Debate
Chomsky and Foucault on Human Nature
1971 · Is there a human nature on which a concept of justice can be grounded – or are human nature and justice themselves notions formed within a particular society and its relations of power?
In autumn 1971 the Dutch philosopher Fons Elders brought the linguist Noam Chomsky and Michel Foucault together at the Technische Hogeschool Eindhoven for a debate in his International Philosophers Project, broadcast by Dutch television in November. Chomsky spoke English, Foucault French; the text was published in 1974 and again in 2006 as The Chomsky–Foucault Debate: On Human Nature, with the political part headed “Human Nature: Justice versus Power”. The two met courteously and found points of contact on language and creativity, but disagreed openly once human nature was linked to justice and political struggle. The exchange is still read and discussed because it sets two forms of social critique side by side: one that measures society against a universal standard, and one that asks how such standards came about.
Positions
Human nature as a standard of justice
Chomsky starts from language: children acquire an intricate grammar from scattered data and then understand sentences they have never heard. He explains this by innate organising principles, a “schematism” he regards as a basic part of human nature. His politics builds on the same picture: human nature includes, he holds, a need for creative work and inquiry, for free creation unhindered by the arbitrary limits that coercive institutions impose. Existing systems of justice, he argued, embody class oppression but also a tentative reaching toward real concepts of justice, grounded in basic human characteristics that he could not yet spell out – so political struggle can appeal to justice, not merely to power.
Human nature and justice as historical notions
Foucault doubted that “human nature” is a scientific concept: in the history of knowledge it seemed to him “mainly to have played the role of an epistemological indicator”. He saw “the real political task in a society such as ours” in criticising institutions that appear neutral, such as universities, medicine and psychiatry, so that the political violence exercised through them is unmasked. Describing his own stance as somewhat Nietzschean, he treated justice as an idea that different types of societies had devised and put to use, either as a tool of a particular political and economic power or as a weapon against it. Such notions, he concluded, were formed within our civilisation and cannot simply justify a struggle meant to overturn its foundations.
Held by
- Michel Foucault1926–1984
Read more
- The Chomsky–Foucault Debate: On Human Nature (The New Press, 2006)
- Human Nature: Justice versus Power – transcript of the 1971 debate (chomsky.info)
- Chomsky & Foucault debate still inspires 50 years after the fact (Cursor, Eindhoven University of Technology, 2022)
- Michel Foucault (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
As of 10/2026. Summaries for orientation – the sources give the full arguments. · How Agora is made