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As a connoisseur of the Chomsky-Foucault debate summarized as one intellectual giant completely missing the other's point, it's quite funny to see Chomsky in th
by morelisp 4y ago
As a connoisseur of the Chomsky-Foucault debate summarized as one intellectual giant completely missing the other's point, it's quite funny to see Chomsky in the opposite role here. The more operationalist you are, the more depressingly wrong you get - but also it seems the more likely you are to win debate club antics.
- voidhorse 4y agoUnfortunately I think the person who presents the simpler theory, even if it's less correct or less powerful, typically wins debates on theory. In some sense, theorists are working at different levels of abstraction across temporal dimensions. Foucault was concerned about deeper structures and a longer time horizon than Chomsky was at the time they debated, Chomsky is concerned about deeper issues and a longer time horizon than Norvig. This is why they wind up talking past each other.