Noam Chomsky & Michel Foucault

Too often, I think, we forget that the theorists and critics that we read are real people in actuality (then again, we can talk about what it means to be "real", etc etc. I digress). One of my favorite bits of theoretical debate is what is known as the Chomsky-Foucault debate, where on Dutch television, Noam Chomsky and Michel Foucault debated on what is human nature. As far as I understand it, this debate is well-known among scholars of Foucault and Chomsky, but I've never heard it mentioned in class (this one or my undergrad theory course).

This is only a brief excerpt of the full debate and perhaps the only widely available video of the debate.





One thing I find fascinating about this debate is that in the transcript, is that Foucault prefaces his entire argument and statements with "If you don't mind I will answer in French, because my English is so poor that I would be ashamed of answering in English." So his entire dialogue is in French while Chomsky replies in English. Yet, despite this difficulty in language, the two theorists seem to come to a mutual understanding somehow of what they are discussing.

The discourse that follows from this debate is well documented in The New Press' edition of "The Chomsky-Foucault Debate," as Chomsky and Foucault both wrote articles detailing the points on which they disagreed. Their discourse really continued past the televised debate and didn't end until Foucault's death.

I just wished to share this with the rest of my fellow theory classmates, in case you didn't know about it already. It's one of my favorite bits of theoretical discourse.

Happy Thanksgiving!