The Chomsky/Foucault Debate
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- Опубліковано 9 лют 2021
- In this episode, I try to explain and simplify the Chomsky/Foucault debate.
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Usain Bolt goes 28,7 mph, Springbok Gazelle can go 55 mph, Cheetah 75mph - as an irrelevant aside, but still fun facts.
(O wait 29.55 mph for Usain at his absolute fastest, says wikipedia :-)
There are no facts only interpretations, your measurements of speeds aren't facts ie necessary apriori truths they are just pragmatic conventions
@@alfonso201 the measurement itself is a fact, not the speed, obviously.
@@alfonso201 all facts are pragmatic conventions, especially the fun ones
Such fun facts rely on several assumptions. First, it's assumed that the clock used to measure his time over 100m is reliable, an assumption we take for granted but a really big one when you think about it. Second, we assume that there is negligible delay in observing the start and finish event, another big assumption, as the discrepancy between seeing Bolt start seeming before we hear the starting gun go off at 100m (we explain this with the enormous theoretical frameworks associated with laws of physics regarding the speeds of light and sound).
To answer your question of why Chomsky prioritizes the importance of humans capacity to learn language over saying walking is because other animals don't have language especially as complex as human language, and because although learning to walk without being sat down and taught is impressive, learning language through sheer observation is even more impressive because of how much more complicated language is than walking.
Yea, and Chomsky is mostly just prioritizing language because it is his field. But Chomsky does apply this type of thinking to other human abilities all the time. When it comes to human faculties Chomsky always repeats that humans faculties have "range and scope" determined by a biological base.
I get your point but walking is not as "easy" at it seems, even if it seems that way. And talking is not entirely conscious as well as one may think. There's a 6 seconds signal before every human action previous to consciousness.
"More impressive" is not meaningful. But language is a complex computational system whose structures and properties can be understood. Walking is a different system, one not unique to humankind. I like T & P's content but I don't think he really grasps Chomsky's theory.
Exactly. And that logical faceplant by the nice young lecturer made me stop the video. If he can’t understand why Chomsky raised that point, he’s out of his depth.
To follow-up with a problematization: Learning language isn't done through sheer observation. I'm not sure what scientist/-s said this but there is a theory that language acquisition begins inside the womb with the child hearing the pitches, rhythms and so on. Thus the child is born with an idea of how the language is spoken in prosodic terms. It then absorbs the language, in stages, which it then experiments with and actualizes.
Language is acquired through immersion, and this has been shown obviously numerous times, one practical example is the Immersion Program in Quebec (this is of course done on more developed humans than a child, but I hope my point comes across).
Walking however, I would say, a child learns through observation: Observing others walk --> Experimentation --> Actualization.
Here Chomsky's Belief is that Human Nature is Real and independent from social structures, though he doesn't deny that social structures do influence it. Foucault on the other hand, believes we are animalistic, and social structures have constructed this Human Nature and all its Characteristics. Both have good points. Personally, i lean more with Chomsky, but it's a Philosophical debate, and both views have merit. R. I. P Foucault and Go on Strong Chomsky.
So good rusumed. Two points of view different but converge deeply
You got it, man, in a nutshell, which is what he's doing here. I really just love seeing these two on stage. I am inclined toward Foucault, but I acknowledge Chomsky at the same time. Is there any other way?
@sinisterbuilt - I think there is another way and that is seeing that justice and power are neither absolute nor relative. Pragmatically speaking it’s an ever evolving fluctuation between absolute and relative . And instead of arguing from the position of a public intellectual or Continental philosopher it has to be done from the somatic body, felt from the body.
What I liked of the debate was also how respectful and genuinely interested the two were of one another. Back when people still knew how to debate, lol. I think Foucault's essays (I have read many) influenced me to a greater extent, and they ring truer to me, but these are two giants and the topic of the debate is one of the most complex ever. Will we ever have consensus over it? Do we really need such consensus? I think we need both sides of the story. I have only respect and esteem for Chomsky, who I had also the honor of listening to personally at an event. He is staunch in his political beliefs, that I also recognize myself into to a great extent. It's great to see him still so active.
@@sinisterbuilt well, idk. I enjoyed this debate. I’ve watched it many times. But, for me, Chomsky is more accurate in his pov. I do value Foucault’s point, and understand where he was coming from. As a gay man in that time, “human nature,” at least from his point of view, was a flag thrown by the people saying that who he was as a person goes against it. And if rumors of his alleged sexual abuse of boys in Tunisia are true (very sad and disappointing, if true), then this also explains, in part, why he viewed human beings as inherently animalistic. He himself was a man that was fighting against many urges (to put it mildly). But, I will stay away from that, because he’s not here to defend himself. To Chomsky’s point, which converges with Foucault’s point, we are animals. We’ve just developed large brains with a prefrontal cortex that allows us to posit deep, philosophical questions about meaning, epistemology, our place in the universe, etc. And because of this, we often lean towards an anthropocentric view of nature; whereby, human beings are not animals with identifiable characteristics, like every other animal. Baboons and chimps have uniquely different mating practices, black widows kill their males after mating, etc. That’s part of their nature. Why wouldn’t we, as human beings, have instinctual behavioral patterns? This isn’t to say that we are to be slaves to human nature, we do have the ability to reason past this ostensibly deterministic naturalist framework, but it is something else entirely to say that there is a human nature independent of social structures that are nonetheless influenced by those structures, and another thing to say that we are animalistic slaves to a different form of determinism: culture. Which, I have to add, the animalistic part-at least, to me-makes explicit the implicit; which is, that there is an “animalistic” side independent of us that is nonetheless influenced by culture and society. That circular contradiction, I always found funny lol
hey bro we are grateful for you just pumping out these lectures without all these extra graphics and shit other youtubers do that takes away from the substance and limits content
How do embellishments "limit content"?
@@SuperPussyFinger : I think he wanna say it may lead the public's focus on a bad dynamic and cause some kind of misunderstanding or at least distract them enough so that they're not able to understand the deep of the subject. Maybe it restricts reasoning. Guess it has more or less effect from one person to another but still, it may be a problem that could "limit people's capacities of understanding" ... I don't know
This video just popped into my recommended. Great video. Hope the algorithm keeps on working.
Same
@@laurinthor3350 Same
i met Foucault one on one in SF about year or two before he died on sunday after noon in a gay leather bar on Sunday afternoon, it was completely empty and i was very young not realizing that bars are not busy in afternoon, Foucault was dressed partially in leather typical in those days and i remember a lite from above maybe a skylite or courtyard, i really remember us being the only two people in bar, everything was very symmetrical, Foucault was standing or sitting in a kind of wooden alcove or frame, we started to talk normal pleasantries', e was actin as a kind of teacher and Foucault definitely seemed to be tryin to impart some important wisdom into me, i had absolutely no idea who he was, or that the man was famous, but i was smart and graduated in engineering a couple of years before in top ten of my class of 500 students, but because i studied science i ad ad very very few humanities classes. In any case Foucault talked alot about power and power dynamics, hidden structures and power in society, i was clueless and said, i don't understand this power u are talkin about i only know electrical power and power plants and power lines or power of money and wealth. he was very polite and said that power and power dynamics, existed everywhere between everyone in all layers and levels of humans . Foucault was very proper and very gentlemanly was not comin on too strong in a way it was like a conversation w a fevered dreamer as e did not look healthy but gaunt and pale white , but conversation was extremely impactful and i thought about it over and over for weeks months and years to come lookin for these power plays. at some point i saw a picture of im in mag or news and realized it was Foucault i hate when people today make him out to be some kind of sexual bad person w me Foucault was absolutely fair and not focused on sex . i remember his clothes did not really fit bc was close to end another strange surreal part of it. im sure if i would not have been afraid of older men and all men and not ever drinking because of fear of times Foucault would have gone home w me creating epic disaster. in a way Foucault completely changed direction of my life. I seized my person power in my life and quit tech corp silicon valley famous company and left and moved to Hawaii and thought- about power daily since. we spoke an hour or two
Foucault was standing or sitting in a kind of wooden alcove almost like a wooden throne but was just typical wooden interior
Thanks - trying to comb through all the heavy jargon in online essays was intimidating. You summarised it really well.
Foucault's work on power structures of more generally accepted innocuous institutions like education is priceless. Chomsky's efforts for an active philosophy are rare from armchair academics. It's easier for an academic to deconstruct, but to construct is not in their job title really. This is where Chomsky get's an A+ to attempt and point in a particular direction for the better good. And for any influential person, across any profession to go beyond mere transactionalism, is more common than one would think... Physicians who place 5150s on suicidal patients as a simple example. What Foucault's intentions are is hard to assess really in this debate. Chomsky simply has better altruistic intentions, while the other appears to be too pedantic and perhaps petty. Many of Chomsky's critics cannot stomach a few ideas, one being that they're side is not all that altruistic as they grew up thinking and tend to be dismissive of much of what he says ( which is a general problem of waiting until someone says or writes something you don't like hearing and then throwing the baby out with the bathwater ). One thing is absolute about Chomsky is that you may not agree with his treatments, but you sure as hell should agree on his diagnosis.
I think this is a fantastic coverage and characterisation of the debates. Hitting that subscribe button.
It's always (literally always) the criticism of Chomsky is 'he makes a good point but maybe he goes too far etc etc.'
You'll never hear that about Foucault even when the argument is literally 'everything, every action and value, is determined by the power systems that produce it and the historical origins of that power system.'
Ok so that's not 'going too far' but Chomsky pointing out, rather tamely by the standards of academia that there are innate human capacities which extend to some sense of what is just etc. He never denies what institution roles can do to people's values and how they live, in fact, he emphasized it several times. But the only criticism we ever hear is that he 'goes too far' or is 'being overly simplistic or naive.'
It's enough to make a cat laugh.
... plain as Pi :: HE's just TO straight-foreward andor thorrow in the analysis' andor critiques for most ani-one not an accolyte/ so-called believer to stomache, esp.because his args are framed/posited in such a way that ani-one re-flected andor stringently re-flecting/integrating the given discursive sub-stance/content, thus making it hard for any re-cipient to slack around with-out showing their poser-card, 'r whot-knot ...
Also Chomsky does extend the idea of biologically innate natures and abilities to things like walking or our visual system.. it isn't limited to language. This gentleman seems to misinterpret Chomsky's thesis.. our abilities and then our restrictions are what define what we are capable of and what we are not capable of. We can and do speak complex languages with little or no instruction which no other animal can and on the other hand we are restricted to walking and not flying because biologically we don't have that ability. Universally humans do share limitations and abilities which yes, our environment plays a role in influencing, however to act as if we can't determine shared universals which pertain to each particular human being is going way too far. postmodernists start to fall apart when they act as if science has merit only because power structures allowed them to exist.
i swear, i have the same remark, i don't understand this implicit hidden disregard towards Chomsky, we might disagree on his liberal stance smts leveling on anti-communism ... but the guy has strong takes in many fields and has great onlooks on global affairs
On the contrary, most of the trenchant criticism of Chomsky is that his linguistics is grounded in untenable structuralism - as the above reply suggests, although I disagree with their thesis as well. I don't claim to know that there is nothing universal about human behavior, language, etc., in fact I'm sure there is, but Chomsky's arguments about universal grammar are demonstrably wrong (have been demonstrated as such), and moreover, symptomatic of the inherent problems within any supposedly unimpeachable structure of meaning (see Wittgenstein, Derrida, even set theory, if you want it from a "rigorous," "logical" angle).
@@literallyanythingelse I'm not sure if this has been demonstrated, argued maybe but the idea that language isn't a biologically innate component of the human brain is hard to imagine. You would then be left with language being developed pedagogically and as Chomsky points out, the process happens so quickly that that seems implausible...the genetic determinism of grammatical rules can be argued but I think that Chomsky understands language as a fiction created by humans to achieve goals pragmatically... here I don't think Chomsky is as dogmatic as he is looking for any explanation of how something so complex develops and only develops in human beings.
I really like keeping in mind the concept of epistemicide and how our frames of consciousness have been affected by it. Especially thinking about how we can push back and restore knowledge otherwise lost to it.
With respect to your comment beginning at @4:23, I think one of the reasons that Chomsky focuses exclusively on language rather than, say, ambulation, is that the capacity for language is a defining faculty of human beings relative to other animals.
Exactly. The ceitique faiked miserably. EVERY aninal learns to walk. None learn to talk. Absolutely silly point against Chomsky
Just discovered your channel, really enjoying it
"They're really talking past one another. [...] They just seem to be saying different things. That is, they just come at it with their own approach and don't find a real common ground."
They're literally not even speaking the same language in the debate.
always provide quality content, great video
It’s been a few years since I watched the debate, but it seems like Chomsky misunderstands the level on which Foucault’s analysis operates. Chomsky’s example of breaking the law to stop violence identifies power (all too simplistically) with the law, and concludes that, since morality can break from the law, morality can break from power. Foucault’s analysis understands power as operating beyond the codes explicitly set out by the obviously coercive institutions, as shaping the way people think and the way people violate those codes; for Foucault, it’s possible to break the law in a way that is produced by power (for a clear real life example, look at the political tactics used by Extinction Rebellion, who break the law in their protests and then willingly get arrested for it). Power influencing thought is also why I think Chomsky’s question about Foucault’s motivation misses the point. Foucault obviously acts out of a moral imperative, his political activity clearly demonstrates that, but his point is that what we think of as moral is determined by power, and that this determination is unavoidable (undercurrents of Nietzsche). Foucault would, I expect, acknowledge that his actions are produced by power, and deny that this is something we’re ever capable of changing. Chomsky seems to view power as something inherently coherent (in one book, I can’t recall which, he makes the point that US foreign policy is perfectly consistent if one assumes its standard is simply its own benefit), whereas Foucault’s historical approach requires him to see the beginnings of one system of power within the operations of that which preceded it (according to Foucault, then, an action can be produced by a regime of power and still act counter to the preservation of that regime). Interestingly, the Landian perspective seems to combine both while going beyond either, in arguing that capitalist power is the first regime of such a scale to operate as a positive feedback loop
Great analysis. You're being too kind on Chomsky, they were in different intellectual weight classes, and Foucault, not unlike you, kindly tried his best to get Chomsky to reason at his level.
I think we need to call a spade a spade. Chomsky feels comfortable saying he doesn't understand postmodernism or french thinkers, in a rather dismissive way. But we all know he got b*tch slapped on television and never got over it.
And Peterson resumes where Chomsky left off, and the entire North America philosophical think tank has followed their lead and seem happy being moralizers rather than philosophers. There is a great responsibility on the shoulders of public thinkers, and we shouldn't be too kind when they fail to think.
@@gmensah2008 Perhaps. Foucault’s definitely much more thought-provoking than Chomsky, but I don’t think I’d be quite that harsh - there’s still something valuable in Chomsky’s approach. The emphasis he places on practical questions of how we can go about improving the world is one people lose track of sometimes, and it’s not like this was Chomsky’s best appearance by any means (although it was far from his worst). His position as someone quite popular and accessible is useful for beginners; I found his political work quite helpful in getting a handle on history and learning how the world works back when I was just starting to think about politics, though maybe that just makes me biased. I definitely wouldn’t group him with Peterson though; Chomsky’s dismissive of postmodernist theory, yeah, but Peterson’s outright conspiratorial about it, and Chomsky is at least knowledgable about some matters.
@@SorryPlayAgain Chomsky believes morality is innate to human nature. Foucault has shown the historical process of morality by analyzing the history of social institutions.
It's like Chomsky cannot believe that an atom can be divided, and that mechanisms can be found inside of it. That's why they're talking two different languages.
@@gmensah2008 imagine being a fail in linguistics AND in philosophy
Very interesting take. Can I ask though, if power endlessly dictates morality, and if even being aware of this cannot free anyone from it, how is it useful anyway to make such a distinction between power n morality? Is it not then just power=morality for all practical purposes?
And if nothing can be done about it, is it not a moot point?
Forgive me, Foucault is a thinker I have a particularly difficult time pinning down, and though your comments are insightful they also raise more questions for me.
Wow this just popped in my suggestions today. This was brilliant & your mind is very sexy. Thank you for the content!
Thank you for these, very informative.
love both and love that we are mostly beyond what we need to know what our internal compass - nice argument
Thank you! I have an exam about this tomorrow and your video helped me a lot!
This is an incredible topic for us to be critical thinking. Thankfully, you were describing in intelligible technique that majority can comprehend the debate from 2 intellectual thinkers you proposed. 😊 I learned these things in International Relations’ theory during university and it’s quite fascinating to go into deeper of philosophical knowledge.
Hell yeah brother , love from Las Vegas
We do have an inmate capacity to walk. Like we have a motor cortex, chomsky is proposing we have an area of the brain that corresponds to language learning
just found your channel. awesome stuff
Amazing video, I love you very much
Great video!
Amazing explanation. Is it possible you can discuss Dostoevsky’s main critiques in Notes From the Underground, and how this Underground man would manifest today if it is still a relevant text- why or why not and any disagreements you may have.
Forgive the clumsiness of the question but I would love for you to parse out the different philosophical, sociological and psychological issues presented.
Thank you
😊
I watched this debate years ago- I think I will revisit this.
You do a really great job. Thanks for posting. How did Foucault see crirics of institutional power such as himself? How much independence from such institutions would he say that he had? Even an intellectual such as Foucault is "standing" within some network of institutional relationships that are necessarily about power. How does he address that?
Basicly, in the anarcho syndicalism controversy, Chomsky think in terms of progress and Foulcault thinks in terms of change
Paradigm shift?
As to the question of what is the dominant factor in determining or defining what it is to be human(the nature vs nurture problem),I think a possible answer is that it’s a combination of both.We evolved.We became successful by our ability to adapt to and then change the environment by toolmaking,language,writing,etc.We now live in semi-artificial environments which continue to pressure us to evolve,adapt and to”fall in line and get with the program”.The problem or project for me is how to maintain the integrity of the free-thinking individual.I refer to the example of Charles Bukowski,whose passion to write made him an unfettered individual in his private moments of solitude.
Brilliant explanation
When Chomsky brings up the point about being “right” to run the light and hit the person with the gun, he is assuming that “power” is synonymous with the authority or the law. In this case though, it is important to note that power is actually related to the ways that we are taught by our parents, friends, school, society in total. If we are put in the situation to run the light, our sense of what is “right” is determined by the way that our morality has been constructed from the BOTTOM, not from the law at the top.
to Foucault power is essentially synonymous with authority, though he labels them uniquely. Foucault also notes that revolution is naive if it doesn't include other systems of domination like family, school, and society in general, which Chomsky would not disagree with. So the determinant that morality constructed from the bottom is different than from the top is only meaningful to Chomsky, where he might argue that it being from the bottom is a characteristic that alludes to its innate nature, whereas Foucault might argue that the bottom is also the top because of its assumed power and authority.
I think Chomsky is more correct here. That impulse to break the law to do good, for one, is not rare. There was a man who shot a mass shooter from 40 yards away recently, there's a long history of animal rights activists and everyday people breaking into places to liberate abused animals, slavery and jim crow would not have been abolished if it weren't for people willing to usurp the authority of both the top (being the state) and the bottom (being society). This is the essence of protest, really. For two: the impulse seems to be innate not even just in humans, even many animals have the capacity to protest unfair conditions. Protest is maybe a root antagonism to systems of power, as they're the actualization of wrong thinking, which is the total goal of authoritarian constructs.
I really do think there is an innate essence if you like in us, a spirit that moves and forms things, but it needs to be developed, nurtured, brought out and that will may vary from individual to individuals. And that the external influences in the material world definitely have the potential to change the course of that development. Babies intitially don't copy how to walk, there is an ability, will to want to move, an instinct.
Language developed in our distant ancestors as essentially an “orienteering” mechanism to help us maneuver through the physical landscape. As that language “evolved” it started to creep into that other metaphysical realm where true to its orienteering roots helped us maneuver through that new abstract world of ideas and concepts into a pronto-philosophical landscape. Science, after its initial germination, has more to do with “architecture”, the noosphere you could say, than anything inherent beyond that initial germinal seed. Language is a bit like this as well, it becomes bigger and more complex than any one individual can know or handle.
Actually, Chonsky argues it is a means of THOUGHT not navigation externally at all.
First time seeing a video of yours. Good stuff man!
I'd like to affirm Chomsky's view on language though. Human intelligence and the subsequent control of the world by us was only possible due to language. While walking upright may be something fairly unique, it is not what allowed us to develop into what we consider "man" today. We essentially share all of our functions with other animals especially other mammals, but complex language is what made us capable of even questioning these ideas.
So i do think chomsky is right in privileging language, because it is legitimately only inherent in us. You can talk about anything else that might be fairly unique but none are as fundamental in my opinion. Hopefully this is coherent, i wrote this at 6am.
I totally agree with this but Rousseau's conception of language still remains popular. This old way does kind of leave things short of a minimal foundation though. Spinoza isn't afraid of speaking of mechanisms, like Chomsky, so does Deleuze. Their ontology is compatible with views of language like Foucault's or Derrida's. I don't see how Rousseauians can't extend an olive branch to the "intensional" and "internalist" views of neo-Cartesians about mechanisms of mind, if mind should be both corporeal and creative. Maybe no one wants to distinguish the mind internally from the mind in external action. But then, what makes poetry possible at all? No minimal set of conditions or rules at all? No metatheory? I can't find that as believable, as there would be no difference from Shakespeare and a chimp hand-painting.
This is an unknowable proposition.
There's this theory floating around from paleontologists and evolutionary biologists that walking upright greatly impacted our capacity to think most probably due to the fact that we were able to see further and that could have been a precursor to our "forward" thinking or capability of planning. So I wouldn't really discount certain aspects of human characteristics as not that essential for the development of human intelligence.
Your 7:45 explanation of Foucault hit the spot
Thanks this video was great
Very interesting. I think in the end, both are right. Your conclusion on the need of the equal share of political power (power of organizing the society), that Foucault talks about is an illustration of the human nature of creativity that Chomsky talks about.
Because it will take a lot of creativity to organize the society in an ideal way, where people are not subject to a power they don't want and to be able to expresse their creativity to their fullest possible.
Creativity is not only something that expresses itself in arts or science, but also in all other fields. Cooking, making love, organizing the society...
So good! Thank you
Hey, thanks for this, David. I've had the pleasure lately of following your talks in their podcast form, on Spotify.
About this one, I have a quick question: you said you were in agreement with Foucault. Could you say a little bit more about why, apart from what you've already suggested here?
The way I see it, even though Foucault seems to be against the essentialist strain of Chomsky's arguments, he also seems to be suggesting an essentialist reading of his own, one in which power "interpolates" or defines everything. This, for me at least, creates a vacuum where there is no possibility of hope or even moral accountability. And a logical conclusion of this would be storm into all institutions and watch them burn.
As repressive as institutions can be, I would be wary of the claim that there is no space for movement or critique. Hence the question about how Foucault can elevate himself to a position where he can talk about totalitarian power regimes even while he negates the possibility of that transcendence stands as a crucial challenge.
I'd like to make the argument that Foucault is actually, at least in a certain way, espousing anti-intellectualism while playing the game of the intellectual himself.
Your thoughts would be very much appreciated.
I am thinking exactly like you in your post.
Thanks Paul, we should have more discussions like this on public forums. Excellent discussion.
I just remember Foucault feeling that Chomsky seemed a little naively optimistic.
Do you think that debate made Chomsky less optimistic and perhaps more realistic about the power of the powerful?
Your channel is fucking amazing and I have been binging for a few hours now.
thanks for the analysis! I got a bit lost with the original discussion if I'm honest (I've never studied philosophy) so it raised a few questions in my mind
1) Right at the end when you talk about Foucault's utilitarian stance - it seems contrary to his idea that Chomsky was "wrong" about the idea of justice. As in, if justice is defined by power structures isn't the idea of "the best thing for the most people" also suffering from the same power imbalance?
2) What would someone who follows Foucault's philosophy see as a way to change society, if action by the oppressed leads to oppression? Do we get carried along by the tide until something changes?
3) I think when talking about in-built feelings of justice there's something to it. Even small children and animals understand the idea of fairness and co-operation - I think it's just a artifact of evolution. That said I agree with your point that could only work with black & white thinking and what is happening at the very moment.
Anyway sorry for the mess of words, just felt like I had to get it out :)
thanks again!
Thank you so much
Hey great video, always found that debate between them vexing. Regarding Chomsky's privileging of language, I gotta say he did so because the use of language is of a completely higher order in that in order to use language you can't simply mimic motor movements like walking, but have to have a subtle understanding of words, their complex implicit connotations , the use of symbols/abstraction etc. and is really a unique and creative activity, of a higher order then rote imitation.
I was about to comment this but you beat me to it. The cognitive science background in me is very pleased! Haha!
you also don't learn to walk by mimicking movements of others. Chomsky's whole point is that language is analogous to walking - it's part of normal growth and development of the organism "human". Just because feral children don't walk properly doesn't mean they learned it by copying - feral children don't develop properly in all sorts of ways including puberty but no one thinks you go through puberty by looking at your buddies pubes and willing yourself to grow some.
@@SchutzBoysband interesting take. Now I have no clue how people learn to walk but walking is a motor movement n growing pubes a biochemical process - and it seems like most complicated motor movements eg learning an instrument, martial arts, combing your hair etc are at least to a degree dependent on seeing another do them n in some way and imitating.
All 3 of these (biochemical processes, complex motor movements, and abstract sign usage) can all be part of normal growth n development but some still of higher order than others, and that's the only point I'm really sticking to.
I’m here for you David 😏🚀
Thank you for this very clear analysis! Seen the debate during my studies, always thought Chomsky looked a bit outdated and Foucault rather hip and fresh. I've read the better part of Foucault's books and some of his lectures. Throughout my studies I was deeply fascinated by that stuff. Deleuze, Derrida, Lacan as well. Now, I've come accross a very interesting book. Translated title goes "Deconstructing Postmodernist Nietzscheanism". Read it in German. Its quite the eye-opener. Havig read Marx, Adorno, Horkheimer etc. as well, I have come to quite a different "verdict" as to the "usefulness", please pardon the functionalist term, of Foucault's theories. My current view is that both Deleuze and Foucault have been incorprated - from a vantage point of the actual ruling class - as perfectly suitable idiots. Their alleged "overcoming" of Marxism has suffered an essentialist degeneration into full-fledged randomness. Everything is dissolved into relations, whilst the terms themselves actually lose their relations! Take "power". Foucault suggests analysing relations of power through their inner workings or "play", "par leur jeu même". Even Weber's understanding of Power as to the capability to make people do things is more "enlightening". If you take Foucault literal, Power is inscribed into bodies but never actually exrted by bodies but by discourses. That's maliciously stupid. There are people, there are factories, there is production, there is state-guaranteed property and so forth. We can argue, whether dialectical materialism has its own essentialist pitfalls, or not. I would in fact say so. However, it is still way more applicable to any form of theory-infused political practice, than this feast of personally motivated marmelade. AS IF captialism derived from ideas instead of technological developments and their accompanying transformations of social and political practice.
Carl O Apel view would be helpfull in understand this debate...work world and life world distinction..toward institutions...it was known in the debates time
4:52 because walking could be argued to be a dispositional capacity contra content innateness so like walking is holy mechanical while knowledge of language might need depositing of mental powers
Basically.Foucalt...
A) Can't dispute a human's internal sense of right and wrong independent of society
B) Is essentially arguing for democracy to distribute political power (something we already have)
C) Cynically focuses on the failures of existing institutions, rather than reform and real ways to increase democratization
We do assume that walking is innate; as suggested by the observation that human children start walking without instruction, moving through the same set of stages. The difference between language and walking is that different languages are learned, in the same way, whereas walking is roughly the same across cultures.
Thanks. Interesting commentary. As one who has more appreciation for Chomsky than Foucault, I very much appreciate your respectful focus on the weakness on Chomsky's arguments and the nuanced explanation of Foucault's skepticism. I come away from this with a little more appreciation for Foucault's ideas than I had before.
Chomsky is a proponent - the main one as far as i know - of generative linguistics: a theory that maintains that we do not learn language by observation or imitation -that is by making statistical inferences on how a language works-, but that we are able to learn language because we have these innate ‘expectations’ of what a language should be like -we have these models in our brain that we specify as we learn just one/few natural language(s). There is evidence for this theory -based on patterns and rates of language acquisition-, although it is not universally accepted that i know of. In general, based on what we know for now linguistic capacity does differentiate humans from other apes: of course ‘linguistic capacities’, ‘humans’ and even ‘apes’ are historical categories. But then again, it all comes down to moral/political questions: should we have a debate within our historically defined categories instead of just having a debate about them? I think not even Foucault would have answered no to this. Should we also give relevance to a debate about them? Definitely -also, I don’t think the two things should be in contradiction. In my opinion, the contrast in the debate is mainly a contrast between these two very different methodological approaches.
Foucault did not describe power knowledge as “good” or “bad” but as a fact. For me it was helpful to know that he studied Psychology and first, because he is really reiterating a basic Freudian idea. Freud described the superego as an interior judge which was/is internalized from parents, teachers, other classmates etc. Foucault broadens this basic idea of the conditioning internalized-external. You can’t know the internal other than subjective reporting but can readily observe what conditions the subject. Not only people but environmental conditions in general.
I took a history of psychology course in Berlin. And we discussed what happened with psychology under the Nazi. It became a very distorted form of Jungian theory based on the hero archetype and in alignment with official Nazi ideology.
And we talked about psychology in the Eastern Bloc and that it merged with Dialectical Materialism.
And in the USA, psychology has also shifted ideologically. The Neo-Freudians push social normalcy while those following Reich the opposite, and then in the 80’s Oprah Winfrey popularized self-esteem Psychologists, and you had a chance of winning a new car!
Foucault is of course right. But this does not make Chomsky wrong. I think there are innate parameters. But even here what we think we know if such innate parameters is produced by a power-knowledge system. The idea of what is or is not innate is still seen through a conditioned lens. But then you can also argue that innate internal systems distort the external reality or operates autonomously despite it which I think occurs as well.
The thumbnail made me think it was a Filthy Frank parody. Still a great video!
Really enjoyed this one dude. I’m still at an age where I have more questions about life than I have answers. What I cannot help but think is that Chomsky does indeed believe in what he is that he argues. I think his philosophy is true for him but not everyone. Have you read his book ‘manufacturing consent’???
Can someone please elaborate upon Deleuze and Guattari's critique of Chomsky?
Check out my episodes on A Thousand Plateaus :)
Feel like Focault basically slowly says banal thoughts in this that can be boiled down to "we shouldn't do anything, we don't know enough."
Coming in blind, Focault didn't convince me of much other than people let him talk without interrupting to a point where he and the audience all have come to believe what he says is important enough to merit that slow delivery.
Although I must admit that as someone whose french isn't good enough to follow dialogue in any french movie, it feels really good to be able to understand word for word the remarks of a great french intellectual.
I have immense respect for Chomsky, but he is being an utopian here. There is no way to build any system of social relations without it having innate tendency to eventually degenerate into being "coercive". Maybe there are many good things about a system being coercive, i can think of few just off the top of my head. And it is a pretty big leap to go from "humans have innate capacity to learn human languages" to "humans have inner desire to indulge in creative endeavors, and that is the best possible human life"(whatever chomsky means by being creative).
Empirically, I see Humans having tendency for a variety of things. How does chomsky know "THE HUMAN"!????? i see many humans on streets and I can confirm that most of them are not looking to maximize or even engage in creativity. But i have never met "the human" as asked him what makes him happy.
Humans care about fulfillment of their desires/wishes/wants. And different humans tend to have different desires. I have never known "THE HUMAN DESIRES".
Have you watched the lectures on Nietzsche by Raymond Geuss? They're v. good!
God, this is excellent. Such a perfect representation of the debate in clear concise language. Great video, and you just earned a subscriber
A perfect representation would be viewing the debate itself
@@enormousmaggot stop, you pedant
All social institutions are in certain way or another restrictive with respect to the potentially conflicting individual tendencies/actions of its members. Restrictive need not necessarily be oppressive.
Can you talk about Sartre plz
What would you (or someone in the comments) suggest I delve into first when reading Foucault. To be honest he on many subjects that interest me deeply such as sex, madness and crinality. I find all these things intertwined and not always properly understood by society at large. Not even by those who claim to be experts or who control the outcomes of those caught up in these intertwined systems of belief and control.
Right. at about 9:54 I'd heard enough of Foucalts view on science. But I kept listening. at 11:43 I've heard enough. My view. Yes, power structures exist. But they don't have total unlimited control. Things can exist outside of that power. So, science can exist within the power structures, science can exist outside of them. This is my point. Within the structures they determine what is allowed, outside they have little jurisdiction.
I'd make the argument (I lean focault but agree a bit with Chompsky) that human nature reacts to our environment. Inactive genes will activate based on stimuli. And that is determined by our current world. So to change human nature to where it fosters more desirable elements of it, we also need to change social institutions
10/10 want to have a conversation with this guy
Thanks yogscast lewis
Chomsky's prediction of the overtaking by multinational corporations has been spot on. Not that it was particularly prophetic since it was already clear then where things would go.
Thanks for the clear elucidation on this debate. Chomsky is an admirable clear thinking idealist, but Foucault is the more subtle thinker, it seems to me.
"Why do we not ascribe this ability to walk with a kind of innate human capacity to walk?"
We do though. Humans absolutely have an innate capacity to walk. It is not mere mirroring. Even childden who are blind from birth learn to walk.
Chomsky's point goes beyond "We must have innate linguistic abilities because no one sits down and teaches us language."
Chomsky's work in linguistics was critiquing and arguing against the behaviorism of researchers like B.F. Skinner, who argued language acquisition worked like classical conditioning. What Chomsky argued, very convincingly imo, is that classical conditioning fails to explain several aspects of language acquisition, one of them being how novel utterances can be produced. That is what he meant by "creativity."
Good vid man. You mention in it, that humans have an innate capacity for walking as well (as well as other things). This is true, so why does Chomsky and others privilege language so much? This is because language is a vastly more important faculty than walking. First, it is unique among any creature. Yes some creatures can communicate, but they do not have language. They can't talk about things from the past, the future, abstractions, symbols, among many other limitations. In short, they communicate and do not have language. Second, it is our superpower. Everything we do that has led us to total domination of the planet is enabled by language. But for Chomsky language is much more than simply a means to communicate that has enabled cooperation. This is the most controversial point about language he makes - and to be fair, no one knows if it is true - but language's main function is to enable thinking in our head. Most uses of language are internal, us talking to ourselves, making sense of the world. For Chomsky, this is its key superpower - it enables our incredible thinking (and also limits it slightly because there is only a certain number of ways that langauge can be expressed - this is the universal grammar, but it doesn't impose major limits although it does mean there are some things that are simply beyond our comprehension as a result). I'm sure that last bit is the hardest part of Chomsky's thought that is hardest to understand so I really encourage you to read more about it, it's one of the greatest discoveries in human history, in my estimation!!
From what I've heard Chomsky say in many of the videos on postmodernism and post structuralism posted on UA-cam (I wish I could post links to those specific videos but I don't think UA-cam allows that. Anyone interested will have to find them under the search words "postmodernism", "post structuralism", and "Noam Chomsky") is not that Chomsky necessarily disagrees with what the arguments Foucault is is dealing with especially in regard to language he just maintains that you don't need multiple books full of multi-syllable words to express those basic arguments. I believe he agrees that language and power affect our decision making but I think he argues that too many academics are making careers out of simple ideas that you have done very well to present in approximately 20 minutes.
I also can't help but notice Chomsky and Foucault are both speaking completely different languages and rarely meet in subject during their live debate if we could call that. We kind of have to take the arguments of each and make our own assessments of what they would actually mean in relation to each other apart from the actual "live" discussion.
I also commend you very highly for clearly stating that you tend to lean towards Foucault's arguments. It seems that in the University setting the lean is hidden until the post-graduate level and that undergraduate students are taught the basic practicing of Foucault/Derrida style exercises on whatever texts are chosen to be questioned without knowing anything of the actual Foucault and Derrida debates.
Having said this I thank you for this video shedding some light and clarity into this ongoing debate of which I'm trying to fully comprehend.
** after posting this comment I realized that this channel made a specific video critiquing Chomsky's critique of "postmodernism". I have watched it since posting my original opinions and while it hasn't changed my views I invite anyone else's interested in this discussion to check it out in fairness.
Its not a rumor Foucault was going to wear a wig if you listen closely there are times when someone asks Foucault to put on the wig during the debate. if you listen closely there are times when someone asks Foucault to put on the wig during the debate.
When I watched the debate, I felt like Chomsky was not understanding Foucault's arguments. They both made good points, but I didn't feel like Chomsky's invalidated Foucault's perspective so I guess like you said it seemed like they were talking past each other.
That debate was marred by confusion, it was held for a dutch audience, with both speakers delivering their thoughts in their own languages, one in french and the other in english. None of them looked comfortable, were visible nervous. So I attribute little value to it.
Chomsky's later reflections on it seem to confirm this. Pointing out facts about human nature and the weight is has in shaping behavior without the considerations of culture, institutional power etc.
Solo voy a decir que creo que me enamoré de ti y lo digo en español tal como Foucault dijo 'Hablaré en francés ya que mi Inglés es pésimo y me daría vergüenza responder' saludos desde Argentina!
I don't understand the walking remark in the beginning. I mean it's not a controversial view that humans do have a self evident innate walking ability, starting from the anatomy to the brain structures necessary to support all the balancing requirements. So it's not much about learning how to walk, but rather maturing enough to be able to balance etc. The same can be said about vision, colors, abstract shapes - humans rarely disagree about something being a circle or a triangle however imperfectly someone might draw them - again, there's a self evident perception commonality. One does not need to spend significant amounts of time affirming all of that. The jump to the linguistic ability is much more subtle and does need to be affirmed/confirmed.
i'm not interested in politics or deep philosophy sorry, but you look like filthy frank in the thumbnail amd that's all it needed to make my day, thank you
Chomsky actually confirmed the wig rumor and claimed you could see the moderator nudging Foucault to wear it during the debate. The UA-cam short is somewhere on UA-cam😂
Through what institutions would the church, special interest groups, etc., exert power if not through the state or capital? Abolish both and institutions like the church are totally bereft of power. Similarly with academia, a revolutionary situation in which the twin powers of state and capital are abolished would clearly lead to a complete overhaul of the university, regardless of the individual wishes of those who run individual institutions.
Some animals also have the capability for language, albeit not as complex. Animals also demonstrate creativity.
Just one point: families, for example, existed before the modern era. They existed before governments, etc. I use this one example because I don’t want to write a thesis in a UA-cam comment section, but if families are inherently oppressive and repressive, and instruments of institutions, then how did that become to be, considering families existed before those institutions? Families don’t have to go away in order to expand normative standards or expectations, right? And there are important for the development of a child. And multiple studies (things I personally know philosophers hate because it restricts their ability to theorize with impunity lol) have shown that people that are married, on average, have longer, happier and healthier lives (mentally and physically). Are some families good? No. But bad families are independent to whether or not families at large are good, amirite? And if some are bad, then maybe we can focus on the institutional constraining from those structures to the families which result in problematic upbringings. High stress due to a capitalistic society focused exclusively on pecuniary interests could “trickle-down” in how we socialize with one another and raise our children. But it seems like families are victims to these oppressive structures and not cogs of the oppressive machine. No? And that has always been a downside of Foucault-to actually and explicitly address the material conditions of working-class families without having to shatter them entirely. I do enjoy his writing though. He was an excellent writer. But one final blow: it’s not that Foucault didn’t have time to answer back, he had no answer back. Lol I respect your breakdown, but you’re a 👌🏾 bias, brotha. Which is fine, we’re all bias lol
Chomsky's warning that there is a risk of fascism involved in civil disobedience is important. The only safeguard against that is to not only assume but argue justice and a clear understanding of the goal of disobedience and to therefore discipline disobededience into the cofines of one's conceptualisations of justice and freedom. The record of polital revolutions show how brutality and new forms of oppression can erupt from resistance and rebellion unguided by conceptualization of freedom and justice. We see repetedly how mobs on the left and right can act with brutality and aimlesness and give oppotunity for ruthless power seekers to take over in the middle of the chaos created. Virtually no revolution, takeover or suppresion of revolution has escaped brutality and the harming of masses of individuals - and without real advantages springing from it. Progess can be achieved with highly organised and disciplined protest and continued work and pressure and by interacting and taking part in the work institutions. Institutions are not monoliths.
I would love for you to review Human action by Ludwig von mises
I think a large number of the frictions between Foucalt and Chomsky here came from Chomaky really describing how he saw the US (and maybe the West in general) as of now, whereas Foucalt took a much broader view, judging the outcome for humanity as a full aggregate of our history (as oppose to Chomsky viewing it as a function of future welfare)..... particularly in terms of where he believes freedom would constitute progress----- hence why Foucalt is looking past the constraints and real systems we currently operate in, Chomsky however is very much describing the practicalities of here and now
To me it was all about body language and patten . Gus visit was nog convincing, he had the contempt look , and spread in his responses defensive and rationalizing his point of view , where Chomsky more receptive to what he was hearing and responding to what he is hearing as we all heard .
Chomsky was far more authentic presenting his argument .
Thanks for posting your video.
Can you please describe, or give the name of a writing, that describes what the “absolute basis” is from near the end of the Chomsky/Foucault debate where Chomsky said, “I think that there is a 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.
The quote is from 1:01:38 in the following video:
ua-cam.com/video/3wfNl2L0Gf8/v-deo.html
Here’s one more comment for the algorithm!
this is probably going to be the most superficial and ordinary comment but... your eyebrows are simply perfect.
also, best explanation I found for someone who has absolutely no previous knwoledge (aka me). And this is not even my first lenguage.
Gotta look good to think good.
i remember somebody in the comment section made a comment saying something along the lines of "chomsky believes in angels but knows he would sound dumb if he out right said that"
thus his arguments from innate moralism ,im an ancap and i consider Foucault post modernism/structuralist works to be ancap, and so the esoteric part of me found this interesting.
im sure you heard the slogan "money is the root of all evil", well you seem there are some who consider capitalism not as a concept or a spook but as a deity, and not im not talking about a big business owner with great status , but a demon like entity , this some how relates to animism.(no this isn't anime worship) but that the belief that things including beliefs like capitalism have a distinct spiritual essence.
so which makes question is Chomsky having the same head cannon that economic politics also step into the esoteric an he sees capitalism as mamon.
Great
I'm glad someone finally commented on this debate, one of the greatest debates of all time.
who won in the end, chomsky or foucault?
Interestingly, Chomsky loathes formal debates as being unscientific. Instead of being a collaborative investigation to improve understanding, it’s two sides invested in positions that must be defended no matter what, based upon what may be the wrong question.
Great analysis!
Adding with what I think made the debate so slippery and unconnected especially in the beggining was that Chomsky had a convergent argument in which he first proposes his view on an existing Human Nature (creativity), derives a moral imperative of society to uphold and maximize this conception of human nature, which is a problem based on Hume's is-ought distinction, and finally, he narrows his argument even further by proposing anarcho-syndicalism as the social and political system which would articulate the moral obligation towards ensuring his conception of Human Nature. As the debate goes on, each step of the argument becomes evermore, debatable, problematic and uncertain.
On the other hand, Foucault's argument Is divergent in the sense that he is interested only in expanding the possibilities for new ways of social, political, cultural and economical arrangements through an skeptic lens on today's society.
Too bad the debate ended when they where engaging each other the most
So Foucault says the right and wrong are only determined by those in power and that humans without this determination have no capacity to understand right from wrong. This has been disproven is so many different ways that I cannot understand how anyone with a capacity for logical thinking could come up with this hypothesis.
@@tylerdalton3267 First you have to decide what definition of "right" and "wrong" is being discussed, which it seems didn't happen here. Chomsky is definitely talking about moral right and wrong, while Foucault seems to be talking about juristic or politically right and wrong - determined by society.
Foucault questions whether learning a language is innate, and then deflects on whether anything humans do is innate, with the example of walking. The observation is, that all animals which use bi- or quadro-pedal motion learn to do that, some within minutes of being born, without exception. There are no groupings of any healthy animals which replace walking and running with creeping on the ground. They don't exist.
If you want to learn about the philosophy of morals, you should read Plato, Kant, and Hume.
Do humans have innate morals? Humans demonstrate altruism without having been taught it. In fact, higher animals do too.
I recall reading about testing of infants about the age of 1 and 2, using hand puppets. Different plays were played out with the puppets, to get the babies used to the puppets. Then a play was shown in which one of the puppets was for example left out of playing while the other puppets participated (the left out puppet was demonstratively sad), or some of the puppets got something nice to eat, while one did not (again, sad). The infants showed signs of distress when one of the puppets was saddened, by not being included from playing or receiving food. Distress was noted by them turning away from what the puppets were doing and seeking the closeness of their mother, who was always present, although not in direct contact when the plays started. They were never prevented to access their mothers during the tests. If none of the puppets were saddened through "mistreatment" the babies generally sought out their mother far less often.
That infants have innate capacities to recognize things they like or want vs what they dislike or wish to avoid was proven years ago with newborns. At the age of about 1 - 2 weeks, they were shown pictures of faces. The faces had only neutral expressions, and all were foreign to the babies. The babies reacted either neutral or interested in a face or turned away from each, depending on their own reaction. They had no way of having learned how to react to any of the faces, so in the moment of recognizing each face, the automatically assigned a value to it (like/dislike).
I don't think Foucault has much of an answer when Chomsky says sure, there is power, but power doesn't mean we should stop trying to imagine what justice is. Foucault's imminent approach to just critique within existing structures and abandon any utopian horizon is ultimately conservative, inadequate, and kind of scary.
What is your PhD in?
Isn't Chomsky equating learning to walk to learning to talk? Walking is a bilogical imperative, our bodies are made for it. Chomsky is saying it is the same of language.
On Chomsky's side, I would bolster his natural language assertion for defining. There may be other animals capable of abstraction and self-reflection, and are able to combine knowledge and thought with each other constructively (all humans are natural philosophers), and we continue to search for evidence of this. But the argument for human uniqueness is strong. How this self-regard is tainted with chauvinism is another issue. This facility causes harm as well as good, but also the ability to assess this, so Chomsky sees our unique ability as presenting at once the cause, the reason, and the ability to work toward the good in human destiny.
So Foucault's innate ability to learn to move through the world is shared by all animals, as are all other innate abilities. (Humans are in fact, notoriously distinct in being the slowest to learn to walk of any animal.) The apparently special nature of language (which, for Chomsky, equals thought as we understand it) is the most important distinction of humans from other animals, most pointedly in comparison with our very very closely related simian brothers and sisters.
As for Foucault's observation that power conditions language, thought, and feeling, for me this is the eternally required self-criticism elucidated (or perhaps muddied) by Marx's assertion that dominant power generates its own supporting ideologies. (I worked at at a very large, wealthy, and old corporation and it had its own ideology, mythology, view of human nature, you name it.) How we are to understand ourselves and the means we use to do so must always be informed by this critique. I won't make any excuses for Chomsky if he's a bad Marxist!
Chomsky's traffic-light example was prosaic and simplistic. But his personal interrogation of Foucault -- "does power motivate Foucault to interrogate power?" -- was incisive. Was Foucault's answer definitive? Is human liberation a thing, or a mirage of power? Can power liberate itself from itself? Perhaps power can be harnessed by freedom through ongoing struggle? Foucault's answer alludes to a kind of reformism informed by the experience of power's victims. Seems unobjectionable, and practical enough. At the end of the debate, the two geniuses agreed to fight oppression equally.
Two years now after this video, I believe it was this debate in which David claims Chomsky got waxed, or shellacked, or buffed with a rotary buffer -- i forget the exact term. I always thought this debate was unproductive, but after listening to David's description, it wasn't a bad debate. It's too bad that more debates like this haven't been made since.