Chomsky-Foucault Debate: On Human Nature by Noam Chomsky, Michel Foucault, John Rajchman (Introduction)

Synopsis

In 1971, at the height of the Vietnam War and at a time of great political and social instability, two of the world’s leading intellectuals, Noam Chomsky and Michel Foucault, were invited by Dutch philosopher Fons Edlers to debate an age-old question: is there such a thing as "innate" human nature independent of our experiences and external influences?

Biography

Noam Chomsky is Professor of Linguistics at MIT and a world-renowned political thinker and activist. The author of numerous books, including On Language and Understanding Power (both available from The New Press), he lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Michel Foucault (1926-84) held a chair in the History of Systems of Thought at the Collège de France. The New Press has published three previous volumes of his work as well as a collection, The Essential Foucault. John Rajchman is a professor of philosophy at Columbia University and author of Michel Foucault. He lives in New York City.