Noam Chomsky
Chomsky says, ‘Mechanical Philosophy’ underlies the physical sciences. Scientific revolutionaries [SR] (Galilero, Bacon, Descartes, Newton), wanted to overcome the reasoning used by the Neo-Scholastic [NS] (aristotelian origins) that resorted to metaphysics (mysticism). The science of the NS tended to use metaphysical (mystic) explanations that were given in terms of what were called “Occult Forces” (sympathies and antipathies), (e.g. things fall to their place because that’s their natural place). The SR wanted to give ‘real’ explanations with a concept of Intelligibility (explanation), namely had to be a ‘Mechanical’ explanation. The world had to be accounted for as a ‘Machine’ (something very concrete, something a Great artisan could build, some great system of gears and levers). An Intelligible account, by Galileo, had to be an account in terms of ‘mechanical’ principles, a Mechanical Philosophy, which just meant Science to the SR, a mechanical science where the world is a machine. At the end of Galileo’s life has was lamenting at the fact that he had been incapable of accounting for the motions of the planets, of the tides and so on, in mechanical terms [Marcuse, Imminent Critique]. Galileo supposed that simply because he himself had failed, didn’t mean the future wouldn’t hold the keys to success - he maintained his support of the concept of Intelligibility.
This concept of Intelligibility maintains its ‘form/structure’ into the next century, through the Great Scientists: Huygens, Descartes, Leibniz, Newton, et al - all believed in the Mechanical Philosophy and the concept of Intelligibility. Newton discovered this was false; he was addressing the mind-body problem (philosophy of Mind) by assuming that the body was explicable in Mechanical terms. Huygens/Descartes recognized that there are ‘things’ that aren’t explicable in Mechanical terms (normal use of language), duality mind-body problem. Then Newton, maintaining the concept of Intelligibility, showed that there is no Mechanical explanation for ‘body’ in the mind-body problem. There are no machines according to Newton, and perhaps nothing can be explained in Mechanical terms. The popular ‘take’ on Newton is that he showed the world could be explained in Mechanical terms, Chomsky inverts this and says the contrary is true - Newton proved (by Karl Popper definition of science, that science means to disprove ‘theories’ or pre-existing philosophical frameworks), that the world can NOT be explained in Mechanical terms. Newton (the absurd-tragic Hermeticist) regarded this as a complete absurdity - he said no person with any scientific intelligence could accept this.
Similarly to Galileo’s dying lamentations, Newton spent the rest of his days trying to undo what he had wrought onto the great stage (Babies are born crying, for they realize they have been born [thrown into existence] a human, the folly-ridden role on this great stage). One of Newton’s biggest problem was accounting for action at a distance, interaction without contact. So how could it be that if i move my hand i move the moon, (see astrology’s effects on human birth, tides being affected by the moon) - the mystical absurd force. Chomsky says Newton was right but the ‘reason’ (object of understanding of Intelligibility) goes beyond the level of human intelligence. How can we deal with a world that’s based on Occult Forces that we cannot comprehend? We have to accept them (Hume accepting his own Black Swan Induction Paradox, it’s not perfect but it’s the best we have (Synthetic apriori?)), the Great Scientific ‘Accepting’ (Emil Cioran, we must doubt the idea of ‘Accepting’ existence, see Emil Cioran critique of Buddhism). The Noble Lie of the Scientific Revolution - the world is a machine that can be understood.
This Great Scientific Noble Lie was well known and understood by Newton’s contemporaries like John Locke, later David Hume. Chomsky claims this has since been forgotten in the mainstream Scientific consensus (Foucault, what in the ‘apparently necessary’ is contingent? Foucault gives us a tool to be critical of claims from the ‘Universal Scientific Truth’ camp (cult of reason), Critique of ‘historical Reason’ exhibits that Scientific Truth says more about a particular epoch’s ethical and political commitments than it does about Universal Human Nature. Foucault demonstrates that in a given epoch we can analyze such Scientific Truths and exhibit that they are the outcome of contingent historical forces (not Occult)). After Newton’s slaying of the paradigm (Kuhn) of Mechanical Philosophy (Mech-God is Dead and Newton has killed him), Science since Newton has limited its goals. Science has not attempted to develop a ‘Intelligible’ account of the universe, they lowered the goals (moved the Philosophical goalpost) to try to develop theories that are intelligible (Instrumental Reason, Marcuse). Chomsky says, “To understand a Theory is one thing, to understand what it is talking about is another”. The Chomsky-claim that science has shifted its goal since Newton.
Isaiah Berlin says in the beginning there was the One (Philosophy), from the One came the Two (i.e. vita contemplativa + vita practica, Nietzschean illusion - e.g. Astrology + Astronomy, Cosmology + Cosmogony). When in its philosophy phase, there is no distinction between theory and application (Rationalism vs Empiricism). In the Comte-ian sense, the discipline matures like a human, and as it does it sheds its ‘philosophical’ (read metaphysical) ways and becomes a Science. Astronomy looks down on Astrology (see Hume’s fork), we can study the universe (Cosmology) and create mathematical intelligibility, but only ‘speculate’ on the origins (see Stephen Hawking, Neil De-Grass Tyson, Lawrence Krauss, the Secular Humanistic Horde, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris (scientific-realist)). Marcuse says our ‘Instrumental Reason’ well defines (Chomsky’s Intelligibility) the boundaries (limit-experience) of Science and Pseudo-Science (the illusory duality that the Nietzschean tragic-absurdist Hermetic sees through). These Instrumental Reason acolytes of the Enlightenment, Marcuse says, went too far with boundary settings for the Instrumental Reason area (territorialize, Science/PseudoScience bounds) and they killed not only God but Science’s ability to even address God (see the unsettling, unsatisfying, unsatiating arguments given by the Secular-Athiest Humanists (Isaac Asimov, Richard Dawkins, et. al). We are barbaric (barbos, greek for those who speak ba-ba (outsiders to the Greek language)) if we attempt to fill the God gap (the vacuum-ous gap left by the death of God by Science) with anything more than that dictated by the high priests of Science.
This new Dogmatic order infiltrates all facets of our Liberalism (see enlightenment) influenced society if one is to turn to Science thought and its applications (institutions) (See Critique of Institutions Foucault). Well the Chomsky-claim illustrates that Newton may be our Perseus, who holds the head of Medusa (Mechanical Universe, John Locke). There become dramatic examples of things (concepts?) developing into more complicated concepts that rise (Rick Roderick, reality is complicated beyond belief) beyond the level of human intelligibility. Examples include: (1) Human choice (even animal choice) Chomsky claims, is completely un-intelligible to us humans in the Immanent Scientific understanding of the concept of Intelligibility. We all know (common sense, gnosis-direct knowledge,aposteriori?) perfectly well that we make choices and we make decisions, but it’s completely beyond the range of existing science - no one has a coherent ‘Scientific’ idea of how you could explain it in intelligible terms. Chomsky claims this is probably due to the fact that its explicable-ness in our Scientific paradigmatic language is non-existent. Our current epoch-ian Scientific language (Kuhn/Foucault) is limited. We need another way (a different system of signs, Lacan/Baudrillard) to be able to explain these ‘things’ intelligibly. Chomsky claims if we think of the ‘things’ we can understand, they pretty much reduce to deterministic explanations or stochastic explanations (random, probabilistic, relativistic?). The concept of ‘random behavior’ was understood in the 17th century, that some things just happened ‘randomly’. Chomsky asks, well what if a concept’s explanation is outside of these two buckets (Berlin) of understanding (put into intelligible terms), Determinism + Stochastic (randomly determined)? Well then we are to conclude that it’s beyond our cognitive capacities.