In the 17th century, when Galilei discovered that

the Earth turned around the Sun instead of the other way around

many people were in a state of great shock.

They had thus far believed that humans were at the center of the cosmos

and around this idea they had built their entire belief system.

Suddenly, this did not seem to be the case anymore.

Foucault's theory can be clarified by pointing out that

he takes a Galilei-type standpoint in relation to culture.

Since the time of Galilei,

people had thought that when it came to culture and society

humans were at the center.

After all, it is they who created them.

Foucault denies this.

He says that when it comes to culture, it is not the subject that counts

but the structure, the universal.

Something that is in itself understandable if one realizes

that the rules according to which mankind behaves

were already invented long before one was born

and that the name of the inventor remains completely unknown to us.

One can compare Foucault to Galilei, but from another perspective,

one can also compare Chomsky to Galilei

because his work in the science of language, linguistics,

has had a great revolutionary influence all over the world.

Chomsky has brought about a major transformation in the field of linguistics.

Interestingly, Chomsky's theories point in the exact opposite direction

as those of Foucault.

Chomsky gives much more primacy to the subject.

In the confrontation between these two completely different thinkers,

it is moreover good to remember that they work in very different fields.

Foucault is a cultural researcher; Chomsky is a language researcher.

In other words, Foucault's interest lies in the history of scientific language,

while Chomsky's interest lies in the daily language we use.

It is interesting, and maybe also not coincidental

that the debate between these two thinkers only really

gets exciting in the second half when they start discussing politics.

Still I believe it is good that this is preceded by a theoretical part

because in any discussion about philosophy and society

what matters are not the political standpoints

certain thinkers happen to take, but rather

the arguments on the basis of which they do so.

It might also be nice to note that this discussion took place

in the auditorium of the technical college of Eindhoven.

A discussion between two philosophers, two researchers

whose work is characterized by great precision, great detail

and also great clarity.

Moreover I thought it was quite symbolic that the debate took place

in a space with a lot of glass:

the inner- and outer-world blended together.

During the broadcast you could see the traffic outside passing by.

Symbolic indeed, because the relationship between inner- and outer-world

is central to the first half of the fourth philosophers' debate

about human nature and the ideal society.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome at the fourth debate

of the International Philosophers' Project.

Tonight's debaters are Mr. Michel Foucault de College de France

and Mr. Noam Chomsky of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Both philosophers have points in common and points of difference.

Perhaps the best way to compare both philosophers is to look at them

as mountain-diggers working at the opposite sides of the same mountain

with different tools, without knowing even

if they are working in each other's direction.

All learning concerning man,

ranging 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 call each other human beings.

So my first question is to Mr. Chomsky,

because you, Mr. Chomsky, employ often the concept of human nature

and even in this connection you are using terms

like "innate ideas" and "innate structures".

Which arguments can you derive from linguistics in order to give

such a central position to this notion of human nature?

Well, let me begin in a slightly technical way.

A person who is interested in studying languages is faced with,

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 uh.. say what he means,

to understand what people say to him,

to do this in a.. in a fashion that I think is proper to call highly creative.

Now, the person who has acquired this intricate

and highly articulated and organized uh.. collection of abilities,

the collection of abilities that we call knowing a language,

that person has been exposed to a certain experience,

he has been presented in the course of his lifetime

with a certain amount of data, of..

of direct experience with a language.

And we can investigate the data that's available to this person.

And having done so, in principle, we're faced with a ver clear, reasonably clear

and well-delineated scientific problem, namely the problem

of accounting for the gap between the really quite small quantity of data,

small and rather degenerate quantity of data

that's presented to the person, to the child,

and the very highly articulated, highly systematic, uh.. profoundly organized

uh.. resulting knowledge that he somehow derives from this data.

uh.. Furthermore, even more remarkable, we notice that

in a wide range of languages, in fact all that have been studied seriously,

there are remarkable limitations on the kinds of systems that emerge

from the very different kinds of experience to which people are exposed.

Well, this.. there is only one possible explanation for it,

in.. in a.. one can say in a rather schematic fashion,

for this uh.. remarkable phenomenon, namely

the assumption that the individual himself uh.. contributes uh.. 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.

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 variation.

And it is because he begins with that

highly organized and very restrictive schematism,

that he's able to make the huge leap from scattered and degenerate data

to highly organized knowledge.

And 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.

And I assume that in other domains of human intelligence,

in other domains of human cognition and even behavior,

something of the same sort must be true.

Well, the collection of this uh.. mass of uh.. innate sche.. schematisms, uh.. innate orga uh.. organizing principles

uh.. which guides our social and intellectual uh.. and individual behavior,

that's what I mean to refer to by the concept of human nature.

Well, Mr. Foucault, eh.. If I am thinking at your books like

"L'histoire de la folie" et "Les mots et les choses",

I get the impression that you are working on a completely different level

and also chosen an opposite aim and opposite goal.

If I am thinking about the word schematism in relation to human nature,

then you are just trying to work out that

there are several periods, several schematisms.

What do you think about this?

Well if you permit, I will answer in French because my English is so bad

that I would be ashamed to.. answer in English.

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 notions that a science can use

not all have the same degree of elaboration.

Let's take the example of biology.

Within the field of biology,

there are concepts that are more or less well-established

like the concept of a "reflex".

But there also exist "peripheral" notions,

which do not play an "organizing" role within science,

they are not instruments of analysis

and they are not descriptive either.

These notions simply serve to point out some problems

or rather to point out certain fields in need of study.

For instance, there exists a very important concept in the field of biology:

the concept of life.

In the 17th and 18th centuries,

the notion of life was hardly used when studying nature.

One classified natural beings, whether living or non-living,

in a vast hierarchical tableau.

Life was a concept they didn't use and didn't need.

At the end of the 18th century, a number of problems arose

for instance in relation to the internal organization of these natural beings.

Moreover, thanks to the use of the microscope,

different sorts of phenomena suddenly came to light,

which could not have been perceived until then

and whose mechanisms and function had been unclear in the past.

The developments in chemistry have also highlighted certain problems

in relation to the connections between

chemical reactions and the physiological processes of organisms.