>This would throw, oh just to pick a random example, most of Marx's Capital
>out the window. So all the phenomenal categories of visible capitalism -
>wages, interest, profit, dividends, rent - are all you need to know, and
>their sources and uses completely transparent to the uneducated eye. How
>can such a smart man make such a deliberately shallow argument?
Whenever I read him on this topic, I'm disappointed. I know that there's no imperative for a man in his field to understand the complexity of the arguments about science, theory, and the philosophy of science as they stand in other fields. yet, I still expect more from him.
I mean, even the positivist Carl Hempel wrote a short concession speech (in what? the 50s), admitting that yes, indeed, the human sciences were sciences and the objections Chomsky raises have been soundly refuted. For decades.
But, no mind. He has his position, it gets repeated often enough, so it's true! Why actually argue with the arguments that have been raised against the position he's taken when you can just pretend that you don't know any better.
Kelley