Chomsky: Language, Mind, and Politics

Noam Chomsky is well known as a linguist and as a political thinker. He is less well known as a philosopher. Yet his rationalist philosophy ties common-sense understandings of human action and decision (including political thought and action) to that human mental capacity we call language.

The key to Chomsky’s overall intellectual project lies in what he has to say about a biologically based human nature. McGilvray explains Chomsky’s view of human nature in the first three chapters. He begins by distinguishing common-sense understanding from scientific knowledge. He then outlines the scientific picture of the mind that Chomsky favours. Finally, by appealing to basic observations concerning how language is acquired and used, McGilvray shows why Chomsky adopts the view he does. The last five chapters outline Chomsky’s linguistic and political views and, by appeal to his biological-rationalist conception of human nature, explore the connections between them.

Chomsky’s revitalized rationalism has profound implications for both the science of the human mind (‘cognitive science’) and for an understanding of human action. No responsible individual can afford to ignore it.