Abstract
The concept of human nature is central to Chomsky’s work in philosophy, linguistics, and politics. In this chapter I will set out the significance of Chomsky’s views on human nature, nuanced and qualified as they are, for the social sciences. The recognition of the significance of his ideas has grown over recent years with the rise of evolutionary psychology (EP) and sociobiology (SB), both of which posit very strong accounts of the evolutionary and genetic basis for human nature and universal human behaviour (Caplan, 1978; Dennan and Falger, 1990; Maxwell, 1991; Pinker, 1994; 2002; Rose and Rose, 2000; Thornhill and Palmer, 2000; Buss, 2011). What I will show is that, by contrast, Chomsky’s innatist ideas, derived from his scientific work in linguistics, are quite different from those generally expressed in EP and SB, however sympathetic he may be to them in principle.
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Wilkin, P. (2015). Human Nature and Universal Moral Grammar. In: Edgley, A. (eds) Noam Chomsky. Critical Explorations in Contemporary Political Thought. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-32021-6_4
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