In debate between Chomsky & Foucault, Noam described the relativistic problem as the creative use of language by the typical 'adult' human being. Which seems to speak to the issue of whether language is an 'innate' aspect of human nature or an 'invented' tool to enhance the prospects of survival? Arguably a tool for making 'allusions' about the unseen nature of reality? Like the way our names are allusions about our own unseen reality? For example, my name is David Bates and when asked if l am David Bates, l say "l am."
To use the author's own words, such is "the power of discourse in shaping reality?" Although l offer the comment that the power of discourse shapes our perception of reality through a psychological 'thought-sight' that overrides the innate power of our biological eye-sight? Hence the philosophical advice "don't think, just look. Don't judge, but perceive?" And R. D. Laing's "we are all in a post-hypnotic trance induced in early infancy?"
It is true that the Chomsky–Foucault debate pivots on a fundamental tension: is language an innate biological capacity (as Chomsky holds), or is it shaped by historical and social contingencies (as Foucault suggests)? Your suggestion that names function as "allusions to unseen realities" is a very ood illustration which resonates with both traditions, albeit differently.
Chomsky would likely see the act of saying "I am David Bates" as made possible by the deep structures of universal grammar—an innate, species-specific cognitive faculty. Foucault, on the other hand, might focus on the historical and discursive conditions that allow certain names, pronouns, and affirmations of identity to carry meaning within a given episteme. For Foucault, it’s not the name itself that matters, but the institutional and cultural structures that render the act of naming intelligible and powerful.
thinks that your point about "thought-sight" overriding biological sight moves us toward epistemology and perception theory. Philosophers such as Wittgenstein, Merleau-Ponty, and even R. D. Laing—as you quote—have all questioned the apparent immediacy of perception, suggesting that what we see is filtered through layers of language, socialisation, and prior expectation. Foucault, too, was concerned with how regimes of knowledge structure what is seen and what remains invisible—what he called the "visible and articulable."
Another approach could be to consider thinkers who try to move beyond this binary. Vygotsky, for instance, foregrounds the social shaping of cognition without rejecting biological foundations. Others, such as Roy Harris (integrational linguistics), argue that language is not a fixed system (innate or otherwise) but a creative, context-dependent activity embedded in real-time communication.
So rather than treating language as either a biological endowment or a cultural invention, we might ask: how do biology and culture co-produce our linguistic capacities—and how do these in turn mediate not just what we perceive, but what we are permitted or trained to perceive?
The comment raises an important philosophical challenge, but Foucault’s work does not necessarily collapse under its own logic. Maybe it invites us to critically engage with the historical contingency of knowledge while still recognizing the power of discourse in shaping reality?
Critical Discourse Analysis is fascinating. I have always wanted to go into it in more detail because it shows you how society is struczured in terms of power
I have embarked on a project that is far bigger and broader than my education. I have begun to educate myself in philosophy and thus am in deep over my head. I encountered the following quote a decade ago: “So long as people believe that some deserve to have more than others, there will be suffering.” -author unknown.
This quote will not let me free and thus i rediscovered critical theory and now have the vague terrifying thought that to unpack what i have been exploring in this project i will need to venture into linguistics. Not exactly playing to my strengths.
Might i ask you humbly to read some of the (cringeworthy) explorations of the word ‘deserve’ in egality.substack.com ? I would be extremely grateful for any feedback.
Hi! I am very flaterred that you would ask me to assist. I am not sure I am the best qualified, but very happy to try from a linguistics point of view.
You are not embarking on a project bigger and broader that your education. You are complementing your education. Granted, you have not chosen the easiest of fields. I am often at pains to explain that I am not a philosophy expert. I enjoy it and very often, I too am drowning in philosophy... but it is worth it nonetheless.
I will look at chapter 1 of your writing [in which the word "deserve" and appears 163 times (and 192 with its derivatives) I believe] and will approach the analyses of deserve/desert/deservedness in the text only from 3 areas of linguistics:
- Semantics, the lexical meaning, structure, and entailments,
- Pragmatics, the communicative and contextual functions, implicatures, and presuppositions (my articles on Grice, Searle and Austin discuss these concepts),
- Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), the ideological, power-laden, and societal implications.
This may take a bit of time as it is a very long and complicated text!
But keep going, fromm what I have read, what you write is reall interesting. Worth persevering, with your own voice.
Hi, I understand that your message to me is to look at how you explore the word deserve. From a linguistic point of view whether the text is "cleaner" or not makes no real difference. Linguistics takes the text as it is and focuses on semantics, pragmatics, discourse analysis (critical or not). So my semantinc understanding of your writing would be something like:
Semantic Analysis
1- Meaning and Lexical Domain
The text treats deserve (and deservedness) as referring to a relation of desert:
- X deserves Y if X has qualities, performs actions, or possesses attributes that merit Y.
From the text itself:
“The term ‘desert’ is the noun form related to the verb ‘deserve.’ It refers to the condition of being worthy of something, whether reward or punishment, based on some quality, action, or characteristic.”
- Semantically, the text frames deserve as:
- Relational: Requires an agent and an outcome.
- Normative: Anchored in judgments of moral or social worth.
- Bidirectional: Can apply to both rewards (praise, wealth) and punishments (blame, suffering).
2- Presuppositions
The verb deserve carries strong presuppositions:
- Grounds of worthiness exist. Saying X deserves Y presupposes there’s some standard of evaluation.
- The link between effort or character and outcomes is real. For example:
“So long as people believe that some deserve to have more than others, there will be suffering.”
Here, the notion of “deserve” presupposes that disparities are justified through standards such as merit, effort, or talent.
3- Semantic Opposition
The text constructs a semantic opposition:
- Deserve → Desert claims → Hierarchy
- Egality → Rejection of desert claims → Non-hierarchical relations
The text positions deserve as the linguistic embodiment of a worldview that naturalises inequality.
I hope that makes sense and that you can see what linguistics can do.
What I wrote is what I found in your text, already there. What I did is use linguistic tools. I may bring a different perspective but it does not create your own thoughts, concepts, ideas. It's the readers' interpretations.
I do think that critical theory of “deservedness” could be profoundly meaningful,especially in how it illuminates hidden power dynamics and cultural assumptions.
A Critical Theory Might Offer:
A deconstruction of norms: It could interrogate the cultural origins of what is considered “deserving,” exposing how these norms are constructed (and by whom).
- A reorientation toward solidarity: Rather than asking who is “deserving,” it could prompt a shift toward collective responsibility and care, detached from moral worthiness.
- Cross-disciplinary bridges: This theory could enrich legal studies, sociology, ethics, and even linguistic pragmatics, analysing how speech acts around merit and blame shape perceptions.
- Temporal & spatial contexts: It could explore how deservedness morphs across cultures and eras, for example Victorian morality vs. late capitalist individualism vs. Indigenous relational.
If I look at your text from a Pragmatics perspective:
Pragmatic Analysis
**Contextual Function**
In this text, deserve performs the pragmatic function of:
- Signalling ideological alignment.
“What does it mean for ‘people to believe’ anything? And what about this specific belief about deserving more?”
The speaker’s repeated questioning of deserve indicates a stance of critical distance.
- Triggering cognitive dissonance.
“I asked friends repeatedly to challenge the notion that some deserve more. This often provoked strong emotional responses.”
Here, deserve is a linguistic flashpoint. Its mere invocation elicits affective reactions, revealing its deep cultural embedding.
**Presupposition and Ideological Load**
Using deserve presupposes:
- The existence of moral calculus determining worth.
- That unequal outcomes reflect this calculus.
Your text intentionally breaks this presupposition, questioning whether deserve should function as a meaningful category at all.
**Speech Act Function**
Statements using deserve act as:
- Assertions of moral order: “Some deserve to have more than others.”
- Challenges to moral order: “What happens when we throw away deservedness?”
The text alternates between these two functions, deploying deserve both descriptively and as a target of critique.
Do bear in mind this and the semantics analysis here are very brief and much more could be said. What I am trying to show is that regardless of how clean and well crafted you think your text is, linguistics help understand a way f reading your writing.
Thank you for your analysis! I am trying to understand how i might incorporate what you wrote into some way of communicating the dialectical approach i have been using. Can they meaningfully be blended?
Do you have an opinion of how useful or meaningful using a critical theory of deservedness might be? Can it be useful within other critical theories like critical race theory, feminism, and decolonial theories in explaining how the dominant culture creates hierarchy?
Thank you for sharing but I am confused by Benthams PANOPTICANISM please excuse bad spelling I have been taught 300 times on its definition origin the history of penalty Jeremy Bentham the madness that travels into madness based on the lack of privacy and modes of punishment Can you refer a simplilar breakdown of this crueltyhh
Hi! great question. Not necessarily an easy question to answer. But I'll try!
In short:
panopticism has grown from:
- a building (prison)
- to a theory (discipline)
- to a condition of modern life (self-surveillance and digital control)
Jeremy Bentham designed a building he called the **Panopticon**, a circular prison where all inmates could be watched by a single guard, who sat in a central tower. Crucially, the prisoners couldn’t see the guard, so they never knew if they were being watched or not. The idea was that this uncertainty would lead them to monitor and control their own behaviour, just in case they were being observed.
Bentham saw this as a rational and efficient model for reforming prisoners—less beating, more thinking.
The Panopticon became a symbol of power through surveillance. You don’t need violence if people internalise the gaze and start policing themselves. Bentham’s dream of total visibility—a world where people behave because they might be seen—didn’t stay in prison design. It grew into something much larger.
Bentham’s original Panopticon was never widely built. But the idea behind it: **control through visibility** devlopped. It proved far more influential than the architecture itself. A simple but deep logic still applicable today. Most people are less likely to steal from a shop if they see cameras (real or fake) an believe they may be watched.
This idea turned out to be a highly efficient tool of discipline, not only in prisons but also in schools, factories, military barracks, hospitals, and offices—places where obedience, regularity, and self-control are prized.
Michel Foucault reinterpreted Bentham’s idea in his book 'Discipline and Punish'. He argued that the Panopticon had become a metaphor for modern disciplinary society. What had started as a prison blueprint now described a whole structure of power that shapes everyday life.
In other words, the Panopticon “grew” into a way of understanding how modern institutions work: not by forcing us, but by making us regulate ourselves.
In debate between Chomsky & Foucault, Noam described the relativistic problem as the creative use of language by the typical 'adult' human being. Which seems to speak to the issue of whether language is an 'innate' aspect of human nature or an 'invented' tool to enhance the prospects of survival? Arguably a tool for making 'allusions' about the unseen nature of reality? Like the way our names are allusions about our own unseen reality? For example, my name is David Bates and when asked if l am David Bates, l say "l am."
To use the author's own words, such is "the power of discourse in shaping reality?" Although l offer the comment that the power of discourse shapes our perception of reality through a psychological 'thought-sight' that overrides the innate power of our biological eye-sight? Hence the philosophical advice "don't think, just look. Don't judge, but perceive?" And R. D. Laing's "we are all in a post-hypnotic trance induced in early infancy?"
It is true that the Chomsky–Foucault debate pivots on a fundamental tension: is language an innate biological capacity (as Chomsky holds), or is it shaped by historical and social contingencies (as Foucault suggests)? Your suggestion that names function as "allusions to unseen realities" is a very ood illustration which resonates with both traditions, albeit differently.
Chomsky would likely see the act of saying "I am David Bates" as made possible by the deep structures of universal grammar—an innate, species-specific cognitive faculty. Foucault, on the other hand, might focus on the historical and discursive conditions that allow certain names, pronouns, and affirmations of identity to carry meaning within a given episteme. For Foucault, it’s not the name itself that matters, but the institutional and cultural structures that render the act of naming intelligible and powerful.
thinks that your point about "thought-sight" overriding biological sight moves us toward epistemology and perception theory. Philosophers such as Wittgenstein, Merleau-Ponty, and even R. D. Laing—as you quote—have all questioned the apparent immediacy of perception, suggesting that what we see is filtered through layers of language, socialisation, and prior expectation. Foucault, too, was concerned with how regimes of knowledge structure what is seen and what remains invisible—what he called the "visible and articulable."
Another approach could be to consider thinkers who try to move beyond this binary. Vygotsky, for instance, foregrounds the social shaping of cognition without rejecting biological foundations. Others, such as Roy Harris (integrational linguistics), argue that language is not a fixed system (innate or otherwise) but a creative, context-dependent activity embedded in real-time communication.
So rather than treating language as either a biological endowment or a cultural invention, we might ask: how do biology and culture co-produce our linguistic capacities—and how do these in turn mediate not just what we perceive, but what we are permitted or trained to perceive?
Thanks for this - very helpful
Another great piece, friend. One can see why Foucault is still praised for his ideas today.
Yes, if every theory is entangled in a specific discourse, so is Foucault's own theory. So that's the relativistic problem.
The comment raises an important philosophical challenge, but Foucault’s work does not necessarily collapse under its own logic. Maybe it invites us to critically engage with the historical contingency of knowledge while still recognizing the power of discourse in shaping reality?
Yes, I think that's the best way to look at it.
Critical Discourse Analysis is fascinating. I have always wanted to go into it in more detail because it shows you how society is struczured in terms of power
I have embarked on a project that is far bigger and broader than my education. I have begun to educate myself in philosophy and thus am in deep over my head. I encountered the following quote a decade ago: “So long as people believe that some deserve to have more than others, there will be suffering.” -author unknown.
This quote will not let me free and thus i rediscovered critical theory and now have the vague terrifying thought that to unpack what i have been exploring in this project i will need to venture into linguistics. Not exactly playing to my strengths.
Might i ask you humbly to read some of the (cringeworthy) explorations of the word ‘deserve’ in egality.substack.com ? I would be extremely grateful for any feedback.
Hi! I am very flaterred that you would ask me to assist. I am not sure I am the best qualified, but very happy to try from a linguistics point of view.
You are not embarking on a project bigger and broader that your education. You are complementing your education. Granted, you have not chosen the easiest of fields. I am often at pains to explain that I am not a philosophy expert. I enjoy it and very often, I too am drowning in philosophy... but it is worth it nonetheless.
I will look at chapter 1 of your writing [in which the word "deserve" and appears 163 times (and 192 with its derivatives) I believe] and will approach the analyses of deserve/desert/deservedness in the text only from 3 areas of linguistics:
- Semantics, the lexical meaning, structure, and entailments,
- Pragmatics, the communicative and contextual functions, implicatures, and presuppositions (my articles on Grice, Searle and Austin discuss these concepts),
- Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), the ideological, power-laden, and societal implications.
This may take a bit of time as it is a very long and complicated text!
But keep going, fromm what I have read, what you write is reall interesting. Worth persevering, with your own voice.
Chapter 2, which is in a major revision goes into more detail. But both are in need of major revisions.
If you want a more polished concise description of what i am doing, Unveiling Egality is much more to the point.
Hi, I understand that your message to me is to look at how you explore the word deserve. From a linguistic point of view whether the text is "cleaner" or not makes no real difference. Linguistics takes the text as it is and focuses on semantics, pragmatics, discourse analysis (critical or not). So my semantinc understanding of your writing would be something like:
Semantic Analysis
1- Meaning and Lexical Domain
The text treats deserve (and deservedness) as referring to a relation of desert:
- X deserves Y if X has qualities, performs actions, or possesses attributes that merit Y.
From the text itself:
“The term ‘desert’ is the noun form related to the verb ‘deserve.’ It refers to the condition of being worthy of something, whether reward or punishment, based on some quality, action, or characteristic.”
- Semantically, the text frames deserve as:
- Relational: Requires an agent and an outcome.
- Normative: Anchored in judgments of moral or social worth.
- Bidirectional: Can apply to both rewards (praise, wealth) and punishments (blame, suffering).
2- Presuppositions
The verb deserve carries strong presuppositions:
- Grounds of worthiness exist. Saying X deserves Y presupposes there’s some standard of evaluation.
- The link between effort or character and outcomes is real. For example:
“So long as people believe that some deserve to have more than others, there will be suffering.”
Here, the notion of “deserve” presupposes that disparities are justified through standards such as merit, effort, or talent.
3- Semantic Opposition
The text constructs a semantic opposition:
- Deserve → Desert claims → Hierarchy
- Egality → Rejection of desert claims → Non-hierarchical relations
The text positions deserve as the linguistic embodiment of a worldview that naturalises inequality.
I hope that makes sense and that you can see what linguistics can do.
What I wrote is what I found in your text, already there. What I did is use linguistic tools. I may bring a different perspective but it does not create your own thoughts, concepts, ideas. It's the readers' interpretations.
I do think that critical theory of “deservedness” could be profoundly meaningful,especially in how it illuminates hidden power dynamics and cultural assumptions.
A Critical Theory Might Offer:
A deconstruction of norms: It could interrogate the cultural origins of what is considered “deserving,” exposing how these norms are constructed (and by whom).
- A reorientation toward solidarity: Rather than asking who is “deserving,” it could prompt a shift toward collective responsibility and care, detached from moral worthiness.
- Cross-disciplinary bridges: This theory could enrich legal studies, sociology, ethics, and even linguistic pragmatics, analysing how speech acts around merit and blame shape perceptions.
- Temporal & spatial contexts: It could explore how deservedness morphs across cultures and eras, for example Victorian morality vs. late capitalist individualism vs. Indigenous relational.
Above all, believe in your project!
If I look at your text from a Pragmatics perspective:
Pragmatic Analysis
**Contextual Function**
In this text, deserve performs the pragmatic function of:
- Signalling ideological alignment.
“What does it mean for ‘people to believe’ anything? And what about this specific belief about deserving more?”
The speaker’s repeated questioning of deserve indicates a stance of critical distance.
- Triggering cognitive dissonance.
“I asked friends repeatedly to challenge the notion that some deserve more. This often provoked strong emotional responses.”
Here, deserve is a linguistic flashpoint. Its mere invocation elicits affective reactions, revealing its deep cultural embedding.
**Presupposition and Ideological Load**
Using deserve presupposes:
- The existence of moral calculus determining worth.
- That unequal outcomes reflect this calculus.
Your text intentionally breaks this presupposition, questioning whether deserve should function as a meaningful category at all.
**Speech Act Function**
Statements using deserve act as:
- Assertions of moral order: “Some deserve to have more than others.”
- Challenges to moral order: “What happens when we throw away deservedness?”
The text alternates between these two functions, deploying deserve both descriptively and as a target of critique.
Do bear in mind this and the semantics analysis here are very brief and much more could be said. What I am trying to show is that regardless of how clean and well crafted you think your text is, linguistics help understand a way f reading your writing.
Thank you for your analysis! I am trying to understand how i might incorporate what you wrote into some way of communicating the dialectical approach i have been using. Can they meaningfully be blended?
Do you have an opinion of how useful or meaningful using a critical theory of deservedness might be? Can it be useful within other critical theories like critical race theory, feminism, and decolonial theories in explaining how the dominant culture creates hierarchy?
Thank you for sharing but I am confused by Benthams PANOPTICANISM please excuse bad spelling I have been taught 300 times on its definition origin the history of penalty Jeremy Bentham the madness that travels into madness based on the lack of privacy and modes of punishment Can you refer a simplilar breakdown of this crueltyhh
Hi! great question. Not necessarily an easy question to answer. But I'll try!
In short:
panopticism has grown from:
- a building (prison)
- to a theory (discipline)
- to a condition of modern life (self-surveillance and digital control)
Jeremy Bentham designed a building he called the **Panopticon**, a circular prison where all inmates could be watched by a single guard, who sat in a central tower. Crucially, the prisoners couldn’t see the guard, so they never knew if they were being watched or not. The idea was that this uncertainty would lead them to monitor and control their own behaviour, just in case they were being observed.
Bentham saw this as a rational and efficient model for reforming prisoners—less beating, more thinking.
The Panopticon became a symbol of power through surveillance. You don’t need violence if people internalise the gaze and start policing themselves. Bentham’s dream of total visibility—a world where people behave because they might be seen—didn’t stay in prison design. It grew into something much larger.
Bentham’s original Panopticon was never widely built. But the idea behind it: **control through visibility** devlopped. It proved far more influential than the architecture itself. A simple but deep logic still applicable today. Most people are less likely to steal from a shop if they see cameras (real or fake) an believe they may be watched.
This idea turned out to be a highly efficient tool of discipline, not only in prisons but also in schools, factories, military barracks, hospitals, and offices—places where obedience, regularity, and self-control are prized.
Michel Foucault reinterpreted Bentham’s idea in his book 'Discipline and Punish'. He argued that the Panopticon had become a metaphor for modern disciplinary society. What had started as a prison blueprint now described a whole structure of power that shapes everyday life.
In other words, the Panopticon “grew” into a way of understanding how modern institutions work: not by forcing us, but by making us regulate ourselves.
Let me know if I have answered your question.
With great thanks always peace
Thank you so peace and joy