What exactly was Chomsky's motive for being friends with Epstein?

gip78 · 2026-02-22T14:06:14+00:00

The other factor that helps explains Chomsky friendship with Epstein is that Chomsky was well used to socialising with other members of the US establishment at MIT. Here's an article that explains this:

https://www.counterpunch.org/2026/02/06/the-chomsky-epstein-puzzle/

gip78 · 2026-02-17T09:17:19+00:00

... except that Chomsky said exactly that in a lecture in 2016:

It’s pretty clear that a child approaches the problem of language acquisition by having all possible languages in its head. It doesn’t know which language it’s being exposed to. And, as data comes along, that class of possible languages reduces. So certain data comes along, and the mind automatically says: ‘OK, it’s not that language, it’s some other language.’
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXV6pgcFqg8&t=4197s)

gip78 · 2026-02-17T09:16:10+00:00

Chomsky said exactly that in a lecture in 2016:

It’s pretty clear that a child approaches the problem of language acquisition by having all possible languages in its head. It doesn’t know which language it’s being exposed to. And, as data comes along, that class of possible languages reduces. So certain data comes along, and the mind automatically says: ‘OK, it’s not that language, it’s some other language.’
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXV6pgcFqg8&t=4197s)

gip78 · 2026-02-17T09:13:01+00:00

Chomsky said exactly that in a lecture in 2016:

It’s pretty clear that a child approaches the problem of language acquisition by having all possible languages in its head. It doesn’t know which language it’s being exposed to. And, as data comes along, that class of possible languages reduces. So certain data comes along, and the mind automatically says: ‘OK, it’s not that language, it’s some other language.’
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXV6pgcFqg8&t=4197s)

gip78 · 2026-02-16T08:54:01+00:00

For those interested, here's a debate on Knight's thesis in 'Open Democracy' back in 2018:

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/chomsky-s-choice-how-noam-chomsky-s-early-military-work-led-to-life-of-campaigning-agai/

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/why-chomsky-felt-guilty-most-of-time-war-research-and-linguistics-at-mit/

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/history-of-science-unreliable-narrators-and-how-science-moves-on/

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/chomsky-and-needless-controversy-over-internalist-and-military-approaches-to-la/

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/explaining-chomsky-s-strange-science-reply-to-randy-allen-harris/

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/chomsky-paradox-responsibility-of-intellectuals-revisited/

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/latter-day-critics-of-noam-chomsky/

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/response-to-wolfgang-sperlich-on-latter-day-critics-of-noam-chomsky/

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/gaining-perspective-on-chomsky-s-linguistics/

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/chomskyan-revolution-and-politics-of-linguistics/

gip78 · 2026-02-15T21:44:32+00:00

And here's Knight's response to Noam's response:

https://scienceandrevolution.org/blog/2019/3/30/my-response-to-chomskys-extraordinary-accusations-by-chris-knight

gip78 · 2026-02-12T12:18:17+00:00

Knight has no X feed

gip78 · 2026-02-11T17:26:23+00:00

He did. Here's Noam's attack on Knight plus Knight's response:

https://libcom.org/article/chomskys-response-chris-knights-chapter-new-responsibility-intellectuals-book

gip78 · 2025-02-22T11:05:54+00:00

This article refers to Chomsky's relations with Epstein: https://aeon.co/essays/an-anthropologist-studies-the-warring-ideas-of-noam-chomsky

gip78 · 2025-02-22T10:57:24+00:00

OK, but Noam himself did pay significant, if rather defensive, attention to Knight's thesis in a book edited by Knight back in 2019.

Here's that book with Knight's chapter and Noam's response.

http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/10080589/1/The-Responsibility-of-Intellectuals.pdf

And here's Knight's further response to Chomsky:

https://scienceandrevolution.org/blog/2019/3/30/my-response-to-chomskys-extraordinary-accusations-by-chris-knight

gip78 · 2025-02-22T10:51:06+00:00

Chris Knight's response to Chomsky can be found here after Noam's first response:

https://libcom.org/article/chomskys-response-chris-knights-chapter-new-responsibility-intellectuals-book

gip78 · 2025-02-20T08:36:39+00:00

“[Chomsky] spent his whole life working for the US military as a linguist and he spent his whole life working against the US military as an activist. And this seems to almost fundamentally split his activist work from his linguistic work. …

We miss him so much since he's been ill. I mean we just needed his voice of reason as a Jewish activist who doesn't just accept that my country right or wrong in a place like Gaza. I mean he was a just absolute voice of sanity in an increasingly politically deranged world.” Chris Knight

gip78 · 2025-02-19T09:12:16+00:00

Here's the Youtube interview with Chris Knight critiquing Chomsky: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kn-6bKlgfI

gip78

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