Chomsky vs Foucault on Creativity & Science (1971)

A few clips of Noam Chomsky and Michel Foucault science and creativity in their famous 1971 debate. This is a version of an upload from the previous channel. The translation is my own, although I referenced the published text (which by the way was edited by Foucault prior to publication, which is why there are various differences between the published transcript and the actual recording). The audio has also been slightly improved.

The debate was about human nature and took place in November 1971 at the Eindhoven University of Technology, in the Nederlands, as part of the “International Philosophers Project” initiated by the Dutch Broadcasting Foundation and arranged by the Dutch philosopher Fons Elders, who was also the moderator.

#Philosophy #Chomsky #Foucault

[tomollie]

I thought Chomsky was gonna start speaking French, also real handsy back then !!

[sambordley]

It's amazing the clarity that both are able to conjure off the cuff. Both seem to be speaking such an exemplarly form of their native language -- for claity sake -- that one can even understand Foucault's French!

[JawharBacha]

I believe it is not actually a ‘VS’, it is a discussion rather than a debate and ‘and’ maybe more suitable

[Cecilia-ct]

Foucault is absolutely right. Medicine is good example. Modern, scientific medicine has totally suppressed all other local traditional medicines and healing techniques like herbalism, shamanism and other practices.

[crescentsi]

Wonderful to hear Foucault speak about a matrix that replaces another matrix and incurs a new conception of truth. In essence, science is part of culture (human enquiry) and it's alterations and new hypotheses and "truths" are a reflection of shifts in cultural ideas at that time. For example, Einstein's theories of relativity were very much in keeping with the experimental ideas that could be seen at that time; Modernism. It is, of course quite easy to conceive such ideas today, when shifts in ideas and everything else are occurring at an accelerated rate.

Foucault's conceptions also circulate around the Romantic notion of the heroic genius. As in the arts, scientists were seen to shine the light of their brilliant creativity to problems that have been unanswerable for aeons. It was an individuals superior intellect and, most importantly creativity (the capacity for new ideas) that really sorted out the brilliant from the intelligent. This kind of animalistic, intuitive, instinctive accident of nature together with the refinement of an absurdly large intellect and a mind that could soak up reams of technical knowledge was seen as an intrinsic key to new ideas in intellectual fields. The notion of the creative as merely a conduit to societal tropes and an environment full of discernible phenomena reduces the abilities and status of the creative. This is in keeping with ideas such as "he death of the author" and other postmodern tropes.

Foucault's ideas are much more established now but back in the '70's they must have seemed very challenging, contentious, radical and absurd.

[TheMihawk]

Merci pour ce que vous faites. Il est important de publier et de partager ce genre de contenu.
Greatings from France

[iwanttocomplain]

What is so magnificent about Science is that is has successfully indoctrinated in the popular psyche that a notion of “more or less profound” and “more or less empirical” is analogous to a truthful or factual notion.

[arniemejia]

Internalism vs. externalism. Both sides have strengths and weaknesses.

[JonSebastianF]

12:36 Today, this point of disagreement would not be considered a case of either-or: Surely, the constraining rules/regularities of creativity are generated _both_ cognitively by “the mind or human nature” _and_ epistemically by “social forms, ..., etc.”. Right?

[divertissementmonas]

I'm reading (very slowly...) Foucault's 'The Archaeology of Knowledge' at the moment. I wanted to hear him talk and that's why I visited your channel today! If Foucault was still living today I do wonder if his thinking would have changed like Chomsky's. His views on popular issues has me asking "What went wrong"...

[zmani]

It's at the very end, around 13:00, where we see in Foucault's response a key difference between the two thinkers

[hilmar]

They both have a point. Foucault is often misrepresented because he is misframed inside Chomsky's structures. But it is important to not pick apart Foucault on Chomsky's ground just to be able to say 'well, obviously this is the worse philosophy'. Foucault has to be understood from the place of the panoptic principle that is proliferating throughout society and that has normifying properties. In a sense Chomsky's framing even embodies this panoptic principle saying 'who are you and how do you fit in our frames?'

[marikleinen]

Hello. Thanks for uploading this video. Sending you my warm greetings from Germany.
~ June 2022. ~

[TaijiquanExplained]

Everyone who end up making something, tangible or not, that stops the flow of human cultural evolution is a creative. Ideas and discoveries flow forward without stop, some individuals are able to see the past, the present and foresee the future in a way that they are able to synthesize an absolute factor. Some people have the cerebral capability to elaborate in a way that past, present and creation(future) always happens in the present. Not a more capable brain just a different operation system. Creative minds often find struggles in following certain imposed rhythm of understanding, not about be fast or slower, it’s just a different way to see the true essence of the present.

[questioneverything]

As a sociologist Foucault knowledge is based on wading his way through structuralism, post structuralism, functional structuralism, conflict theory and symbolic interactionism. These have provided Foucault with a far more sophisticated approach to macro and micro studies of the political, social and economic systems that form the framework of any discussion.

[rudivandereep]

0.00 till ...if that doesn't hit home hard in 2021/22....01:29 hits home hard

[pus]

"... E ciò non significa che alla fine tutto rientrerà nel dominio della scienza [scientismo], al contrario: personalmente credo che molte delle cose che vorremmo capire e forse la maggior parte delle cose che ci piacerebbe capire - come la natura dell'uomo o la natura di una società deente o molte altre cose - potrebbero davvero non rientrare nell'ambito delle possibili scienze umane..." (N. Chomsky, in dialogo con M. Foucault nel 1971 - video su YT)

[claudiamanta]

12:22 Not really. Au contraire. Innovation, yes. Invention which is the genuine process- product of free play, no. Society is afraid of inventions, of genuine creativity, hence the idea that you need a limitative system of rules to be creative. Yeah, change the society for the better, but not too radically, and definitely do not even think about questioning the rules we have set 😄
The only rules worth respecting are the moral ones/ those that are aligned with the moral rules. The rest… everything can and should be challenged, changed or eliminated if they’re not beneficial. Fuck your idiotic and criminal rules 😄

[michaelwright]

I love how chomsky kept flicking his hands so rapidly.

[قتقبتقتقيت]

the creativity of the human kind strated with the language's because when this human strated his activity with the language in history fro exemple when they seeing what is in the environment and drowning what they found in the rocky all the history of human strated with language of course