[lbo-talk] Noam 1, Israelo-apartheid 0

c b cb31450 at gmail.com
Thu May 20 11:02:25 PDT 2010


That's not what the Cohen & Rogers article says, and from all the Chomsky I've read, I'd agree with them. He does seem to believe in some innate human lust for freedom and justice that's repressed or distorted by misunderstanding and a bad society. There's no room for craziness or fantasy in his worldview. He's almost inhumanly rational.

Doug

CB: I think you got it , Doug.

Chomsky is something of an explicit Cartesian. DesCartes is labelled a philosophical rationalist: " I _think_ , therefore I am." but included God in his scheme)   (1965). Cartesian Linguistics. New York: Harper and Row. (Reprint:

(1986). Cartesian Linguistics. A Chapter in the History of Rationalist Thought. Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America. )

Chomsky (1968). Language and Mind , in this he specifically mentions his Cartesianism.

I know Chomsky is a genius and all ( though he made his reputation as genius in linguistics, and I don't think his theories are all the rave anymore), but it might help if he updated his philosophical basis to at least Hegelianism, which is actually arch-rational/logical. Cartesianism has been sublated, shall we say.



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