published by roarmag.org
FULL TRANSCRIPT OF THE DEBATE:
HOST:
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 whole 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 have 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 argues 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 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 (NL): 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.