Not only does Chomsky maintain the category of human nature, he also indexes it to the question of freedom. In this paper, we seek to examine the philosophical and ontological implications of Chomsky’s claim that human nature derives from the innate dimension of the language faculty. But how his notion of human nature derives from this process is complex, as he seems to disregard philosophy’s classic analytic delineation between the descriptive causal realm of human nature and the normative axiological extensions of the same concept.
Language, as Chomsky has continually upheld and sharply refined, is a physical and biological process. Contrary to most traditions prior to his work, language can no longer be restricted to either mind, soul or spirit. Chomsky’s discoveries and models on syntax and language make up one of the frameworks to most critically offset the traditional moral dimension of human nature.
Following Marx, Darwin and last century’s revolutions in the social sciences, human nature has been one of the most contested conceptual holdovers from modern European philosophy. One of the constants in Noam Chomsky’s philosophical, linguistic and ethical positions is the existence of what he calls “human nature”.
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