I think Feynman illustrates the failure of the Mechanical Philosophy very well, but that is not incompatible with what Chomsky is saying here. In physics, you c

I think Feynman illustrates the failure of the Mechanical Philosophy very well, but that is not incompatible with what Chomsky is saying here. In physics, you can model action at a distance with waves, fields and so on, which are part of a model. An intelligible theory means a genuine explanation, of the kind that Feynman refers to, which he admits is a difficult or impossible problem. We have abandoned a genuine explanation of nature that is intuitive to us (i.e. a mechanical view of the world), and now use models to explain the natural world. Models of physics for example include concepts like waves and forces, which we don't observe directly, but build into the model because they make concepts like gravitation intelligible to us. If gravitation did not involve action at a distance (e.g. a universe with aether), physicists probably wouldn't even study it (the most interesting things to study are usually things that only occur in controlled conditions, that do not conform to our [mechanical] intuitions). That we can't form intelligible theories of concepts like gravitation without these models, is not really surprising, since we did not evolve to study quantum physics or organic chemistry (could not possibly be selected for by evolution). Instead our science-forming cognitive capacities, which determine what counts as a genuine explanation to us, are shaped/limited by our evolutionary heritage, which is trained on the kinds of phenomena that animals like us normally encounter. [edited]