Introduction: the Politics of Unconscious Knowledge 1. the Term “Deconstruction” Is by Now Well Known. Important Texts That

Notes

Introduction: The Politics of Unconscious Knowledge 1. The term “deconstruction” is by now well known. Important texts that discuss its usage include Heidegger’s original articulation of it as “destruction” [“Destruktion”] (Pathmarks 315), Derrida’s Speech and Phenomena and Other Essays on Husserl’s Theory of Signs (104) and Deconstruction and the Possibility of Justice (15), as well as Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s “Translator’s Preface” to Of Grammatology (24) and The Postcolonial Critic (104). One of the most accessible and helpful articulations of this term may be found in John Caputo’s Deconstruction In a Nutshell (32–44). The most concise definition of deconstruction is “affirmation,” which is one that I find compelling. See Derrida’s Writing and Difference (292). 2. See Peter Collier and David Horowitz’s The Anti Chomsky Reader (2004), which is a hodgepodge of shoddy scholarship and hyperbolic rhetorical claims, purporting “to explore the dark corners” of Chomsky’s mind. Also see Chomsky’s remarks on the highly personal nature of the attacks on him by Dershowitz (Chronicles of Dissent 347–348). 3. This is the term that Chomsky prefers to the more sensible and formerly employed term “rational” linguistics. Chomsky asserts that language is a “biological organ . . . [that is] roughly analogous to the visual system” (The Architecture of Language 1–3). See Chomsky’s Beyond Explanatory Adequacy, where he describes what he calls “biolinguistics” or the “biolinguistic approach” (1). Also, see McGilvray’s discussion of the Chomskyan term “biolinguistics” which has by now displaced the older term “rational” linguistics for obvious rhetorical reasons, not scientific ones (“Introduction” 4). 4. For comparable responses to Chomsky, see William Lycan’s and Jeffery Poland’s interesting essays recently published in Louis M. Anthony and Norbert Hornstein’s Chomsky and His Critics (2003). Lycan rightly states that “we should resist Chomsky’s suggestion that ‘the domain of the “physical” is nothing other than what we come more or less to understand, and hope to assimilate to the core natural sciences in some way,’ for that characterization is entirely epistemic, couched in terms of propositional attitudes and whatever ‘physical’ was supposed to mean 164 / notes

exactly, it has always been an ontological term rather than an epistemic one” (15). Lycan continues, “It is clear that there are metaphysical con- ceptions of mind that, even for Chomksy, are too non- or anti-physical on any permissible reading of ‘physical.’ He holds, after all, that human thought and action are properties of organized matter, which doctrine taken in any sense of ‘matter’ has some substantive metaphysical implications” (16). Lycan further notes the absence of any consideration of questions of temporality in Chomsky (23–24). Jeffrey Poland similarly states, “Chomsky simply closes the door on the idea that philosophy has any special contribution to make to scientific inquiry into nature” (33). An important point that Poland makes is that “the main thrust of [Chomsky’s] argument [is that] physicalist theses lack definite content, have no truth value, and are not empirical hypotheses. What remains are the ‘spirit of physicalism’ (which Chomsky admirably exemplifies), a modest role in inquiry for physicalist principles, and at least the hope of their having human significance (e.g., by contributing to the construc- tion of a system which exhibits physicalist unity” (44). Poland does not articulate the broader implications of what he calls “the spirit of physicalism” that Chomsky exemplifies, although this is obviously a question of some importance. In fact, for Heidegger, the very fate of the West may hinge upon it (Introduction to Metaphysics 83). Chomsky has certainly not proven his case that “physicalist” theses lack content, nor has he closed the door on the idea that philosophy has no special contribution to make to our understanding of human language. Instead he has taken yet another philosophical and/or “physicalist” stance, indeed a highly “spirited” one. Poland goes on to state that, “although there is a call for a system exhibiting physicalist unification, there is no guarantee that such a system will be constructed [Poland’s emphasis]” (45). It is precisely the question of the call that is obliterated in Chomsky’s system. Chomsky responds to Lycan’s and Poland’s respective critiques by reiterating his already well-known hypotheses and asserting that he does not “see the relevance” of their views (“Replies” 259). 5. When pressed to clarify if he believes that he is finally a scientist or a philosopher, Chomsky states that he “take[s] no stand” on the question, which he rejects as “too vague” (Reflections on Language 224). In effect, Chomsky decides not to decide about his status as a philosopher, or he makes an ontological decision to reject the very question, even as he reduces philosophical inquiry to what he calls “the metaphysical thesis [my emphasis]” (Rules and Representations 19). 6. It is always possible for the question to degenerate into the thesis of the question, or a homiletic of the question. Arguably, this is what happens in Derrida’s own essay “Marx & Sons,” published in Michael Sprinker’s Ghostly Demarcations (1999), when he invokes an unpersuasive teacherly rhetoric. See my essays, “Deconstruction and Zionism” and “The Figure of Jerusalem,” in Derrida, Africa, and the Middle East. notes / 165

7. In Introduction to Metaphysics, Heidegger asks, “Why are there beings at all instead of nothing? That is the question. Presumably it is no arbitrary question. ‘Why are there beings at all instead of nothing?’—this is obviously the first of all questions” (1). 8. In his Meditations on First Philosophy, Descartes distinguishes between three types of ideas: “Among my ideas, some appear to me to be innate, some to be adventitious, and others invented to have been invented by me” (26). In the original French text, the term “adventitious” includes the descriptive phrase “foreign to me and coming from the outside” (26). Chomsky’s virtually-innate idea is also “foreign” and “coming from the outside” in two different senses: First, it must be activated upon the occasion of experience, and second, it was originally an ordinary idea in Locke’s sense of the term (i.e., a trace of the real) before it mutated into an autonomous idea that haunts the mind. At least, this is what Chomsky asserts in what he himself describes as an “evolutionary fairy tale” (The Architecture of Language 4). 9. For instance, in a 1998 publication, Chomsky states, “I am assuming here the basic framework of Chomsky (1955–6), though of course there have been radical changes since” (Minimalist Inquiries: The Framework 3). 10. Chomsky acknowledges that what he calls, “the realist position” is taken for granted in his early works (The Logical Structure of Linguistic Theory 37). Hilary Putnam in his “John Locke Lectures, 1976” aptly referred to the Machiavellian dimension of Chomsky’s views as “Chomskian realism,” and this term is later reiterated by Chomsky himself (Rules and Representations 18). Chomsky comments as follows, “Putnam regards explanation as ‘interest-relative’; [for] the best explanation depends on our interests and purposes, and will vary as these do. There is no absolute ‘best explanation.” (Rules and Representations 18). Putnam obviously hits the nail on the head, yet Chomsky blithely dismisses Putnam’s critique on the grounds that Putnam “is offering a substantive metaphysical thesis” or “a strong version of a bifurcation thesis [my emphasis]” (19). Or, later in the same book, Chomsky will state that Putnam takes “illegitimate recourse to a bifurcation thesis” (258). By “bifurcation thesis” Chomsky means that Putnam’s argument is a metaphysical one, whereas his own theory of language is not. 11. Echoing a common Chomskyan theme, Neil Smith writes, “We do not doubt that rats are intellectually incapable of dealing with notions like prime numbers, and we should not doubt that our genetically determined make-up has resulted in an organism which is similarly incapable of understanding some domains” (“Foreword” ix). Chomsky and his follow- ers seem to take an almost infantile delight in comparing human beings to befuddled rats, possibly for the shock value of the comparison. 12. In Being and Time (1927), Heidegger describes “care” as fundamental modality of Dasein [or Being-There]: “since ‘Care’ first shaped this crea- ture [man or the human being], she shall possess it as long as it lives” (242). 166 / notes

Heidegger states that, “the world as world is disclosed first and foremost by anxiety, as a mode of state-of-mind” (232). 13. It is worth comparing Chomsky’s views in this case with Heidegger’s, who in The Principle of Reason (1991), states, “Contemporary humanity con- stantly hears the fundamental principle of reason inasmuch as it becomes increasingly slavish to this principle. But supposing that this slavishness is not the only or the genuine manner of hearing, then we must yet once more ask the question: do we hear the demand [or “call”] of the principle of reason?” (124). Derrida explicates Heidegger’s views on the principle of reason in an essay entitled “The Principle of Reason: The University in the Eyes of Its Pupils,” Eyes of the University, differentiating competence from “rendering reason” in the form of giving an account of reason to the other. Heidegger and Derrida both explore the principle of reason with respect to the question of responsibility and/or responding to the other: “[T]he principle of reason also holds that reason must be rendered,” Derrida states. “But what does ‘render’ mean with respect to reason? Could reason be something that gives rise to exchange, circulation, borrowing, debt, dona- tion, restitution? But in that case, who would be responsible for that debt or duty, and to whom?” (Eyes of the University 136). In contrast, Chomsky is oblivious to this dimension of the principle of reason, as he maintains a merely representational—and therefore irresponsible—concept of ratio- nality. 14. Heidegger discusses the phenomenological concept of the vapor at length in his Introduction to Metaphysics (38, 42, 62–63). His reading is posed in response to Nietzsche’s rejection of the Kantian doctrine of the thing- in-itself as “not in the least worth striving for.” Also, see Heidegger’s Nietzsche, Volume One (69–70). 15. See Nietzsche’s The Genealogy of Morals (157), Heidegger’s Introduction to Metaphysics (128), Derrida’s The Animal That Therefore I Am (70–71), and Caputo’s Deconstruction In a Nutshell 76–77. The best available commentary on Meno is still Jacob Klein’s A Commentary on Plato’s Meno (1965). In this study, Klein illustrates how questions of knowledge are inextricably bound up with matters of temporality. Klein states that, “Plato’s goal is knowledge (episteme). Should this goal be attained that which was formerly opined (doxaston) and merely remembered will stand firmly and stably on its ground: it will be something ‘known’ (episteton). The known by itself will be removed from the vicissitudes of time” (248). Klein further comments, “We shall know the clear truth (to saphes) . . . when, and only when, we shall have attempted to find what excellence all by itself is before searching out the way it might accrue to men. It is doubtful whether Meno under- stands the simplicity and the immensity of the task set before him [my emphasis]” (256). 16. Chomsky often cites Humboldt although he tends to ignore the phenomenological hermeneutic tradition that was inaugurated by Humboldt in notes / 167

Germany, including the contributions of important language philosophers such as Friedrich Schleiermacher, Wilhelm Dilthey, Edmund Husserl, Roman Ingarden, Martin Heidegger, Rudolf Bultmann, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Jurgen Habermas, and Fredric Jameson. It is unlikely that Chomsky’s exclusion of these language theorists is incidental, but due to the obvious challenges that they pose for his own philosophy of language. However, in the case of the phenomenological hermeneutic tradition, Chomsky does not unambiguously label these thinkers as “frauds” and “charlatans” as he does in the case of notable French poststructuralists, although he does assert that the word “hermeneutics” is incomprehensible to him (Understanding Power 230). 17. In Chomsky’s Syntactic Structures, one will find the following acknowl- edgement: “This work was supported in part by the U.S.A. Army (Signal Corps), the Air Force (Office of Scientific Research, Air Research and Development Command), and the Navy (Office of Naval Research); and in part by the National Science Foundation and the Eastman Kodak Corporation” (SS 7). In Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, one similarly finds the acknowledgment that this book was “supported by U.S. Army Signal Corps, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, and the Office of Naval Research” (7). Also, in Studies on Semantics in Generative Grammar, one finds the following acknowledgment: “This work was supported in part by the U.S. Air Force [ESD Contract AF19(628)- 2487] and the National Institutes of Health (Grant MH-12290–01” (11). In Aspects of the Theory of Syntax, one finds the acknowledgment that the research presented “is made possible . . . by the JOINT SERVICES ELECTRONIC PROGRAMS (U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, and U.S. Air Force) under Contract No. DA 36–039-AMC 03200(E); addi- tional support was received from U.S. Air Force (Electronic Systems Division under Contract AF19(628)-2487), the National Science Foundation (Grant GP-2495), the National Institutes of Health (Grant MH-04737–04) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Grant NsG-496)” (iv). 18. For further discussion of this question, see my chapter “Realism Without Realism,” in Derrida, Africa, and the Middle East. Also, see Carl Schmitt’s The Concept of the Political (1976) and Derrida’s The Politics of Friendship (1997). 19. Chomsky’s response to his early critics on this account is revealing. He greets such criticisms with hyperbolic denial, asserting that his critics “fail” to understand him and that their arguments are “without force”, but Chomsky seldom offers any new argument to counter their criticisms. For instance, in his response to Reichling, Chomsky states, “Quite a few commentators have assumed that recent work in generative grammar is somehow an outgrowth of an interest in the use of computers for one purpose or another, or that it has some other engi- neering motivations. . . . [each of which Chomsky leaves unspecified in 168 / notes

the preface to yet another book that is funded by the U.S. military]. This view is incomprehensible to me, and it is, in any event, entirely false [my emphasis]” (Topics in the Theory of Generative Grammar 9). Chomsky seems to assume that if he states vehemently enough that the views of his critics are “entirely false” or “absolutely mistaken” that he need not consider their actual arguments. His response to Reichling is typically hyperbolic in its disavowal of the not unreasonable concerns raised. Chomsky complains of his “complete lack of comprehension of the goals, concerns, and specific content of the work he was discussing [my emphasis]” (9). Chomsky will not address Riechling’s criticisms, for in his view, they “do not merit comment” (9). Chomsky’s criticisms of Riechling are comparable to his more recent statements that he will not bother to offer any criticism of deconstructive views, which also do not merit his time and attention. 20. In fairness to Chomsky, it should be noted that he does sometimes acknowledge that it is not his intent to undermine humanistic para- digms of language and literary study. For instance, Chomsky states, “Some might argue, perhaps along Vicoesque lines, that we can do still better in the ‘human sciences’ by pursuing a different path. I do not mean to disparage such possibilities. It is not unlikely, for example, that literature will forever give far deeper insight into what is sometimes called ‘the full human person’ than any mode of scientific inquiry can hope to do. But I am interested here in a different question” (Rules and Representations 9). Statements like these perpetuate the false notion that Chomsky is not himself writing “literature” or philosophy but quasi- objective scientific analyses of human language. When Chomsky states that it is finally “explanatory power” that matters in any valid theory of language, he is already pursuing a “Vicoesque” path in spite of his desire to foster the illusion that he is performing research that is strictly “scientific.” For instance, in the same book in which Chomsky claims that he is performing hard science, he states, “An inquiry into universal grammar in the sense of the term I am adopting here falls within what [David] Hume called ‘moral philosophy,’ that is ‘the science of human nature,’ which is concerned with ‘the secret springs and principles, by which the human mind is actuated in its operations,’ and most impor- tantly, those ‘parts of [our] knowledge that are derived ‘from the original hand of nature’ (Rules and Representations 30). Even as Chomsky claims that he is performing research in “moral philosophy,” he will state that the properties of human language “are primarily a problem for biology and the brain sciences” (The Minimalist Program 2). For instance, Chomsky will assert that, “psychology is [a] part of human biology” (Reflections on Language 38). 21. These two examples are taken from later works that reiterate the unchanging foundations of Chomsky’s mechanistic paradigm of human language. notes / 169

1 Cerebral Hermeneutics 1. The high esteem with which Chomsky is held sometimes leads his admirers into quandaries, as when James McGilvray states in the space of a couple of pages: “It is hardly surprising that Chomsky has changed his linguistic theories, sometimes in major ways. . . .” (Chomsky 11); and then, only two pages later, McGilvray states, “Unlike one of his heroes, Bertrand Russell, Chomsky has never undertaken a radical change of course in his science, politics, or his philosophical framework [my emphasis]” (13). 2. One noteworthy example of the exaggerated nature of Chomsky’s revolu- tionary claims is as follows: “The study of language, for thousands of years, has assumed that you at least have to make use of sound-meaning relations to discover the properties of a language.” All research assumes that. But this assumption is just what we are now questioning” (The Architecture of Language 20). Chomsky fails to consider that philosophers such as Aristotle have understood the sense of touch to be the master sense, whereas the other four senses have generally been construed as variants upon touching. But, if this is so, how can it be true that “for thousands of years” language philosophers have neglected relations between touch and meaning? To invoke sound-meaning relations in Aristotle is already to invoke touch-meaning relations. 3. See Heidegger’s Introduction to Metaphysics (38) and Nietzsche, Volume One (64–65). 4. According to Chomsky, decisions and/or judgments are made as a result of “multiple modular systems interfacing with one another” (Cartesian Linguistics 43). He attempts to argue on scientific grounds that it will most likely be “forever out of our reach” to know how decisions are made (43–44). What Derrida calls “the ordeal of undecidability” or “Hamlet’s dilemma” is herein transformed into a truism unworthy of further comment. 5. John Searle remarks that Chomsky’s “most sympathetic commentators have been so dazzled by the results in syntax that they have not noted how much of the theory runs counter to quite ordinary, plausible, and common-sense assumptions about human language” (“Chomsky’s Revolution in Linguistics” 19). Searle finds Chomsky’s views of language to be idiosyncratic in the extreme. “Indeed,” Searle states, “Chomsky sometimes writes as if sentences were only incidentally used to talk with” [New York Review of Books, vol. XVIII, no. 12, June 29, 1972: 16–24] (23). 6. It is worth noting, in this connection, the Nietzschean critique of energeia as a material force or power, rather than a merely absent structure con- cealed within the body (Heidegger Nietzsche, Volume One 64). Derrida similarly observes that what he calls spirit is “anything but immaterial” (“Marx & Sons” 267). These respective views of energeia sharply contrast with Chomsky’s transcendentalist views. 170 / notes

7. In his book-length study of Chomsky entitled The State of the Art [The Hague/Paris: Mouton, 1968], Charles F. Hockett makes a similar observation, appreciatively citing Leonard Bloomsfield’s view that, “ ‘The use of numbers is characteristic of speech-activity at its best. Who would want to live in a world of pure mathematics? Mathematics is merely the best that language can do.” (118). 8. See Carl Schmitt’s Concept of the Political (49). Also see George Schwab’s “Enemy or Foe: A Conflict of Modern Politics” (199). 9. McGinn observes, “Either ‘cognize’ means ‘know,’ in which case it is no improvement on the original strong claim; or it does not mean ‘know,’ in which case it cannot be glossed over as ‘tacit knowledge’ (unless ‘tacit’ is intended as a private adjective!)” (“Book Review: Rules and Representations” [Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 77, No. 5, May 1981: 288–298]: 290). Stephen P. Stich similarly asks, “having agreed that a linguistic theory is a theory about certain predispositions of the child, what does it add to say the child knows the theory? As far as I can see, the answer is: nothing. The added assumption of implicit knowledge explains nothing left unexplained by the theory sans assumption” (“What Every Speaker Knows” [Philosophical Review, vol. 80, no. 4, Whole Number 436, October 1971: 476–496]: 486). 10. Searle argues that Descartes himself never suggested that there was any such thing as an “unconscious knowledge.” Searle makes the following observation: “Descartes did indeed claim that we have innate ideas, such as the idea of a triangle or the idea of perfection or the idea of God. But I know of no passage in Descartes to suggest that he thought the syntax of natural languages was innate. Quite the contrary, Descartes appears to have thought that language was arbitrary; he thought that we arbitrarily attach words to our ideas. Concepts for Descartes are innate, whereas language is arbitrary and acquired. Furthermore, Descartes does not allow for the possibility of an unconscious knowledge, a notion that is crucial to Chomsky’s system [Searle’s emphasis]” (20). Chomsky does not engage Searle’s criticisms but simply states that his views are false (Rules and Representations 266).

2 The Ungiven-Given 1. The article in question was so obviously offensive and unfair that I won- dered if it was really written by Chomsky. Also, as it had circulated on the Internet, it seemed possible to me that it might have been a hoax. Hence, I wrote an e-mail to Chomsky asking him to verify that he was indeed the author of this text. He confirmed that it was in an e-mail to me dated February 25, 2009. 2. McGilvray actually uses the initials “RR” in reference to what he calls a “Rational Romantic” approach to linguistics. I am modifying his terminology to “RI” (or “Rational Internalist”); however, it goes without saying notes / 171

that a “Rational Internalist” is also a “Rational Romantic,” or a language theorist who dwells in “the land of romance,” as Derrida puts it in his essay on Cartesian pedagogy, entitled “If There Is Cause to Translate II.” Although Derrida comments in this essay upon the writings of Descartes, his observations are certainly applicable to the Chomskyan notion of a “conscious knowledge” of language. Derrida states, “Descartes finishes by proposing what I will call a possible impossible language, the possibility of an impossible language: ‘I [Descartes] maintain that this language is possible. . . . But I do not ever hope to see it in use. That would require great changes in the order of things—the whole world would need to become nothing but an earthly paradise, which is worth proposing only in the land of romance [Derrida’s emphasis].” (Eyes of the University 32). Like Descartes’ “possible impossible” language, Chomsky’s notion of universal grammar is also a romantic one although without ceasing to be rational. 3. Chomsky’s review of Skinner’s book, Verbal Behavior, which first appeared in 1959, has gained a quasi-legendary status among Chomskyan linguists as the one text that conclusively demonstrated the implausibly of behaviorism. I am suggesting here that Chomsky and his supporters beat the dead horse of Skinnerian behaviorism in order to dodge critical debate with contemporary theorists of language like Derrida and Foucault. Chomsky’s review, entitled “A Review of B.F. Skinner’s Verbal Behavior,” can be found in Leon A. Jakobvits and Murray S. Miron’s Readings in the Psychology of Language (1967). 4. Derrida has responded to attacks such as Chomsky’s in the following terms: “We can easily see on which side obscurantism and nihilism are lurking when on occasion great professors or the representatives of prestigious insti- tutions lose all sense of proportion and control; on such occasions they forget the principles that they claim to defend in their work and suddenly begin to heap insults, to say whatever comes into their heads on texts that they obviously have never opened or that they have encountered through a mediocre journalism that in other circumstances they would pretend to scorn” (Eyes of the University 147). 5. In his turn, Derrida has stated that, “It is not a criticism of [Chomsky’s] works to wish for a more fully developed political thought within them, especially with regard to the history, structure, and ‘logic’ of the concept of sovereignty” (Rogues 102). The following chapter takes its point of depar- ture from Derrida’s remarks regarding the lack of a “fully developed political thought [in Chomsky] with regard to the concept of sovereignty.” In contrast to Chomsky’s argument that ethics are an inaccessible organ in the brain, Derrida shows how whatever it is that comes to be excluded by reason, or by the exercise of sovereignty, will haunt the structure that excludes it. This means that, for Derrida, Chomsky is not sufficiently cognizant of the illogical logic that is secretly at work in all sovereign claims. When Derrida states that Chomsky lacks a theory of sovereignty, he therefore suggests that Chomsky is unaware of how unreasonable reason itself can be. 172 / notes

6. In Ear of the Other, Derrida states his view in opposition to Heidegger on this question (115–116). 7. Fanon states, “It so happens that when the native hears a speech about Western culture he pulls out his knife—or at least he makes sure it is within reach. The violence with which the supremacy of white values is affirmed and the aggressiveness which has permeated the victory of these values over the ways of life and of thought of the native mean that, in revenge, the native laughs in mockery when Western values are mentioned in front of him . . . . [T]he colonized masses mock at these very values, insult them, and vomit them up” (The Wretched of the Earth 43). 8. See, for instance, Derrida’s comments on Heidegger’s notion of justice, or “jointedness” (from the Greek word dike), in Deconstruction in a Nutshell (17) and Specters of Marx (23–28). 9. See Derrida’s discussion of Hobbes on this question in The Beast and the Sovereign 27–28). 10. In his reading of Nietzsche on the topic of vengeance, Heidegger asks, “How can [humanity] take the earth as earth into its protection, so long as it degrades the earthly, so long as the spirit of revenge determines its reflection? If it is a matter of rescuing the earth as earth, then the spirit of revenge will have to vanish beforehand. Thus for Zarathustra redemp- tion from revenge is the bridge to the highest hope” (Nietzsche, Volume Two 225).

3 Locke’s “Misreading” of Descartes and Other Fairy Tales 1. To Locke’s observation, Fraser comments, “But is the conditional necessity which constrains an educated man to accept the law of gravitation of the same sort as the absolute intellectual necessity which constrains an educated man to accept the abstract principle of non-contradiction or of causality” (An Essay Concerning Human Understanding 55 n. 4). Fraser’s comment is probably the source for Chomsky’s repeated remark that his own innate hypothesis is somehow akin to the Newtonian theory of gravity; that is, Chomsky suggests that his own innate hypothesis, like Newtonian gravity, is a “conditional necessity” rather than “an absolute necessity.” As a matter of fact, because Chomsky’s doctrine of the occulted object depicts this weird spook as an actual substance, it is more akin to the doctrine of non-contradiction, than it is to Newton’s theory of gravity, for the former asserts that something that is is not nothing at all. The same can be said for what Fraser calls “the slumbering potentialities of man’s spiritual being,” which is an articulated ontology with obvious philosophical consequences. Locke states about the principle of non-contradiction: “it will be some years after, perhaps, before the same child will assent to this [articulated] proposition, ‘That it is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be.” (57). The same can obviously be said for the hypothesis of universal grammar. notes / 173

2. My reading here reiterates Heidegger’s view that the concept of essence always already implies nothingness, and that Descartes was certainly aware of this fact. As stated previously, Heidegger targets post-Cartesian thinkers for deconstructive analysis more so than Descartes himself, who was certainly aware of his debt to Scholasticism and Aristotle. 3. Lycan cites Chomsky to this effect from an unpublished manuscript: “Ontological questions are generally beside the point, hardly more than a form of harassment” (Lycan “Chomsky on The Mind-Body Problem” 11). Also, in New Horizons in the Study of Language and Mind, Chomsky similarly asserts that, “to raise [metaphysical questions] “is pointless, scarcely more than a form of harassment of emerging disciplines” (77). 4. In Language and Learning, Chomsky mentions in passing that the doctrine of the blank slate dates as far back as Aristotle (75). However, I am aware of no references in his writings to Plato’s doctrine of the khora, or to medieval Islamic philosophers who were influenced by Aristotle, or even to Maimonides. 5. In The Architecture of Language (2000), Chomsky adds the following gloss on the evolutionary theory of language’s origins: “Let me go back to that fairy tale which I mentioned at the outset about the origin of language. Let us imagine a higher primate wandering around. It lacks the language organ but it has something like our brain and other organs, including sensorimotor systems sufficiently close to ours, and also a conceptual-intentional system sufficiently close to ours so that it can think about the world more or less the way we do insofar as that is possible without language. But it doesn’t have language and cannot articulate such thoughts—even to itself. Suppose some random event causes a language faculty to be installed in that primate and this language faculty is capable of providing an infinity of expressions that can be accessed by the already existing performance systems. . . . So the sensorimotor system and the conceptual-intentional system have to be able to access, to ‘read’ the expressions; otherwise the systems wouldn’t even know it is there. In fact, it is conceivable, it is an empirical possibility, though extremely unlikely, that higher primates, say gorillas, or whatever, actually have something like a human language faculty but they just have no access to it. So, too bad, the legibility conditions are not satisfied. Conceivably, what changed in humans is that the language faculty came to meet the legibility conditions” (18). 6. Chomsky reinforces the Aristotelian notion of man as rational animal in a metaphysical sense and that animals are mere machines. For instance, he states that, “There is no serious reason today to challenge the Cartesian view that the ability to use linguistic signs to express freely-formed thoughts marks ‘the true distinction between man and animal’ or machine, whether by ‘machine’ we mean the automata that captured the imagination of the seventeenth and eighteenth century, or those that are providing a stimulus to thought and imagination today” 174 / notes

(New Horizons 3). I have refrained from discussing in great detail the consequences of Chomsky’s views for animals, not because of the insig- nificance of this theme but because of its enormity; that is, to adequately address the ethical problems inherent in Chomsky’s concept of the animal is a topic for another book-length study. Derrida’s important book The Animal That Therefore I Am (2008) powerfully rebukes Cartesian and neo-Cartesian notions of the animal. In passing, I note the abyssal ignorance of Chomsky with respect to phenomenological hermeneutic inquiry into the concept of man as “rational animal” and the disastrous implications for animals of the hasty Cartesian concept of the human (see Derrida’s The Animal That Therefore I Am 70–71). For instance, Chomsky states, “To say that ‘language is not innate’ is to say that there is no difference between my granddaughter, a rock, and a rabbit” (The Architecture of Language 50). Heidegger has exhaustively explored the very distinctions made by Chomsky in his lectures from 1929–1930, later published as The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics (1995), where he describes man as “world-forming,” the animal as “poor-in-world,” and the stone is “without-world.” In other words, one hardly needs a concept of innate language to make theoretical distinctions between human beings, animals, and rocks. Heidegger’s distinction is explored in some detail by Giorgio Agamben in The Open: Man and Animal (2004) and briefly in Derrida’s “I don’t know why we are doing this” from The Animal That Therefore I Am (141–160).

4 Identity Politics and the Pedagogy of Competence 1. See my essay “The Double Gesture” in Derrida, Africa, and the Middle East (107–128). For a concise and accessible overview of Derrida’s views regarding the university, see John Caputo’s chapter “The Right to Philosophy” in his Deconstruction in a Nutshell (New York: Fordham University Press, 1997): 49–70. The most important texts by Derrida on this question may be found in his two volumes, Who’s Afraid of Philosophy: The Right to Philosophy 1 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2002) and Eyes of the University: The Right to Philosophy 2 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2004). Also, see Derrida’s The Ear of the Other: Otobiography, Transference, Translation (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1988). 2. In his often cited “Introduction” to Orientalism, Edward W. Said affirms Antonio Gramsci’s notion of the historical trace from Gramsci’s Prison Notebooks. In opposition to Chomsky, who urges his students to strive to obtain the unbiased perspective of the Martian scientist, Said insisted that those who teach must begin by acknowledging their own “personal investment” in whatever it is they are teaching. This is why my own study of Chomsky begins with a frank acknowledgment of the fact that this book is a response to my own situation as a professor in the United States. notes / 175

In this sense, every course that is taught in the humanities—including linguistic courses—is always already taught from a perspective that is historical, personal, and human. To cite Gramsci, “The starting point of critical elaboration is the consciousness of what one really is, and ‘know- ing thyself’ as a product of the historical process to date, which has depos- ited in you an infinity of traces, without leaving an inventory” (Prison Notebooks 324). For Chomsky, by way of contrast, the starting point is an imaginary and extraterrestrial vantage point that is not available to any of us. Chomsky asserts, “Let’s imagine an observer looking at us without any preconceptions [my emphasis]” (Chomsky on Democracy and Education 62). But, the fact that we must imagine this perspective necessarily implies that our imaginations have already been saturated with empircal traces of the real. The deductive method that is championed by Chomsky is already inductive, as he implicitly acknowledges when he encourages his students to use their imagination in order to arrive at a truly scientific understanding of language. 3. Kant, for instance, asserted that, “The Negroes of Africa have by nature no feeling that arises above the trifling. Mr. Hume challenges anyone to cite a single instance in which a Negro has shown talents. . . . The blacks are very vain but in the Negro’s way, and so talkative that they must be driven apart from each other with thrashings” (“The Differences Between the Races” 638). 4. See Israel Shahak and Norton Mezvinsky’s Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel (44–54). 5. See my chapters, “Arab-Jew” and “Deconstruction and Zionism” in Derrida, Africa, and the Middle East (2009). Also, see my essay, “Derrida and the Palestinian Question,” in Arena Journal, no. 20 (2002/03): 167–185. In many respects, Chomsky’s approach to political problems and religious fundamentalism in the state of Israel and the Occupied Territories is far more exemplary than Derrida’s. As I argue in Derrida, Africa, and the Middle East, Derrida’s evasive and often disappointing approach to such matters should not deter his critics from appreciating the obviously valuable dimensions of his work. To cite an alternative view, in a scathing critique of Derrida’s approach to the Palestinian question and Derrida’s ambivalent relation to Europe, John Docker even calls Derrida the “historical betrayer” of Edward Said and criticizes Derrida for his “desire to be housed within Europe’s continuing claims to universal superiority” (“The Question of Europe: Said and Derrida” 282). While Docker’s assessment is too harsh, in my view, there is no doubt that Derrida’s political views with regard to the Middle East are often disappointing. Also, see Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s article-length response to Specters of Marx, entitled “Ghostwriting” in Diacritics, vol. 25, no. 2 (Summer 1995): 65–84. 6. The most important theorist on this question is Ella Shohat. See Shohat’s now classic essay, “Sephardim in Israel: Zionism from the Standpoint of Its 176 / notes

Jewish Victims,” (Social Text, 19/20, Fall 1988). Also see her more recent book, Taboo Memories, Diasporic Voices (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2006), and her essay “Diasporic Thinking, Between Babel and Babylon” in Christopher Wise and Paul James’s Being Arab: Arabism and the Politics of Recognition (Fitzroy, Australia: Arena Books, 2009). 7. For instance, Derrida states, “I think the concept of secularization is a religious concept, it belongs to a tradition of religious culture. . . . Even the concept in which one defines the nation state, the modern nation state, the modern democracy, they are still tied to the idea of sovereignty which is a theological heritage, a religious heritage. . . . [W]e cannot simply be certain that our secularized concepts are simply secularized, and not sacred, so there is a sacredness . . . should we get rid of every sacredness? That’s another problem, I’m not sure. . . .” (Deconstruction Engaged 116–117). 8. Derrida reiterates Rousseau’s concept of the religious in Specters of Marx, when he defines the religious as “not just one ideological phenomenon or phantomatic production among others . . . [but that which] gives to the production of the ghost or of the ideological phantasm its originary form or its paradigm of reference, its first ‘analogy.” (166). 9. The single best text on this question is Israel Shahak and Norton Mezvinsky’s Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel (London: Pluto Press, 1999). Shahak and Mezvinksy state, “Jewish fundamentalism is not only capable of influencing conventional Israeli policies but could also substantially affect Israel’s nuclear policies” (5–6). 10. Fatima Mernissi offers an accessible and informative discussion of the problematic of jahiliyya in her book, Islam and Democracy: Fear of the Modern World (Cambridge, MA: Perseus Books, 1992). 11. The Baha’i in Iran have historically undergone persecution due to their violation of the orthodox Islamic doctrine that Muhammad was the last prophet, or the “Seal of the Prophets.” See Michael M. J. Fischer and Mehdi Abedi’s discussion of the Baha’i of Iran in their chapter, “Social Change and the Mirrors of Tradition: Baha’is of Yazd,” Debating Muslims: Cultural Dialogues in Postmodernity and Tradition (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1990): 222–250. 12. Chomsky repeatedly asserts that he may accurately be construed as akin to the Old Testament prophets, who were true dissidents, as opposed to intellectuals like Derrida, whom he reviles as mere priests. For instance, see On Nature and Language (162–163), Chomsky on Democracy and Education (320), and Chomsky on Miseducation (18). However, there are many other places where this self-aggrandizing analogy is drawn; in fact, it is one of the most enduring themes of Chomsky’s political thought. Chomsky does sometimes address linguistic matters that are relevant to the Hebrew language, especially Modern Hebrew; however, his interest in Hebrew is strictly “scientific” and linguistic. It goes without saying that Chomsky would not share notes / 177

the concerns of figures like Gershom Scholem regarding the possible dangers of Hebrew’s resurrection as a modern language. By way of contrast, Derrida is inspired by Scholem’s views on Modern Hebrew to reflect upon the autoimmune and even inhuman dimensions of language. See Derrida’s essay “The Eyes of Language: The Abyss and the Volcano” in Gil Anidjar’s Acts of Religion (New York: Routledge, 2002): 191–227. 13. Most recently, Chomsky has proposed a “no-state” solution to many of the crises of the Middle East, which he blames upon the imposition of a Eurocentric nationalism in the region. See, for instance, his interesting dialogue with Gilbert Achcar on this topic in Perilous Power: The Middle East and U.S. Foreign Policy (Boulder, CO and London: Paradigm Publishers, 2007): 128–129. I do not necessarily disagree with Chomsky’s view, in this regard. I merely suggest that no solution to regional crises in the Middle East will succeed that is not attentive to regional concepts and terminology that Chomsky would dismiss as naively religious. No doubt Chomsky would recoil from the suggestion that his own logocentric views about language are essentially religious. 14. I discuss the likelihood that Abrahamic notions of the covenant and circumcision predate the religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam in my chapter “Deconstruction and the African Trace,” in Derrida, Africa, and the Middle East (New York: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2009):167–188. 15. The nyamakala are members of a social caste throughout Sahel West Africa that include basket-weavers, hunters, blacksmiths, griots, and others, who are said to be endowed with nyama (“spirit” or occult power). See my essay “Nyama and Heka: African Concepts of the Word,” Comparative Literature Studies 43 (2006): 19–38. 16. See Derrida’s essay on the Cartesian “land of romance,” entitled “If There Is A Cause to Translate II: Descartes’ Romances, or The Economy of Words” in Eyes of The University (20–42). Here, Derrida shows “how the land of romance [in Descartes] suddenly becomes the land of the ‘true science.” (41). In his informative reading of Descartes’ linguistic views, which could quite easily be imagined as offering a concise summary of Derrida’s thoughts of Chomsky’s romantic rationalist notion of universal grammar, Derrida asserts that, “the roman, the land of romance [described by Descartes], would be the language of paradise before the fall: the myth of a pure language in illo tempore, purely natural or purely artificial. And these would amount to the same thing” (42). Applied to the linguistic theories of Chomsky, Derrida’s verdict on the hypothesis of universal grammar seems a foregone conclusion: Chomsky’s hypothesis harkens to an Edenic Realm, a romantic no-place from which humanity is forever banished. 17. In a particularly offensive statement, Chomsky states, “I knew Lacan personally and I never understood a word he was talking about. . . . In fact, 178 / notes

I have a rather strong feeling that he was playing jokes, that he was trying to see how crazy he could be and still get people to take him seriously” (The Architecture of Language 47). Chomsky further claims that Lacan was “a conscious charlatan, and was simply playing games with the Paris intellectual community to see how much absurdity he could produce and still be taken seriously. I mean that quite literally. I knew him” (77). Chomsky’s claim to know the secret intentions of the other is characteristic: he is a competent authority when it comes to the private thoughts of Lacan. It is worth asking, however, if there is not some other logic at work in these abusive descriptions of Lacan? 18. In The Social Contract, Rousseau asks, “Yet, what in the last analysis is law? If we simply try to define it in terms of metaphysical ideas, we shall go on talking without reaching any understanding; and when we have said what a natural law is, we still shall not know what the law of the state is” (81). In effect, Rousseau suggests that the quest to define an interior notion of law for pragmatic purposes is futile; this is the sense in which Rousseau is a “realist” in his political philosophy. Chomsky typically ignores this aspect of Rousseau’s political thought. 19. For more on this question, see my essay, “Nyama and Heka: African Concepts of the Word.” 20. For instance, in his “Encomium to Helen,” Gorgias exonerates Helen because she was enchanted by the magical power of words, which he com- pares to a drug that stupefied her. 21. In orthodox Christian doctrine, the second commandment of the Mosaic tablets is omitted as pertaining to the “old” law, which the new law is said to supersede. The second commandment is later restored by some Protestant Christians during the period of the Reformation. 22. Derrida’s most important text, in this regard, is probably Memoirs of the Blind: The Self-Portrait and Other Ruins (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993). 23. It is remarkable that nearly all historical attempts to disseminate Arabic translations of the Gospels in Sahelian West Africa, which has enjoyed alphabetic literacy for at least a thousand years, have so dramatically failed. As I have argued in my essay “Writing Timbuktu: Park’s Hat/ Laing’s Hand,” the European fetish of the typographically reproduced book has failed to gain many converts in the Sahelian context (175– 200). While it was Mungo Park who first argued that a cheap printed version of the Gospels would win many converts to Protestantism, efforts to do so were widely viewed as having failed, even some fifty years after Park’s travelogue appeared. For instance, James Richardson noted in 1850 his disappointment with the Sahelian reception of the Gospels in typographic form: “I showed him [a West African man] the Arabic New Testament. He read a few sentences, and then laid the book aside. I offered it to him, but he refused to accept the ines- timable present. He represents the feelings of all the Muslims of these notes / 179

countries. They have not even any curiosity to know the contents of the Gospel, much less the inclination to study or appreciate them. They remain in a state of immovable, absolute indifference. Even the beautiful manner in which the Arabic letters are printed scarcely excites their surprise” (Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa, vol. II: 21–22). I am suggesting here that Chomsky, like Park, Richardson, James Grey Jackson, Alexander Gordon Laing, Felix Dubois, and numerous other white Europeans, is oblivious to his own typographic biases. In John Beverley’s phrase, Chomsky succumbs to the “ideology of the literary” (Against Literature 1–2), or the delusion that the external universe may be comprehended as if it were a printed book that is replicated in the human interior. His overestimation of typography leads him to privi- lege this metaphor above all others as a means of describing universal grammar. 24. In Discourse on Method, Descartes famously states, “[A]fter spending sev- eral years studying thus in the book of the world and seeking to gain experience, I resolved one day to study also myself. . . .” (34). The suggestion that the universe is comparable to a printed book is a defining metaphor of the Enlightenment tradition, especially among Deists. This prominent theme of imperialist travel literature is perhaps best encapsu- lated in James Grey Jackson’s statement that, “The Universe is a kind of book, of which one has only read the first page, when one has only seen one’s own country” (An Account of Timbuktoo and Housa 1). 25. Chomsky repeatedly asserts that he cannot comprehend the uncontro- versial term dialectics. I am suggesting here that this claim is a thinly veiled rhetorical strategy to distract attention from the dialectical nature of his own epistemology, despite Chomsky’s frequent disavowals. See, for instance, Chomsky’s Understanding Power (228–229) and Language and Problems of Knowledge (189–190). 26. The three-fold metaphysical distinction made by Plato in Timaeus is as follows: First, Plato describes the realm of Being, or the supersensible realm of eternal forms; second, he describes the realm of becom- ing, or the sensible realm of appearing; and, third, he describes the mysterious realm of the khoral receptacle, or the realm non-being. But, as Heidegger observes in his Introduction to Metaphysics, truth remains for Plato a matter of disclosure, or unconcealment, despite the fact that it is Plato who is chiefly responsible for the banishment of eternal forms to the realm of the supersensible (182). In this context, Heidegger’s point is significant for it shows that—in spite of Chomsky’s spurious references to what he calls “Plato’s Problem”—truth retains the character of an event-in-time, even for Plato. Hence, Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Derrida share a common critique of Platonism, which they differentiate from the actual writings of Plato himself. Similarly, Heidegger critiques the superficial reception of Descartes by those whom he inspires, while observing that Descartes himself remained 180 / notes

a metaphysician, who was indebted to Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas (Being and Time 46). 27. The “Law of Non-Contradiction” is as follows, “It is impossible for the same thing at the same time both to be-in and not to be-in the same thing in the same respect.” In his Metaphysics, Aristotle comments that, “No one can believe that the same thing both is and is-not. . . . It is impossible to believe that the same thing both is and is not at the same time. For if one were to fall into such an error, it would amount to the simultaneous holding of opposite beliefs with regard to that object. And that is why this principle is the ultimate root of all demonstration—it is its very nature to be the principle of all other axioms.” The Law of Non-Contradiction is usually credited to Parmenides, although Aristotle formalizes this found- ing principle of metaphysics. 28. Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Derrida also share in the view that one of the most significant problems in contemporary philosophical debate is the superficial manner in which the writings of figures like Plato, Aristotle, and others are approached. To cite Caputo in this regard, “a deconstructive reading is exceedingly close, fine-grained, meticulous, scholarly, and, above all, ‘responsible.” (Deconstruction in a Nutshell 77). In this sense, Chomsky’s hasty reading of Plato is anything but “deconstructive.” 29. Derrida comments as follows, “Dream this umbilicus: [the state] has you by the ear. It is an ear, however, that dictates to you what you are writing at this moment when you write in the mode of what is called ‘taking notes.’ . . . This writing links you, like a leash in the form of an umbilical cord, to the paternal belly of the State. . . . How an umbilical cord can cre- ate a link to this cold monster that is a dead father or the State—this is what is uncanny” (Ear of the Other 35–36). 30. In opposition to Heidegger who maintains belief in the intact kernel of some forgotten language, Derrida asserts that, “The ananke is that there is no intact kernel and there never has been. That’s what one wants to forget, and to forget that one has forgotten it” (The Ear of the Other 115). In response to Heidegger’s alleged conservatism, Derrida maintains, “if it is not a question of returning in the direction of the Greek language, it is at least necessary to presuppose something absolutely forgotten and always dissimulated in advance behind the Greek language—an arch- mother tongue, a grandmother tongue, a granny of the Greek language that would be absolutely virginal: an untouchable virgin granny” (114). I offer no comment here on the validity or invalidity of Derrida’s critique of Heidegger. I merely wish to draw attention to how Heidegger too fell prey to figurative storytelling about the khoral receptacle, at least in Derrida’s reading. 31. To cite Walter J. Ong, with the rise of alphabetic letterpress print, “[w] ords are made out of units (types) which pre-exist as units before the words which they will constitute. Print suggests that words are things notes / 181 far more than [chirographic] writing” (Orality and Literacy 118). In this light, Chomsky may be construed as the language theorist who has interiorized the ideology of typographic literacy. This is so, for what Chomsky calls the “inner mental machinery” of universal grammar is described as mystic alphabetic letterpress print (On Nature and Language 45–46). Works Cited

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Abedi, Mehdi, 176n Blank Slate, 11–12, 24–25, Abraham and the Abrahamic, 61, 117–119, 136 139–140, 150 –154, 177n Bloomfield, Leonard, 170n Achcar, Gilbert, 177n Bodin, Jean, 97, 98 Achebe, Chinua, 81 Boecke, Philip August, 23 Adamic Linguistics, 33, 41–42, 120 Bultmann, Rudolph, 167n Adorno, Theodor W., 21 Adventitious Idea, 6, 12, 109–112, Caillie, Rene, 146 165n Calvin, Jean, 95–96 Aesthetics, 28–29, 44 Cambridge School, 37 African Studies, 4 Caputo, John, 76, 77, 86, 155, 163n, Agamben, Giorgio, 174n 166n, 174n, 180n Aletheia, 24–25 Categorical Imperative, 71–73, 102 American New Criticism, 37 Chomsky, William, 141–143 Anarchy, 74–75, 87 Circumcision, 61, 139–140, 177n Anaximander, 23, 85, 88–89 Cogito ergo sum, 12 Anidjar, Gil, 177n Collier, Peter, 163n Animals and language, 4, 18, Competency Assessment, 2–4, 13, 132–133, 173n 14–15, 16, 135–136, 156–157, Anthony, Louis M., 163n 160–161, 166n Anxiety, 9–10, 165n Cosmic ray theory, 109, 127–129, Aristotle, 23, 24, 40, 43, 49, 79, 165n, 173n 118–119, 120, 169n, 173n, 180n Cosmopolitan right, 104, 153 Armillary sphere, 26–27 Ashkenazi Jews, 4, 136–137, 150 Dangerous supplement, 83–84 Augustine, 22 Darwin, Charles, 127 Decisionism, 9, 17–18, 53–54, 56–57, Barnes, Jonathan, 27, 52, 53, 58 76, 88, 169n Barth, Heinrich, 146 Deconstruction, 163n Beethoven, Wilhelm von, 21 Deism, 146 Belief, 9, 11, 28, 58–60, 95–96 De Maistre, Joseph Marie, 71 Beverley, John, 179n Denham, Dixon, 146 Bifurcation Thesis, 5, 112, 165n Denham, Kristen, 16–17 194 / index

Derrida, Jacques, 1, 4–5, 10, 11, 24, Gardner, Howard, 21 30, 46, 51, 52, 59–60, 63, 64, 65, Genius, 28 66, 67, 68, 73, 77, 79, 80, 81, 82, Goering, Herman, 22 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, Goethe, Johann von, 41 94, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, Gorgias, 144, 178n 104, 107, 121, 135, 137, 138–139, Gramsci, Antonio, 136, 174n 140, 142, 143, 145, 147, 151, 153 –155, 160, 163n, 166n, 169n, Habermas, Jurgen, 167n 171n, 172n, 174n, 176n, 177n, Hartley, David, 65, 140 178n, 179n, 180n Hegel, Georg, 138 Dershowitz, Alan, 2, 163n Heidegger, Martin, 5, 6, 7, 10, 11, 23, Descartes, Rene, 7, 9, 11, 12, 18, 22, 24, 25, 26, 30, 41, 44, 45, 46, 51, 30, 33, 34, 45, 68, 71, 75, 79, 56, 57, 59, 65, 74, 75, 77, 79, 80, 80, 81, 82, 85, 107, 108–118, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 88, 89, 90, 123, 125, 146, 148, 153, 159, 102, 115, 135, 151, 153, 163n, 165n, 170n, 171n, 173n, 177n, 164n, 165n, 166n, 167n, 169n, 179n 172n, 173n, 174n, 179n, 180n Dialectics, 22, 26–27, 31, 65, 71 Heraclitus, 11, 23 Différance, 24–25, 52, 90, 117 Hiring Practices, 18–19 Dike, 85, 88, 90 Hobbes, Thomas, 54, 94, 97, 98, 99 Dilthey, Wilhelm, 23, 167n Hockett, Charles, 53, 170n Docker, John, 175n Hoffman, Barbara, 146 Dubois, Felix, 179n Hornstein, Norbert, 163n Dummet, Michael, 52, 53 Horowitz, David, 2, 163n Hostipitality, 155–156 Einstein, Albert, 21 Huarte, Jean, 24 Elder, Fons, 63–64, 65, 69 Humboldt, Wilhelm von, 14, 23, 33, Ethics, 28–29, 51–52, 70, 75–76, 81, 41, 44, 67, 166n 83–85, 88–89 Hume, David, 65, 81, 114, 116, 136, 140, 168n, 174n Fanon, Frantz, 80–81, 172n Husserl, Edmund, 23, 45, 63, 65, 167n Fischer, Michael, 176n Huygens, Christiaan, 125 Fodor, Jerry, 27 Forgetting of Being, 79 Ibn Sina, 118 Foucault, Michel, 1, 63–64, 65, 66, Ibn Tufail, 118 67, 68, 71, 73, 85–88, 135, 149– Indoctrination, 14 150, 156, 171n Ingarden, Roman, 167n Fraser, Alexander Campbell, 12, 109, Innate hypothesis, 6 111, 112, 172n Innate ideas, 6, 12, 103, 107–108, 112 Freud, Sigmund, 21, 140 Inner form, 23, 41 Irony, 129–130 Gadamer, Hans-Georg, 14, 23, 41, 44, Islam, 138–139 45, 52, 65, 71, 73, 74, 167n Israel (Nation of), 5, 138 index / 195

Jackson, James Grey, 179n McGilvray, James, 31, 32, 44, 64, Jahiliyya, 138, 176n 65, 67, 69, 70, 82, 125, Jakobvits, Leon A., 171n 127–128, 130, 159, 163n, James, Paul, 176n 169n, 170n Jameson, Fredric, 41, 167n McGinn, Colin, 53, 170n Jewish Diaspora, 4 Mernissi, Fatima, 176n Joyce, James, 144 Messianicity, 60, 151–153 Mezvinksy, Norton, 175n, 176n Kant, Immanuel, 7–8, 14, 22, 28, Mind-brain, 13, 15, 26, 29, 48, 64, 30–31, 32–33, 35, 40, 48, 49, 53, 120, 130, 145 56, 65, 67, 70–73, 93, 94, 97, 99, Miron, Murray S., 171n 103, 104, 105, 107, 113–116, Mood, 129–130 122–123, 136, 153, 160, 174n Morganthau, Hans, 54 Khora, 11–12, 52, 90, 117–118, Muhammad, Prophet, 95–96, 120–122, 145, 149–150 139, 176n Kierkegaard, Soren, 61, 84, 85 Mumbo jumbo & gibberish, 144 Kissinger, Henry, 54 Klein, Jacob, 166n Naming, 42–43 Kristeva, Julia, 1, 63, 64, 66, 140, 143 Nativism, 30–31, 64 Newton, Isaac, 123–126, 172n Lacan, Jacques, 63, 64, 73, 140, 143, Nietzsche, Friedrich, 1, 11, 28, 47, 177n 55, 56, 59, 77, 85, 102, 103, 129, Laing, Alexander Gordon, 146, 179n 149, 166n, 169n, 172n, 179n, Lamarck, Jean-Baptiste, 119 180n La Mettrie, Julien Offray, 26 Nyama, 144, 177n Language Acquisition, 7, 28, 32–33, Nyamakala, 140, 177n 47–49, 52 Law of Non-Contradiction, 180n Ong, Walter J., 180n Leiber, Justin, 21 Leibniz, Gottfried, 26, 33, 111, 125 Palestinian-Israeli conflict, 1, 54, Levinas, Immanuel, 85, 86, 89–90 175n, 177n Lobeck, Anne, 16–17 Papert, Seymour, 158–159 Locke, John, 6–7, 12, 65, 81, 102–103, Park, Mungo, 144–145, 178n, 179n 107–119, 136, 140, 159, 165n, Parmenides, 23, 40, 180n 172n Paul, 61, 95 Logos, 23–24, 26–27, 37, 43, 83–84, Phallologocentricism, 83–84 120, 132, 137, 142, 144, 149, 151 Pharmakon, 24, 144 Lycan, William, 163n, 173n Phenomenological hermeneutics, 14, 22–23, 44, 62, 67, 166n Machiavelli, Niccolo, 54, 95 Piaget, Jean, 21, 24, 67 Maimonides, 173n Piattelli-Palmarini, Massimo, Martian Science, 4–5, 10, 18, 46, 21, 159 103–104, 135, 148 Pineal gland, 35 196 / index

Plato, 11, 22, 23–24, 26–27, 32, 34, Shakespeare, William, 21 37, 40, 43, 52, 90, 117–120, Sharon, Ariel, 55 148–149, 166n, 173n, 179n, 180n Shohat, Ella, 175n Plato’s Problem, 11, 52, 179n Skinner, B.F., 66, 80, 119, 171n Poland, Jeffery, 163n Smith, Neil, 165n Popkin, Richard, 56 Socrates, 21, 24, 40 Postcolonial Studies, 1, 80–82 Solomon, King, 95–96 Protestantism, 144–146, 178n, 179n Sovereignty, 18, 70–71, 88, 92, 94, Putnam, Hillary, 5, 157, 165n 97–100, 171n, 176n Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty, 77, 78, Question of the Question, 5, 59 81, 82, 86, 175n Quine, W.V., 53 Stent, Gunter, 22 Stich, Stephen, 53, 170n Racism, 68, 75, 80–81, 137, 174n Structural linguistics, 22 Rats in a maze, 9, 76, 165n Syllepsis, 36 Realism, 53–54, 79, 88 Reichling, Anton, 18 Technology, 59 Rhetoric, 15, 147 Thing-in-itself, 40, 56 Richards, I.A., 18, 37, 47 Thomism, 53, 54, 79, 125 Richardson, James, 178n, 179n Transubstantiation, 35 Robinson, Ian, 18, 37–39 Rogue states, 98–101 Unconscious Knowledge, 9, 11, 16, 28, Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 86, 92–100, 52, 57–58, 60–61, 112, 170n 136, 138, 143–144, 176n, 178n Ungiven-given, 13, 44–45, 61–62, 73, Ruah, 142, 144, 151 87 Rumsfeld, Donald, 58 United Nations, 105 Universal Grammar, 9, 11, 13, 21, 28, Said, Edward W., 1, 81, 174n, 175n 32, 36–38, 46, 49–50, 52, 90, 97, Sartre, Jean-Paul, 41 118–119, 180n Saussure, Ferdinand de, 22, 33, 42, U.S. Foreign Policy, 1–2, 16, 20, 76, 65, 67, 156 97, 104 Schielermacher, Friedrich, 23, 167n U.S.-Iraq War, 1, 3, 18 Schlegel, A.W., 24 Schmitt, Carl, 54, 167n, 170n Vapor, 11, 28, 110 Scholasticism, 79, 108, 115–116, 123, Violence, 59, 73, 86, 88, 94, 102, 125–126, 173n 172n Scholem, Gershom, 177n Schwab, George, 170n Wise, Christopher, 176n Searle, John, 52, 169n, 170n Sephardic Jews, 4–5, 138, 175n Zionism, 138, 143 September 11, 2001, 1 Zodiac, 27 Shahak, Israel, 175n, 176n Zusage, 59–60, 96, 151–153