Noam Chomsky's Philosophy

Noam Chomsky's intellectual approach (and what it lacks)

After watching the latest video from Noam Chomsky on YouTube - another wide-ranging philosophical contribution upon Human Thinking and Understanding, with its relation to our changing Conceptions of Reality - it became increasingly clear that, to him, this was NOT the development of various different attempts to both formulate accurate accounts describing that Reality, only in the common form of an increasingly competent, developed Language, but also never, as a revealing critique of its current contexts of different Social Organisations, involving ideas for its necessary improvement.

In his dealing with the relations between that Thinking, and the Reality it was attempting to describe, he only considers the internal relations and inadequacies of such Thinking, as the only possible-and-effective means of in any way addressing our world.

It was a wholly intellectual approach!

However, in spite of great historical breadth and an increasing intellectual depth, he also insisted upon what he saw as its intrinsic and sometimes unavoidable failures, as well as its seemingly built-in limitations.

But, Chomsky is neither a Scientist nor an Artisan of any kind: he only contributed conceptions concerned solely with Thinking-as-such, without involving any concrete means of, not only testing his ideas in Reality, but also, as Mankind had always done, not finding solutions in any consequent, concrete interactions within that Reality-as-is!

And, towards his conclusion, it also became clear that he was exclusively describing the imposed, if diverse, stances of various sections of the Ruling Class, as the only possible, as well as unavoidable-and-natural consequences of the processes involved, in only that developing system, over time.

He considered it as the sole engine of all development. He is clearly an Idealist!

So, in spite of his apparently "leftist" reputation, he had literally nothing-to-say about what had occurred in Socialist Thinking, throughout his extensive and detailed contribution. It, overall, reflected the dominant Liberal/Left Stance, most clearly exemplified in US politics, and, consequently-and-crucially also had absolutely nothing to say about real Social Alternatives, or amazingly, even intellectually about the major Pluralist/Holist diversions in Human Thinking within the last 2,500 years!

He was, therefore, wholly preoccupied with only what he saw to be both the only real means of progress, as well as the Natural and unavoidable limitations of that same Human Thinking: and consequently-but-inadvertantly, went on to demonstrate that very same limitation, even in his own analysis, dictated by his chosen-and-privileged ideas of intellectuals ONLY!

Noam Chomsky on Natural Law

At no point, did he ever address the Idealism and Materialism aspects of Philosophy, and, in particular, had zero to say upon the Dialectical Materialism of Karl Marx, and its role in the Major Social Revolutions of the 20th century. Nor, of course, did he trace the declines, both in historical gains, and within its own self-defeating short-comings, in the hands of its Theoretical developments and Political Organisational Forms.

Frankly, by his contribution in this event, you would think that he had given an extremely comprehensive account, but that was very far from the Truth. Indeed, the actual significant interactions of openly Marxist Parties in the active motivation of the Masses, into effective political action, including their damaged successes in the largely still-feudal countries, such as Russia and China, and their universal failures in the advanced Capitalist Countries of the West.

And, of course, absolutely NO acknowledgement of the fact that Dialectical Materialism was never ever comprehensively extended beyond the area of Capitalist Economics - including absolutely no such attempt to develop that key methodology across the whole range of Sciences, or absolutely crucially into either Philosophy or Language - so that consequently, it had nothing to say upon the reactionary developments in Sub Atomic Physics, and no absolutely essential and transforming contributions in Biology - particularly concerning the study of Evolution.

It was clear that throughout this presentation, Chomsky was NOT explaining his position to ordinary working people - for his whole approach was aimed at privileged middle class intellectuals, like himself, as the language he used totally betrayed his target audience, very clearly indeed!

And, I have myself suffered from exactly that type of deliberate exclusion - for though I have worked as a professional educator all my adult life, my paternal Grandmother could neither read nor write, and my Father (her son) was always an unskilled labourer. Throughout my successful career, I always refused to ape "my betters", and kept my Northern Working Class accent! So, I was usually treated as someone, who wouldn't understand the intricacies of Real Intellectual Argument, until I deigned to join in and prove the theses of "my self-assumed betters" wrong!

The method always employed in such Public Lectures (and Discussions) always uses the Names or Titles of Arguments, rather than explaining their actual contents, so that, unless you are constantly involved in such ideas with all of your time, you would not know what they meant, and your consequent "lack of understanding" would invariably be put down to your stupidity. And so, to terminate any possible explanations from me, the deliverer would show great surprise at one's ignorance of such essential Titles!

My own education, concentrating primarily upon Theoretical Physics and Mathematics, of course suffered from the same "Intellectualism", as I am here describing with Chomsky. But my Working Class background indelibly imprinted by my upbringing and status, always impelled me to attempt to transcend its clear limitations. Initially this broadened my interests to include, first Painting, and then Sculpture, and finally Computing - and slowly, in particular, due to the way I was treated in my chosen career. I was first a schoolteacher among my own Social Class, and then later in a Grammar School (educating the children of the Middle Class), after which I spent 10 years in a Further Education College teaching mature Working Class students how to program computers, along with the very best skill training Engineers for Local Industries.

I finally, after many rejections, I got a post in Higher Education, but it was only possible by attempting to get such a post abroad. I got a job in a Polytechnic in Hong Kong, where I was soon promoted to Senior Lecturer. And returning home to the UK on completion of my contract, I got a similar post in Glasgow in Scotland, where within 2 years, I was promoted to Principle Lecturer.

I decided to terminate my teaching, and concentrated instead solely upon devising and producing tailor-made Computer Software aids for researchers across the whole range of disciplines, which significantly adjusted my conceptions of Theory: as I had to help deliver exactly what my Discipline Expert Required!

And during the 1980s, many important Programmes and published research Papers were produced.

Finally, in a Director of Computing role, first in Bedford and finally in London University, I worked with an exceptional teacher of Dance Performance and Choreography, to deliver the Control and Flexibility she required, in using recorded footage of exemplar performances, that was subsequently used all over the world.

This career was sadly terminated early due to ill health, but working entirely from home I continued producing original research and software tools, and when this became impossible due to my failing eyesight, I worked with my son, Michael, who by then was a PhD, and a lecturer in Leeds University, to attempt to tackle the inadequacies of Intellectualism in Philosophy!

SHAPE Journal was my attempt to tackle Philosophy differently... 

This undertaking has taken me 14 years, 12 of these publishing over 150 issues of SHAPE Journal and this blog, involving over 1,000 separate papers. The initial project was to tackle the mess descended into within Modern Sub Atomic Physics, particularly addressing the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Theory, and the Modern Version of Cosmology, arising from the Copenhagen Stance. And latterly an extension of Dialectical Materialism in dealing with Modern Science...

Now, I will not even try, at this stage, to "correct" Chomsky's claims on the impossibility of explaining Effective Causal Explanations, which is the universal cornerstone of all his diverse arguments about the Impossibility of Real Understanding - because, in his particular restricted presentation of that problem, he was correct! 

But, in spite of his seemingly comprehensive arguments, he omitted (or more likely was totally unaware of) the effect of the alternative to his universally Pluralistic intellectual stance, in all the means that he referred to in his otherwise comprehensive treatment. And that was because, ever since the Greek Intellectual Revolution, almost 2,500 years ago, the only way literally ANY consistent and effective Rationality was considered possible, was by limiting the experiences involved to solely pluralist situations - which did NOT allow any real Qualitative changes, and, hence, would, if rigorously implemented, profoundly limit all relations to fixed exclusively quantitative Laws, so the Rationality involved could never ever explain the real Essence of an Evolving Reality, which is therefore definitely limited to both Constant Laws, and only episodic, and always inexplicable Qualitative Changes - NEVER involving significantly any reasons for those changes.

And, to ever address explicitly such changes, situations would have to be Holistic - as was defined at the same time as the Greek Intellectual Revolution, but wholly separately, by The Buddha, many thousands of miles away in India!

Now, neither subsequent Western Plurality nor Eastern Holism, ever dealt comprehensively-and-explicably with a qualitatively developing World, and Mankind's uses of their consequent ideas to understand Actual Development does not yet exist!

For, Reality does not conform completely, with either of these simplifications of it, mainly because, in both cases, the occurrence of the many, clearly obvious Stabilities, were never understood correctly!

Plurality, in fact, made Stability the basis of Everything! Whereas Holism failed to understand their persisting occurrences, completely, making Constant Change its credo! And Mankind, for a very long period indeed, could countenance no other method, when relying exclusively upon a Single Conformity occurring straight-through all possibilities.

The idea of an actually-existing Hierarchy of different Rationalities, at different Levels, as well as the actual causal connections occurring between those apparently independent Levels, were for a long period, totally outside of any such considered possibilities - until thinkers like Karl Marx and Charles Darwin began to reveal irrefutable evidence of such important natural transitions, simultaneously with innumerable contradictory components, strongly keeping situations as they were over long periods of time!

How can you even approach these questions without reference to Marx and Darwin?

Indeed, Contradiction was considered an absolute anathema!

And until Contradiction was properly understood (outside of the formalisms of Logic), such changes would certainly remain wholly inexplicable - and so they are inexplicable to Chomsky! In the universally-applied Mathematical Rationality, all Contradiction was dismissed as impossible, and therefore revealing an error of Logic! And, it wasn't until Mankind's breadth of Study was extended well beyond the Strictly Local, in both Time and Space, that such things could no longer be avoided.

Nevertheless, most "theorists" had developed their theories separated from the Real World, and instead as a wholly cerebral exercise, and so could never personally implement any of their then necessary experiments, so to even carry them out they had to employ skilled artisans and engineers, to achieve behaving systems for them.Yet, their both avid and universal subscription to the Principle of Plurality, could not be lightly dumped, as it did successfully "legitimise" the reliable Production of manufactured goods, both solved-and-delivered by those artisans and workers, and especially for the leisured intellectuals, who were never involved successfully in such activities anyway, and so didn't consider whether they were legitimate or not - but only that they delivered the objects and services that they required.

Yet, an ever-growing army of artisans and engineers, whose credo pragmatic credo was "If it works, it is right!", were increasingly rejecting the intellectual, theoretical stances of the scientists, and, in particular, the incredible-but-necessary theoretical assumptions of Modern Sub Atomic Theory, and always instead trusted their own Pragmatic arrangements and understandings, at which they were the consummate masters, and were always relied upon by those theorists, to make their experiments fit their way-out theories!

You may well wonder how this arrangement ever worked out, until, that is, you see the kind of Mathematics that the theorists always resorted to, to make it fit. For that Discipline, being wholly Pluralistic, naturally extended well beyond Reality-as-is, and well-into Ideality, so when the technicians were setting up the required experiment, they too could do the Maths, so they would physically organise the experiment to artificially deliver exactly what the Pluralist Theory predicted!

It was an unhappy coalition, as far as the pragmatists were concerned, and they increasingly began to look elsewhere for Real Theory. This situation has led, in Physics, to what is termed The Electric Universe alternative! And while this alternative was compromised by its Pragmatism, it has certainly challenged the conformist position in both Sub Atomic Physics and Cosmology, with valuable and demanding alternatives!

You can read more about the pros and cons of this in the latest issue of SHAPE journal:

Intellectualism and Power

The supposed alternatives in tackling the Ruling Class in a Class Society

The problem, as it is seen by the participants from both sides of the Class Division in Society, arises primarily from the seeming impossibility of ever replacing the currently highly complex and increasingly global System of Capital. For, on one side it appears that way, for the dramatic losses that would be unavoidably suffered by those, who currently significantly benefit from their privileges under that System.  And also, on the other side, by the great majority, who see any significant wholesale transformation, first, as being totally impossible to even conceive of, and, thereafter, to implement. For, even the best of them have the worrying examples of Two World Wars (just concerned with which kind of Capitalists get to Rule), and then by the Long Cold War and innumerable Hot Wars aimed at either reversing the already revolutionary transformed states, or preventing actual social revolutions, in a whole series of different countries in crisis throughout the 20th century.

Both of these responses arise understandably from the immensity of such tasks! For they see Revolutions as Planned Operations, which really are always impossible, though planned Coups d'état by already powerful minorities are always possible.

For, NO Revolution is ever really planned!

The Revolutions that naturally occur always arise out of increasingly ever bigger Crises, wherein the unavoidable contradictions within any System, at some point, became both insurmountable, and naturally head for the Total Dissolution of the System.

Now, normally, the necessary transformations that make these systemic dissolutions unavoidable, also frequently result in consequent Dark Ages, which can last for long periods of time, but nevertheless, always ultimately generate the necessary solutions, for a recovery upon a wholly New Basis.

In the 19th century this historical Dynamic was uncovered by Karl Marx, who using the Dialectics of the Idealist philosopher Hegel, while studying significant and well-recorded Social Revolutions of the past, in great detail, and managed to see the Changing Dynamics involved, which prior Pluralist (Fixed-Law) Reasoning, had, in the past, made understanding such Qualitative Changes totally inconceivable!

Thereafter, such Marxists - as Marx's followers were termed - though they couldn't ever arrange for such a Revolution to happen themselves, could indeed monitor the naturally occurring inevitable series of Crises, and knew exactly when to intervene, to affect their possible individual outcomes with certain contained Phases.

But in a System like Global Capitalism, Major Crises occur, on average, every 4 to 7 years, and have, in fact done so throughout its 300 year History, but only very occasionally do they dissociate into a full-blown Social Revolutionary situation, when the whole System begins to Collapse!

Now, in many of these Crises, when the organisations of the Under Class forced compromise situations onto the Employing Class, political gains could be achieved by the Under Class, but they invariably merely prevented the situation deteriorating, for the Employers, into something much worse for them. And, over certain periods, such reforms could be established, but never forever. For, at the next Crisis the Employers would always attempt to remove such gains.

The Key confusion within the Working Class, was caused by the False Promise of such reforms ultimately achieving Justice, permanently, for the Working Class, so that the "Horror" of Social Revolution would NEVER be necessary.

But, that both deliberately ignores the real Dynamics of Social Change, and, at the same time, consciously by that always comparatively privileged layer, in the Middle Classes, opposing Revolution with absolutely everything that they do and say, and actually collect as many counter-arguments as possible - some of which appear very intellectual and "superior" to the reactions of "uneducated Workers"!

The commonest ploy of this group, is always to claim that they are "of the Left", and "prove it" by joining every kind of protest organisation, giving them a necessary Left Cover, while they seek their Ideal (Non Revolutionary) Formulations.

...

And a vital component, indeed The Touchstone, in the Theory of an aspiring Marxist Revolutionary has to be in the constant on-going analysis of Crises occurring worldwide: it is how the Penetrating Understanding that will be essentially required in the midst of a Revolution, can be honed to the state when-and-where it could be effectively used.

In the period, at the begining of the 20th century, after the failed 1905 Revolution in Russia, Lenin, a leader of the Bolshevik Party, had to leave Russia, and live full-time in Switzerland, in order to escape the attensions of the Czarist Police. Yet, by the beginning months of 1917, the Czar had been deposed - but his war with Germany continued -- though by April, Lenin knew he had to be back in Russia, as his own Party was supporting the War. He negotiated with the Germans to allow him to return to Russia, where he would pull Russia out of the War. Finally, they agreed, but only if it was via a sealed train through Germany. But, as soon as he arrived at the Finland Station in Petrograd, he immediately gave a speech condemning the War, and subsequently wrote his April Theses, arguing for a change in policy by the Bolsheviks. By July armed soldiers from Kronstadt arrived at Bolshevik Party Headquarters demanding that the Bolsheviks lead them to the Winter Palace to arrest the Provisional Government. Most of Lenin's colleages, knowing it was much too soon, were for sending the troops back to Kronstadt, but Lenin alone demurred! It was, indeed, too soon, he adnmitted, but when the right time came, THESE were the forces to arrest the Government, and Lenin convinced the Party to support them, with Trotsky to lead them. They marched to The Winter Palace, but were vastly outnumbered, and Trotsky was jailed, and immediately Lenin had to escape to Finland in disguise! But by October, with the right wing General Kornilov advancing upon Petrograd with a large force, the time had finally come. The Kronstadters were immediately sent to arrest the Provisional Government, which they did, and Lenin strode to the rostrum in the All Russian Congress of Soviets and declared -

"We shall now construct the Socialist Order!"

Lenin did not plan the Revolution: he knew he couldn't do that!

But, when it naturally occurred as the system collapsed, he was constantly identifying and interpreting the Phases of Development, and their current potentialities! Until Lenin and his Bolsheviks could intervene, WITH the support of the Workers and Peasants in arms, with the slogan "Bread, Peace and Land"

Now, Marx, in spite of his magnificent contributions to Dialectical Materialism, did not, in his lifetime, comprehensively extend it beyond a basically "Macro Approach" to History, and a similar, if more detailed and analytic approach to Capitalist Economics.

Indeed without its essential comprehensive application to the Primary repository of Knowlege and Understanding, as had been built up, in the Sciences and other Intellectual Disciplines, is Real Understanding would never be sufficient to become the default Approach to Understanding ALL of Reality-as-is.

Subsequently, the door to Idealist Alternatives would always not only be wide open, but also occasionally offer moments of Truth, that without the underlying Basis supplied by Materialism, would and indeed have, delivered a veritable avalanche of misleading alternatives, which have NO SUCH restriction upon Causality!

Whether it be via Writers, Commentators, Academics or Political Organisations, without a Comprehensive Dialectical Materialist Basis, their extractsed stance could only be some collection of Idealist Intellectual conceptions, and, consequently, would NEVER equip those involved to direct their subsequent effective interventions.

So, when the key times come, and desperately require appropriate informing intervention, what they extract-and-implement will never be effective, either in its built-in understanding, in its conceptions of what determines change within a Developing situation, like a Revolution!

Indeed, no matter how elevated, and imbued with Justice a political stance and programme is, it can never be based upon the ability to accurately predict the detailed future, but it simply MUST be capable of "interpreting Real Change" on the fly, and, changing emphasis as appropriate, in all the nuances of such Changes, in the remarkable Event that is a Social Revolution! Those organisations who participate in such an Event, with a "Now-and-Forever Programme", are bound to fail - for the Enemy Class will change its positions constantly - seeking to protect their weath and privilege, they will, as they always have done, con and mislead the People...

Dialectical Materialism as a Revolutionary political weapon is NOT a fixed and correct Stance, BUT, on the contrary, a constant means of addressing every problem as it arises dynamically, with a resounding Truth faster than the Enemy's Lies!

For apart from responding to their changes of direction, we must also be wrong-footing them with our own judgement of changes in the mood and temoer of our own Working Class : and ours will be principled, while their's will not!

What is Intelligence?

In the article Claws for Thought in New Scientist (2819), Emma Young ranges about various studies in the animal world to find evidence that convinces her that “animals lie on a kind of spectrum, from a primitive kind of awareness, to the rich and complex stream of thoughts in the human mind”. And in doing this reveals that she (and those she refers to in her piece) have a pluralist approach to such questions.

By this I mean that every animal is measured against Intelligence (–the human kind) to see if they have it, or part of it, and this seems to reveal a continuous range with Human Intelligence at the top, and lower animals with this same commodity, having ascended, step by step, some way at least towards this ultimately possible state. You might ask why such is deemed to be pluralist (in the philosophical sense and not either the religious or political senses). Well, Plurality sees everything in terms of Wholes and their constituent Parts, and hence any investigative process attempting to reveal the nature of things is basically analytic, applied first to an observable Whole, and subsequently to each of its Parts, to thereafter make possible an explanation of the original Whole.

From the outset, perhaps centuries ago, the property of intelligence was allocated only to Human Beings, and other “mechanisms”, such as hard-wired instincts were awarded to all those below the qualifying limit.

But, such a standpoint has long been severely undermined, but the alternative of a spectrum cannot be any better, for it implies quantity rather than quality – amount rather than wholly new processes, and even, perhaps, that it is sufficient quantity of what is involved that can jack things up to each and every Level in this range of the given facility.

Yet, the study of Development in general shows that such is never the case. Significant Qualitative Change only happens in short-period interludes termed Emergences, which are NOT mere stages in a particular quantitative spectrum of changes, but actually totally transforming revolutions. And these transformations are never incremental. Indeed, they involve seemingly terminal crises initiated by wholesale avalanches of dissolution, which only when that process has dismantled the situation almost to the state of complete chaos, does it turn round and then create the wholly New.

And when this is used as a template for development, and hence in Evolution too, the work must be to first identify these crises, and explain why they occurred, as well as the following creative phase which brings in wholly new qualities and establishes a New Level of Reality. With such a development scenario the changes are neither gradual or incremental, but revolutionary, and each major advance involves a significant step-change in possibilities, so ideally each of these new Levels should have its own unique name: they are not all the same but differing in quantity: no spectrum of these Levels can be constructed.

Therefore, Intelligence in Humanity is not a general quality with different amounts at each Level of development.

To assume the latter merely becomes the apportioning of amount to each phase without any investigation of how the Event of Transformation occurred. Instead, it is assumed to have merely increased by some pedestrian process which when passing an important threshold (merely of quantity) enabled the “new facilities”.

No! I’m afraid this is not how these things occur!

And to do as the researchers into the Origin of Life on Earth do, and merely study the prior conditions for the actual causes of the development will (as it continues to do in that important area) always and inevitably fail. Even the searching for the causes of a Revolution in prior circumstances will also be inadequate.

What has to be addressed is the relationships between Stability and Emergence, - so that the studying of prior circumstances can only deliver reasons for the initial crisis and cataclysm, and not for its resolution within the creative Phase of the Emergence.

For such a study must expose the real dynamic or trajectory of changes within an Emergence, and also deliver why the New is ever possible. My point is that the kind of research related in this article, with its implied current methodology is doomed to never reveal what is actually happening, and why, but indeed it is merely logging what appears and when.