don't know what the hell that means. Perhaps the best way to compare both philosophers would be to imagine that they're tellers. What does that mean? But both are doing their jobs with quite new ideas, digging as profoundly as possible with an equal commitment in philosophy as in politics. Enough reasons, it seems to me, for us to expect a fascinating debate about philosophy and about politics. I intend, therefore, not to lose any time and to start off with a central perennial question, in the question of human nature. All studies of man, from history to linguistics and psychology, are faced with the question of 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 recognize each other as human.
[2:30] Human beings. Okay, so that's interesting, obviously. Now, the first thing that I would do, and in fact, the first thing that I have done when faced with these kinds of questions, if we say, okay, what is common in human nature? Well, it would be to look at nature versus nurture, to look at twin studies. There have been millions of twins studied to figure out shared environment, which is just siblings. There are, of course, fraternal twins. There are identical twins. And there are twins raised in the same environment. There are twins raised in complementary, i.e. similar environments. And then there are twins raised in completely different or opposite environments. And so we do have a lot of information. And this has been around for a long time.
[3:25] So when you're talking about nature versus nurture, what is innate to humanity and what is environmental, the first thing you would do is look at twin studies. And of course, you would look at IQ studies. IQ studies are very powerful when it comes to the role of genetics in intelligence, which is enormous, overwhelming, and then the role of intelligence in life success as a whole, which is enormous and overwhelming, right? So, genetics is by far the biggest single factor in determining intelligence, and intelligence is about the most significant factor in determining life success, and so on, right? So, these would be twin studies, tease out or do their best to tease out the best we can do, nature versus nurture, so we would start with that. All right. So he says, the moderator says, so my first question to you, Mr. Chomsky, because you often employ the concept of human nature, in which connection you even use terms like innate ideas and innate structures? Which argument can you derive from linguistics to give such a central position to this concept of human nature?
[4:38] All right. Noam Chomsky, well, let me begin in a slightly technical way. A person who is interested in studying languages is faced with a very definite empirical problem. He's 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 is proper to call highly creative. That is, much of what a person says in his normal intercourse with others is novel. Much of what you hear is new. It doesn't bear any close resemblance to anything in your experience. It's not random novel behavior. Clearly, it's behavior, which is in some sense, which is very hard to characterize, appropriate situations. And in fact, it has many of the characteristics of what I think might very well be called creativity.
[5:29] Okay, so one of the problems that highly intelligent people, and of course, these both these men are highly intelligent. One of the problems that highly intelligent people have, particularly if they come from highly intelligent families or, you know, middle class, upper middle class, and so on, is that the people who are surrounding them tend to be verbally acute and often creative and great communicators and so on. Whereas if you've spent time around the lower classes, the less intelligent, and so on, generally, what they come up with is kind of blindingly predictable, and so on, right? And so, if you've been around a lot of creative people, because you come from a very creative family or environment, and you've spent your life among intellectuals, and so on, then you don't have a.
[6:25] A wide view of human nature. It's kind of like the Algonquin Round Table with sort of a very famous group of writers in the, I think, 20s and 30s would get together for these incredible dinners, or Christopher Hitchens and Salman Rushdie and other people doing these amazing conversations. He'd say, wow, people are just so spontaneous and creative. But this is like a bunch of comedians hanging out together saying, well, human beings just have this innate capacity to generate hilarious jokes on the fly. And it's like, but no, that's your, you know, like if, if, if you were born to a highly musical family and you spend your time around highly musical people say, well, people have this innate ability to be musical. And it's like, well, no, that's, that's your environment. That's not. Anyway. So when he says much of what a person says in his normal intercourse with others is novel. It's very creative.
[7:21] But that's just not true for people as a whole. I mean, honestly, if you think this is true, fly out to Australia and hang out with the aborigines, right? With their communication skills or go to some dive bar and chat with people and see how much novel and creative and intellectually sparkling stuff comes out. So, and this is a selection problem based upon proximity bias to creative people. All right. So, and Anoam Chomsky went on to say, 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, 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 a language.
[8:11] Now, this is a little confusing, and this is not to say that our good friend, Mr. Chomsky, who I've actually read a number of books of his, and I have retained virtually nothing of anything that he's written. And he did a whole column on politics, analysis of Middle East, and so on. And I remember virtually nothing. Now, this is, I just think because there aren't any particular valuable or useful general principles that come out of it. But I have retained virtually nothing of any of his speeches or any of the probably half dozen books or so. He's an interesting writer. He's a good writer, enjoyable to listen to. But I get nothing out of it in the long run. And I'm not saying that's the fault of his. I'm just saying that's my particular experience. All right. So, when he says, a collection of abilities we call knowing a language, he's been exposed to a certain experience, presented in the course of his lifetime with a certain amount of data, of direct experience with a language. Okay. So, is...
[9:11] Exposed to a certain experience, is that exposed to the teaching of language, or is that exposed to things in the world? When he says he's presented in the course of his lifetime with a certain amount of data of direct experience with a language, so is he saying that the information and data and empiricism that he's talking about, which has to come in through the senses, right, as experiences, senses, presented with data, that means coming in from the outside, So, I'm not sure if Noam Chomsky is talking about we're exposed to language and that's the data and experience, or we're exposed to the real world which language describes and there's a correlation between the two that is important. And again, this is not a limitation of his. I just, I would prefer that be defined up front. All right. So, Noam goes on to say, we can investigate the data that's available to this person. Having done so, in principle, we're faced with a reasonably clear and well-delineated scientific problem. Namely that of accounting for the gap between the really quite small quantity of data, small and rather degenerate in quality, that's presented to the child, and the very highly articulated, highly systematic, profoundly organized resulting knowledge that he has somehow derives from these data. So, I don't know what that means.
[10:31] He has so is he saying that there's a magical alchemy or furnace, within the brain that creates brilliant articulation out of a very limited exposure to language, right? In other words let's say that you were raised by some fairly dunder-headed single mom, right? And there have been studies that like single moms expose their kids to like 600 words a day, whereas in more middle-class and upper-middle-class families, it's thousands and thousands. So, let's say that you just get very little exposure to language, but you end up with this dazzling array of abilities. Is that what he's saying? Well, that might be the case, of course, if you are exposed to not a lot of verbal language, but you read a huge amount because you are born perhaps to less intelligent parents, but you yourself are highly intelligent, then you're going to be able to extract a lot more out of the limited data you're given. And then you'll go and pursue more because you'll be really into reading or, you know, maybe in the past, really, there wasn't an option to listen to speeches. You just basically had to read them. But now you could pursue great speeches online or something like that. So when he's saying, well, there's a small quantity of data, small and rather degenerate in quality that's presented to the child.
[11:54] Now, I assume he's not talking about sense data in terms of like, I see a tree, but he's talking about language instruction and the very highly articulated blah, blah, blah, that he somehow derives from these data. Now, again, this is a bias. This is Noam Chomsky's around really brilliant people. I mean, he's a Jewish intellectual. I assume that he's around really brilliant people growing up and so on. And so, yeah, he's around scintillating minds, high verbal IQ, probably in the 130-plus range. And so, is this people in general, or is it just the brilliant people that he grew up with? All right. Furthermore, we notice that varying individuals, he says, with very varied experience in a particular language, nevertheless, arrive at systems which are very much congruent to one another. The systems that two speakers of English arrive at, on the basis of their very different experiences, are congruent in the sense that, over an overwhelming range, what one of them says, the other can understand.
[12:53] Ah, that's interesting insofar as if I pointed a tree, another English speaker is going to recognize that as a tree. Okay. Yay. It's not the most important aspect of language. It's not unimportant, but when people say equality, nobody knows what the other person is talking about often, right? Because is it equality of opportunity or is it equality of outcome? When people talk about wealth, are they talking about material wealth or spiritual wealth?
[13:22] When people talk about violence, are they talking about the general initiation of the use of force, or are they talking about only private criminal violence, and so on?
[13:41] Well, it's hard to say. When people are talking about freedom, are they talking about freedom from the consequences of bad decisions, or are they talking about freedom from coercion? So, I think that, I mean, when people talk about Trump, you know, the perceptions, I mean, this is a Scott Adams reference, right? The same movie, different screens, right? Or same screen, different movies, right? Same screens, different movies. So, and what's interesting is that he's not defining his terms here, and he's not saying whether the data that you're getting is material reality or verbal instruction on language, right? Okay, so at an overwhelming range, what one of them says the other can understand, that is true in general when we're talking about sense data, but it's not true in general when we're talking about concepts.
[14:45] The concept of salvation to a Christian is very powerful. The concept of salvation to an atheist is not. Even the word God can mean things. Arguments about the printed word, you know, spare the rod, spoil the child, is taken by some Christians to mean you should beat your children, and to other Christians it says you should instruct your children, right? So, in terms of morals and essentials, there is massively wide divergence. To a communist, a free market trade is exploitation. To a free marketer, coercive control of the means of production is violence and theft.
[15:28] So, it's pretty hard. For some people, discipline means self-discipline. To other people, discipline means hitting children, right? So, anyway. So, he goes on, he says, Furthermore, even more remarkable, we noticed in a wide variety of languages, the fact that all have been studied seriously. In fact, all that have been studied seriously, there are remarkable limitations on the kinds of systems that emerge from very different kinds of experience to which people are exposed. So what does this mean? Even more remarkable, we notice that in a wide variety of languages, in fact, all that have been studied seriously, there are remarkable limitations on the kind of systems that emerge from the very different kinds of experiences to which people are exposed. Again, I don't know. Noam, are you talking about sense data of the material world, or are you talking about sense data of language instruction? I mean, these two are widely different, right? I mean, most languages, the word for mama starts with an M because that's the first phoneme that most babies can articulate, so it's quite common, right?
[16:34] There are remarkable limitations on the kind of systems that emerge, so I don't really know what this means, and maybe he's assuming familiarity with his work on linguistics, which is what he's sort of famous for, but which I don't think has sustained itself very well with the empirical data over time. So he says, there is only one possible explanation which I have to give in a 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. Okay, so it's been a... He's been... He's had a page.
[17:18] He's had a page.
[17:24] And what is he talking about? And so the reason this bothers me is because society pours millions of dollars into these intellectuals and they come back with undefined, vague baffle gab that speaks only to the other intellectuals who studied their work. And I think this is pillaging. I think this is a form of exploitation of the workers, right? The workers, right? Because, you know, these guys are often lefties, right? And the workers are people who slave away with manual labor often in order to provide all of the money pillaged by the intellectuals, so maybe, just maybe, provide some freaking benefit back to the people you're taking money from. And it's hard to even know, and I understand language pretty well, and I've done shows on the philosophy of language and the development of language, and I don't know what he's talking about. All right, so let's go on. Noam says, a person who knows a language has acquired that knowledge because he approached the learning experience with a very explicit and detailed schematism that tells him what kind of language it is that he is being exposed to.
[18:48] What? A person who knows a language has acquired that knowledge because he approached the learning experience with a very explicit and detailed schematism that tells him what kind of language it is that he's being exposed to. Okay, so is he saying that a person knows language, because he has a schema in his mind but I mean, you learn a language because you are taught a language by others. He says, 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 variations.
[19:35] Um, well, but he starts with the knowledge, children start with imitative knowledge, right? They just imitate the sounds that their parents make, right?
[19:46] And it is because he begins with that highly organized and very restrictive schematism that he is able to make the huge leap from scattered and degenerate data to highly organized knowledge. And furthermore, I should add that we can go to, we can go a certain distance, I think a rather long distance towards presenting the properties of this system of knowledge. That I would call innate language or instinctive knowledge, that the child brings to language learning. And also, we can go a long way towards describing the system that is mentally represented when he has acquired this knowledge. Yeah, human beings have an instinct for language. Yeah, I mean, it's well known that if you miss the language window, which is sort of, I don't know, 18 months or two to like eight or nine or something like that, like kids raised by wolves. If you miss that language window, it's very hard for you to learn language. And also we know that subtleties of particular kinds of language are lost often on non-native speakers, right? So the sort of the famous inability of some Asian speaking people to not be able to say the word L, right? That they speak R, right? Well, that's important, right? It's hard to hear particular different tones in Mandarin or Japanese. You don't hear the difference from the outside, but you understand the difference from the inside.
[21:09] And it seems to be the case that everybody who grows up speaking those kinds of languages.
[21:17] They can hear those differences and people who don't have to work very, very hard to hear those differences. And...
[21:27] One of the things that I think is obviously true, well, maybe it's not obviously true, but one of the things that is true is that, for instance, what is considered to be romantic in a particular language is that which is used to woo women, and therefore those who are sensitive to that particular form of language, they tend to reproduce the mental structures is most compatible with that kind of language. So, I mean, I had somebody I knew many years ago who visited from England, and he's been talking about how he would go to pubs and just go up to women and say, well, I said you're pulled, which means come and have sex with me. And he would say nine times out of 10, or maybe 19 times out of 20, he would get a no or a slap or ew. But then one time he would get a woman who would go with him, right? I assume the victim of child abuse, it was all pretty vile and gross. So let's just say that that was a very common thing.
[22:28] So then the most reproduction would occur with those who were the most forward and non-romantic as possible, right? Like when I came to Canada, I was in grade eight for a while. Then I was put in grade six when we moved to Toronto. And in grade six, the Canadian boys chased the girls around and punched them in the groin, which is something I would never have dreamed of doing in a zillion years, would be completely impossible in England, unthinkable really in England, but was common in Canada, or at least where I was.
[23:00] So, that's a whole different thing. And so, you know, when you move cultures in England, it's sensitivity, it's a good sense of humor, it's wooing, it's language-based. In Canada, it was, are you good at hockey and punching girls in the groin? Because the boy who led this was very popular with the girls. I mean, it's incomprehensible to me, but, you know, that's just a sort of switch. So, language is reproduced by those with the best affinity to approaches to wooing, reproducing particular kinds of brains. So, if you have, let's say, in France, to woo a woman is sort of a flowery, florid language and exaggerated analogies and you are so beautiful again, let's breathe, you know, this kind of stuff, right? And women respond to that and probably would not respond to the girls being punched in the groin. And so more florid language reproduces itself and then that reinforces that, right? So if a man wooing a woman with florid language is the most sexually successful strategy, then women will respond to men with florid language because then they will give birth to sons who will most likely inherit that capacity for florid language in a physical, genetic way and therefore will be more successful, this is how culture kind of works so.
[24:30] Alright so let's see what else does he say here.
[24:38] And he says, language, innate language or instinctive knowledge, yeah, for sure. So since language is a productive and organizing force, not only for men to organize hunting parties or war parties, you need a certain fluency in language. But if language is used to woo women, right? That's the old, why do we write poetry? To understand the human condition? No, to woo women, right? That's sort of the joke that Robin Williams' character makes in Dead Poets Society. And so language is used to women language is used to make jokes to make women laugh language is used to plan and organize hunting parties and to plan and organize military expeditions war and raids and so on, and so those who have the greatest facility for learning language the fastest, will be the ones most likely to survive and reproduce, right so whatever random scatter shots of genetics produce people who have the greatest facility to learn language as rapidly as possible and as accurately as possible. You can't learn it rapidly and inaccurately. So, yeah, of course, I mean, this is basic evolution. I don't know why this is considered a big insight, but basic evolution is, yeah, since language is such a massive evolutionary and reproductive advantage.
[25:54] Those offspring who are born with the greatest capacity to accurately learn whatever is considered locally the most effective between men and the most romantic for women language, well, that is, how it's going to be, right? So yeah, of course, right? So Noam goes on to say, 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.
[26:26] So he's saying that our capacity to learn language and to derive complex and intricate knowledge on the basis of very partial data, no, but that's a high IQ thing. So he's saying that people who can extrapolate from very limited data huge amounts of complexity, well, that's a high IQ thing. Now, high IQ is certainly not human nature, because that would be to say that those who are high IQ are more human than those who are less IQ, which would be false. All are human beings, right? Now, there may be some people at the intellectually severely damaged or underperforming, right, people who have general cognitive, limitations at the very low end of the IQ scale that may be denied human rights because they don't have the capacity to process the consequences of their own actions or survive economically in the free market or anything like that. So we may say that.
[27:22] But they're still human beings, right? They're just human beings with limitations or damage to their brains. That means that they can't fully exercise. They're still human beings, of course. Of course, right? I don't need to say that. So if we say that the ability to derive incredible complexity from limited data is human nature, then you're saying that higher IQ people are more human than lower IQ people, which is utterly false. Utterly false. I mean, that's like saying that that it's human nature to sing beautifully. Well, no, that would mean that people who are tone deaf or bad singers are less human, or even the singers with a bad cold who can't sing well are less human. That's not, right? Because there's lots of people I mean, Noam says the 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. Now, he could say, maybe what he's saying, if I understand, again, none of this is defined, so it's hard to say.
[28:27] Well, it's impossible to say when things aren't defined, you're always doing some stab-in-the-dark guesswork, but he could be saying, well, you know, you learn what a tree is, and then you can identify a tree, even if it looks quite different, right? So, you identify a tree, you know, with oaks and elms or whatever it is, and then you see a palm tree, and you're like, oh, that's a tree. Maybe that's what he's saying but you know a tall, a tall wooden trunk with leaves at the top I mean it's funny because palm trees look actually more like you know children draw trees like lollipops and you have the eternal challenge of leaves right and so in terms of a tree a palm tree looks more like a child's drawing of a tree than, most sort of northern European trees would look like Or if you look at, you say, oh, it's a Christmas tree. Like a pine tree is a tree, even though it has needles, not leaves. And even though you usually can't see the trunk because the branches go all the way to the bottom, you still know that it's because it's very tall, right? So maybe that's what he's talking about, but it's really hard to say. I don't think he's talking about because he's not mentioned anything about raw sense data of things in the world. He's only talked about learning language. So he's saying that you can derive complex and intricate knowledge on the basis of badly taught or limited language. And again, that's a high IQ thing. I mean, a low IQ person will end up with less language.
[29:55] Even if they're taught in a sort of highly complex way. So somebody with an IQ of, say, 80, you can get Noam Chomsky to teach them language, and they'll end up with very little competence in the realm of language, where if you get somebody with an IQ of 130, and then they can be taught language by somebody with an IQ of 80 and end up with far more complex language because of their intelligence.
[30:19] So, I don't know. And he's got no facts, no data, no studies, no brain, no IQ, no twins, nothing, right?
[30:30] So he says, in this case, I think a fundamental constituent of human nature, sorry, I need to go back a little bit. The 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. In this case, I think a fundamental constituent because of the role that language plays, not merely in communication, but also in expression of thought and interaction between persons. And I assume that in other domains of human intelligence, in other domains of human cognition, and behavior, something of the same sort must be true. Well, this collection, this mass of schematism's innate organizing principles, which guides our social and intellectual individual behavior, that's what I mean to refer to by the concept of human nature. Okay, so I thought that human nature was a part, a small, like you've got the big, you've got, sorry, you've got the big circle called human nature and a small circle called language acquisition, but now he's saying that language acquisition is massive schematisms not just in language but in other domains of human intelligence, that human nature is these schematics that allow you to get great complexity out of limited information ok.
[31:48] Again, I don't know what this great complexity refers to. If you're talking human nature, it has to be something that's specific to human beings. I mean, the ability to recognize a tree is shared by thousands and thousands of other species of creatures in the world. They all know what trees are. Orangutans climb trees. They know what trees are. Toucans nest in trees or eat fruit from trees.
[32:17] Bonobos, right? So, creatures know what trees are, even though they don't have the concept or the language to describe it as a whole. All right. So, he's saying that human nature is schematics built into people that allow for massive complexity from limited information. So, you're taught a limited amount of language, but you end up with this massive complexity of language, and that's human nature.
[32:44] All right. Now, that of course is related to IQ So he's saying that lower IQ is less human Less human nature So then the moderator says Well, Mr. Foucault, when I think of your books Like the History of Madness and Words and Objects I get the impression that you are working on a completely different level And with a totally opposite aim and goal, When I think of the word schematism In relation to human nature I suppose you are trying to elaborate several periods With several schematisms What do you say to this? Michel Foucault, well, if you don't mind, I will answer French, blah, blah, blah. It is true that I mistrust the notion of human nature a little, and for the following reason. I believe that of the concepts or notion which a science can use, not all have the same degree of elaboration, and that in general, they have neither the same function nor the same type of possible use in scientific discourse. Okay, excellent. What? I believe that of the concepts or notions which a science can use not all have the same degree of elaboration.
[33:47] And that in general they have neither the same function nor the same type of possible use in scientific discourse.
[33:55] Okay, not sure what that means. Let's take the example of biology. You will find concepts with a classifying function, concepts with a differentiating function, and concepts with an analytical function. Some of them enable us to characterize objects, For example, that of tissue. Others to isolate elements, like that of hereditary feature. Others to fix relations, such as that of reflex. Yep, got it. There are, at the same time, elements which play a role in the discourse and in the internal rules of the reasoning practice. But there also exist peripheral notions, those by which scientific practice designates itself. Differentiate self. Sorry, it's easy to gap out with this stuff. Let me just take a run at that again. There are at the same time elements which play a role in the discourse and in the internal rules of the reasoning practice.
[34:49] So is he talking about scientific identifications, mammal versus reptile, and the scientific method, which is science describing how science is done, or reason describing how science is done? But there also exist peripheral notions, those by which scientific practice designates itself, differentiate itself in relation to other practices, delimits its domain of objects, and designates what it considers to be the totality of its future tasks. The notion of life played this role to some extent in biology during a certain period. Yeah, I mean, biology has a challenge. I mean, a virus is alive. Biology has a bit of a challenge trying to figure out what life is, but that's really only at the periphery. Nobody looks at a rock and a lizard and says, I don't know which one is alive, but, you know, in the periphery, the edge cases, that kind of stuff, right? In the 17th and 18th centuries, the notion of life was hardly used in studying nature. One classified natural beings, whether living or non-living, in a vast hierarchical tableau which went from minerals to man. The break between the minerals and the plants or animals was relatively undecided. Epistemologically, it was only important to fix their positions once and for all in an indisputable way.
[36:05] Okay, I mean, I'm not going to doubt our good friend Mr. Foucault. Let's assume that that's That's true. At the end of the 18th century, the description and analysis of these natural beings showed through the use of more highly perfected instruments and the latest techniques, an entire domain of objects and entire fields of relations and processes which have enabled us to define the specificity of biology in the knowledge of nature.
[36:32] So, I think what he's saying is that, you know, you had microscopes, you could look at cells and so on and see the movements and processes of cells and they would be very different from minerals and so on, right? So, okay. All right. I think that's what he's talking about. So, now you can much more closely value and define the difference between life and death. So, throughout most of human history, slaves were considered the just spoils of war, and slavery was not considered immoral, and then with the spread of self-ownership and property rights, a human being cannot both be property and own property, and so slavery was revealed as a huge evil, and so that which was good and evil changed. So, we understand that. You can once say that research into life has finally constituted itself in biological science. Ah yes so this is the idea that progress is infinite and we're only somewhere along the continuum.
[37:42] In the past people thought x now they know that x is false and they believe y but it could be true that y is proven false and a b c or whatever will right so it's the idea that, so in the past people thought the world was flat and they were certain of that, and now we know the earth is a sphere and so you can't be certain of anything are we sure that we've arrived at the final shape maybe the earth is in fact banana shape so the idea that people were wrong in the past is then transmuted into, people can be wrong in the present right, well that's just not true though so the fact that people were wrong in the past Next.
[38:31] Does not mean that everything is eternally open to revision in the present. So, when I was a kid and I was learning my times table, I would get my times table wrong. But now I know the times table.
[38:48] Right, so 12 times 12 is 144. Yeah, I still, 12, you went one by one to 12 by 12. So, because I got things wrong in the past, does that mean that when I say, like when I was a very little kid and I said two and two make five and I got that wrong and now I say that two and two make four and I'm right does that mean that two and two might not equal four because I got it wrong in the past therefore I can't be certain of anything in the present well that's nonsense absolute complete and total nonsense so when people thought that epilepsy in the past was demonic possession, does that mean that they were wrong and it is, I don't know, some sort of electrical or biochemical storm in the brain? I don't really know much about epilepsy, so whatever that is, something like that. Does that mean that, well, no, it might not be, it could be alien possession, right? So the fact that we have accurate answers now, whereas things were incorrect in the past does not mean that our accurate answers are equally open to question going forward. So when he says, well, you know, boy, people didn't really have much of a differentiation, between minerals and plants or animals, the break was relatively undecided.
[40:10] We just had to know what minerals were and what animals were and so on. But once we got a hold of microscopes and we could see cell reproduction and division in mitosis, meiosis, and all that kind of stuff, then we got a better sense of what life was.
[40:30] And so this has enabled us, says Foucault, to define the specificity of biology and the knowledge of nature. Can one say that research into life has finally constituted itself in biological science? Has the concept of life been responsible for the organization of biological knowledge? I don't think so. Has the concept of life been responsible for the organization of biological knowledge? Well, given that biology is differentiated from geology in that biology studies living organisms and geology studies organisms which have not been alive, and never will be alive, a rock was never alive and never will be alive, so I don't know what that means so he says has the concept of life been responsible for the organization of biological knowledge I don't think so what the ever living hell does that even mean ok well, make the case he says I don't think so well that's not an argument it seems to me also not an argument it seems to me says Foucault more likely that the transformation of biological knowledge at the end of the 18th century, The transformations of biological knowledge at the end of the 18th century were demonstrated on one hand by a whole series of new concepts for use in scientific discourse, and on the other hand, gave rise to a notion like that of life, which has enabled us to designate, to delimit, and to situate a certain type of scientific discourse among other things.
[41:57] Uh, what? I'm so sorry. I got to do this sentence again. I'm sorry, man. This is like fog-enabled brain rot. All right. It seems to me more likely, and that's again, like, can you give some facts? It seems to me more likely, would say the pseudo-intellectual, that rape is wrong. More likely than not, right? You're a philosopher. It's supposed to be about facts and proof. It seems to me more likely, says Foucault, that the transformation of biological knowledge at the end of the 18th century were demonstrated on one hand by a whole series of new concepts for use in scientific discourse, and on the other hand, gave rise to a notion like that of life, which has enabled us to designate, to delimit, and to situate a certain type of scientific discourse among other things. Okay, so they learned more about life with microscopes, and I'm simplifying, but they learned more about life with microscopes, and therefore they could delineate what was living and not living better. Okay. Foucault goes on to say I would say that the notion of life is not a scientific concept it has been an epistemological indicator of which the classifying delimiting, and other functions had an effect on scientific discussions and not on what they were talking about, so is he saying that biology is not a science the notion of life is not a scientific concept it has been an epistemological indicator of which the classifying, delimiting and other functions had an effect on scientific discussions and not on what they were talking about.
[43:26] So, is he saying that.
[43:31] Let's say that there were some, let's say that there were things that were thought of as potentially biological.
[43:39] But when you had a microscope, you could see that they weren't? Or was he saying that there were things that were considered not biological, but when you looked at them under a microscope, they had indications of classifications that would normally be biological. Well, of course, the classifications don't change the things itself, right? When you get better classifications, it doesn't change the nature of that which you are classifying, right? So, the sort of typical example is the duck-billed platypus, which has eggs and so on, and yet is considered a mammal. It's kind of like an out-there edge case of mammalian classification, okay?
[44:20] So, whether you classify the duct-billed platypus as a mammal or not does not change the nature of the duct-billed platypus. I get that. Classifications are imperfectly derived from instances, from things in the world. And an inaccurate classification does not change the nature of the thing itself. When you inaccurately classified the Earth as flat, that did not change the fact that the Earth was a sphere.
[44:46] And changing your understanding of the nature of the planet or the world from a flatland to a sphere does not change its nature. So I get that. So what? All right. So go on with all of this weasel words, right? Well, it seems to me, and trust me, I've been very tempted to do an outrageous, empathetic, and ridiculous French accent, but I've decided not to. Well, it seems to me that the notion of human nature, says Foucault, is of the same type. It was not by studying human nature. that linguists discovered the laws of consonant mutation, or Freud the principle of the analysis of dreams, or cultural anthropologists' structure of myths. In the history of knowledge, the notion of human nature seems to me mainly to have played the role of an epistemological indicator to designate certain types of discourse in relation to or in opposition to theology or biology or history, I would find it difficult to see in this a scientific concept.
[45:48] It was not by studying human nature that linguists discovered the laws of consonant mutation or Freud the principle of the analysis of dreams, or cultural anthropologists' structure of myths. Well, they were studying these things, and let's say that you accept Freud's, I don't think that Freud's analysis of dreams as wish fulfillments is accurate, and certainly it's not accurate for everyone, and I've done a bunch of dream analyses in the course of my show, free domain. So you keep studying patterns and then you arrive at concepts.
[46:34] So, when we are trying to figure out human nature, and I would argue that human nature is concept formation. It is human nature to have concept formation. And that's a black and white, right? That's not, you're more human if you're better at concept formation, but it is human nature to form concepts. Concepts being abstract universalizations from individual instances, right? you know your own mother, and then you know what a mother is. You have your favorite tree as a kid, and then you can extrapolate to what trees are. So, the ability to form concepts, or the act of forming concepts, is human nature. That's the most, because animals don't do it, right? And so, so because I see that people form concepts, and that differentiates us from the animals, I say, well, that's essential to human nature. That is what human nature is, is the ability and the action of forming concepts. Because animals can't do it, certainly not linguistically.
[47:38] So it is through studying people that I discover what human nature is. I don't define human nature as the ability to form concepts and then just walk away because I haven't tested it against reality, right? So I'm not sure. You study people and then you find out what is the most essential characteristic of human beings and it is the ability and action of forming concepts. The theory and practice of concept formation, which happens in an automatic fashion. I mean, it is definitely human nature to generate concepts. And this is in accordance with what Chomsky says is you get more complicated stuff from limited information. Sure. So it's really hard to know, as it is generally hard to know what the living hell Foucault is talking about here.
[48:27] So if he's saying, well, we had better tools for studying life, matter, non-living versus living matter, we had better tools for it, well, of course, that's an epistemological revelation, right? That you can study cells, mitosis, meiosis, cell division, replication, and so on, right? Cell death, and so on, right? So, I mean, back in the past, people thought you fight disease by praying. You pray to God, and through praying to God, God will decide if he kills the disease on you or not.
[48:57] And now, of course, we can look at, you know, white blood cells, T-cells and so on attacking the invaders. And we understand if somebody gets a transplant, they have to take immunosuppressant drugs. Otherwise, their immune system will view the transplanted kidney, say, as a foreign object and attack it and try and kill it. So now we can see what's going on in detail. I mean, a couple hundred years ago, 200 years ago and change, they didn't even know that the blood circulated around the body. They thought it was just a bag of liquid that didn't pump, right? So, yeah, now you can see the blood flowing around the body and so on, right? In the past, you always had to have exploratory surgery. Now you can get fMRIs, MRIs, and ultrasounds and scans and so on, right? So, yeah, you've got better instruments for determining what the nature of reality is. So, that gives you more knowledge, right? So it's an expansion and detail of epistemology. Epistemology, sorry, is the study of the processes by which we determine truth and falsehood, right? So he says it's not a scientific concept. It has been an epistemological indicator. Yes. So when you get more knowledge, when you get greater detail.
[50:22] I mean, as simple as, if your eyes are very blurry, it's hard to read. When your eyes are sharp, it's easy to read. If you're blind, you can't read words. You can obviously feel braille, but you can't read. If your sight is restored, then you get access to more information. Sure, I get that. But, so, the invention of the microscope, and the telescope, of course, gave people.
[50:51] Greater knowledge, greater facts. So it's pretty impossible to tell that Venus is a planet with the naked eye. It's easy to tell that Venus is a planet with a telescope. You can't see the moons around Jupiter with the naked eye, but you can see them with a telescope. So you have greater knowledge, which gives you, you have greater knowledge, which gives you a greater capacity to develop accurate concepts. So when you can see cells through a microscope, you have a greater ability to determine the difference between living and non-living matter. When you can see the immune system in action, then you are less likely to believe that it is prayer that saves you from disease, right? So, yeah, greater knowledge gives you more accurate concepts. But greater knowledge without concepts is kind of useless so alright so I'm not sure what their difference is here so.
[51:57] So, this is supposed to be a debate, right? So, the first thing that should be done is defining terms, right? What is human nature? Well, the most essential characteristic of humanity, not shared by any other creatures and shared by all human beings, right? That would be the definition, right? So, they haven't defined human nature. They haven't defined language acquisition. They haven't defined teaching. They haven't defined even whether the data that you're getting explicitly is from language instruction or from language instruction mixed in empirical reality.
[52:24] So is it just somebody telling you what a tree is or is it somebody telling you what a tree is and pointing at a tree which is the uniting of language or concepts with things in the world through sense data so I don't know, there's no definitions here it drives me crazy so how can these intellectuals start off a debate that's there for common consumption that they're paid for by the working class, how can they it's exploitive and predatory and wrong, to take millions of dollars from hardworking people and then not even define your goddamn terms so they know what you're talking about You thieves. All right. Chomsky goes on to say, well, in the first place, if we were able to specify in terms of, let's say, neural networks, the properties of human cognitive structures that make it possible for the child to acquire these complicated systems, then I at least would have no hesitation in describing those properties as being a constituent element of human nature. That is, there is something biologically given, unchangeable, a foundation for whatever it is that we do with our mental capacities in this case.
[53:22] All right. So he's saying if you could identify the physical substrata of human cognition, but then you'd have differences in cultures, differences in ethnicities, and so on, right? Not just IQ, but even language structures, right? I mean, in Arabic, there's no word for secular. Everything is based upon religion. So can you really have conversations in Arabic as robust as you would in English about atheism or non-religious things, right? So then I think he's saying.
[53:59] If we could physically identify, in the same way that microscopes allowed you to identify cells, and thus further better delineate living and non-living creatures or organisms, then if we could map the physical substrata of these schematics, then that would be closer to human nature. He says, but I would like to pursue a little further the line of developments that you outlined, with which I, in fact, entirely agree about the concept of life as an organizing concept in the biological sciences. It seems to me, oh God, it seems to me, it seems to me the one might speculate a bit further, speculate in this case, since we're talking about the future, not the past, and ask whether the concept of human nature or of innate organizing mechanisms or of intrinsic mental schematism.
[54:48] Or whatever we want to call it, I don't see much difference between them, but let's call it human nature for shorthand, might not provide for biology the next peak to try to scale after having, at least in the minds of the biologists, though one might perhaps question this, already answered to the satisfaction of some the question of what is life. In other words, to be precise about time, is it possible to give a biological explanation or a physical explanation? Is it possible to characterize in terms of the physical concepts presently available to us the ability of the child to acquire complex systems of knowledge and furthermore, critically, having acquired such systems of knowledge to make use of this knowledge in the free and creative and remarkably varied ways in which he does.
[55:32] So when you say, to be precise, is it possible to this, that, or the other? That's not being precise. Speculation is not precision by definition. Can we explain, says Chomsky, in biological terms, ultimately in physical terms, these properties of both acquiring knowledge in the first place and making use of it in the second? I really see no reason to believe that we can. That is, it's an article of faith on the part of scientists since science has explained many other things. It will also explain this.
[56:02] Well, it's a physical characteristic that gives rise to the capacity for human beings to create and act on abstractions, right? Clearly, it's in the brain. It's not in the wrist. Chimps have wrists, but they can't do it, right? So it's only in the human brain that concept formation exists. And so clearly, it is a physical substrata of the brain that allows for this. It's not an article of faith to saying that which is a product of a physical substrata can be identified with greater details of that physical substrata. That's not an article of faith. Now, of course, consciousness is the most complicated thing that we study, and consciousness is, of course, consciousness studying itself. The brain is studying itself, so there's challenges, of course, right? But if the consciousness is a physical effect of the material brain, And therefore, there must be properties of the material brain that give rise to consciousness, saying that it's impossible for us, or it's an article of faith saying that we can figure out consciousness by studying the brain. Well, no, that's not an article of faith, because consciousness is an effect of the physical brain.
[57:15] Now, might it be ridiculously complicated and take a long time? Maybe. Might it be, let's just take an outside case, might consciousness be so complicated that we will never, even with AI, even with the most brilliant minds working on it for thousands of years, are we going to say that human consciousness is so complicated that we're never going to be able to figure out its physical substrata? Okay, but that still doesn't mean that the physical substrata does not give rise to consciousness. It just means one can't figure out how it happens. Right i mean some primitive savage who turns on a computer and figures out how to use it will not understand how the computer works i mean most people don't understand how computers work but that doesn't mean that it's magic or that the that the effects of the computer has nothing to do with the computer itself so even if we can't explain with ai with i don't know subatomic details and understandings and modelings, let's say that we can never ever figure out how the brain produces human consciousness, we still know that the brain produces human consciousness. So, all right.
[58:21] Noam goes on to say, in a sense, one might say that this is very into the body-mind problem. But if we look back at the way in which science has scaled various peaks, and at the way in which the concept of life was finally acquired by science after having been beyond its vision for a long period, then I think we notice at many points in history, and in fact, the 17th and 18th centuries are particularly clear examples, that scientific advances were possible precisely because the domain of physical science was itself enlarged. Classical cases on Newton's gravitational forces to the Cartesian's action at a distance was a mystical concept, and in fact, to Newton himself, it was an occult quality, a mystical entity which didn't belong within science. To the common sense of a later generation action at a distance has been incorporated within science. I mean, Aristotle, of course, went kind of mad trying to figure out the tides because he couldn't conceive of the fact that the moon might have an effect, right? And gravitational effects...
[59:21] Are not limited, like sound takes some time to travel to the moon, right? A quarter of a second or something like that, right? No, sorry, light. That's light. Sorry, that's light. Light is eight minutes from sun to earth. So, sound travels at what? 600 miles an hour or something like that. But if the earth suddenly dematerialized, the moon would break orbit immediately. Immediately. So alright.
[59:55] So he says what happened was that the notion of body the notion of the physical had changed to a Cartesian, a strict Cartesian if such a person appeared today it would appear that there is no explanation of the behavior of the heavenly bodies certainly there is no explanation for the phenomena that are explained in terms of electromagnetic force let's say, But by the extension of physical science to incorporate hitherto unavailable concepts, entirely new ideas, it became possible to successively build more and more complicated structures that incorporated larger range of phenomenon. Phenomena, sorry. For example, it's certainly not true that the physics of the Cartesians is able to explain, let's say, the behavior of elementary particles in physics, just as it's unable to explain the concepts of life. Similarly, I think one might ask the question whether physical science, as known today, including biology, incorporates within itself the principles and the concepts that will enable it to give an account of innate human intellectual capacities, and even more profoundly, of the ability to make use of these capacities under conditions of freedom, in the way which humans do i see no particular reason to believe that biology or physics now contain those concepts and it may be that to scale the next peak to make the next step they will have to focus on this organizing concept they may very well have to broaden their scope okay i'm sorry i'm out of juice with this stuff it is um it's just wretched um and then what happens is the moderator jumps in and then chomsky goes on for another a couple of pages and then.
[1:01:24] Yeah, I don't really have anything larger to say about all of this other than it seems to me entirely elementary stuff dressed up in a whole bunch of foggy, pseudo-precise language. So anyway, if you find this stuff interesting, I find it an interesting exercise, though. I run out of juice with these guys fairly rapidly. I just find it pretty gross. And again, exploitive and revoltingly immoral. To not provide value to the average working class person from whom you are ripping off their labor for your pampered and intellectual existence. I just think that's absolutely horrible. But yeah, tell me what you think if you find this kind of stuff interesting. What did I get to? I got to page 13 of 214, 12% through. But yeah, there's no definitions. And it seems to me kind of boring to say, yeah, when you have better instruments, you can develop more accurate scientific concepts. I mean, it really doesn't take that long to say, but apparently it's considered radiantly brilliant by these two people.
[1:02:26] Ew, gross. All right. Let me know what you think. fredomain.com to help out the show. Thank you. Lots of love from up here. Talk to you soon. Bye.
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