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RTE in breach of its own editorial principles Anthony
Waiting for SIPO Anthony Public Inquiry >>
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Exposed: Palestine Action?s Plans for Wave of Attacks on RAF Bases Across UK Thu Jun 26, 2025 19:00 | Will Jones Palestine Action is preparing to launch a wave of attacks on RAF bases across the United Kingdom, the Telegraph reveals after its journalists infiltrated the group and attended an online meeting.
The post Exposed: Palestine Action’s Plans for Wave of Attacks on RAF Bases Across UK appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.
Two-Tier Policing Row Over Palestine Protester Dressed as Holocaust Victim Thu Jun 26, 2025 17:43 | Will Jones More evidence of two-tier policing as Metropolitan Police officers ignore a pro-Palestinian protester dressed as a Holocaust victim but warn men "waving Israeli flags" that they could be breaching the peace.
The post Two-Tier Policing Row Over Palestine Protester Dressed as Holocaust Victim appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.
Kneecap Should Play Glastonbury Thu Jun 26, 2025 15:00 | Laura Perrins Of course Kneecap should play Glastonbury, says Laura Perrins. Yes, they're morons. But morons deserve free speech too. One member may be on trial, but only for a summary offence. As long as we don't have to listen.
The post Kneecap Should Play Glastonbury appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.
Watch: Electric Mercedes Worth ?50,000 Explodes After ?Battery Fault? ? Destroying Two Cars Nearby Thu Jun 26, 2025 13:00 | Will Jones A security camera has captured the moment an electric Mercedes worth ?50,000 exploded in Sheffield due to a ?battery fault?, destroying two other cars parked nearby and trapping the owner in his house: "I could have died."
The post Watch: Electric Mercedes Worth ?50,000 Explodes After ‘Battery Fault’ ? Destroying Two Cars Nearby appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.
Benefits Bill Will Rise by ?8 Billion Even if Starmer Defeats Rebels, Warns IFS Thu Jun 26, 2025 11:12 | Will Jones Britain's benefits bill will rise by a further ?8 billion even if Keir Starmer defeats Labour rebels on his flagship welfare reforms, the IFS has warned. Not really a cut, then, more a slightly slower rise.
The post Benefits Bill Will Rise by ?8 Billion Even if Starmer Defeats Rebels, Warns IFS appeared first on The Daily Sceptic. Lockdown Skeptics >>
Voltaire, international edition
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Chomsky Reconsidered
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other press
Friday February 04, 2011 18:44 by Chris Knight - Radical Anthropology Group

Chris Knight of the Radical Anthropology Group continues his examination of Chomsky's life and work. In particular he analyses an early work by Chomsky: Cartesian linguistics. He also looks at some sources Chomsky tapped for funding in his early days. Full text at link.
In 1966, Noam Chomsky (pictured) published his Cartesian linguistics. The book was a survey of rationalist conceptions of language and mind, focusing heavily on the French mathematician and philosopher, Réné Descartes (1596-1650). In his early years, Chomsky had been working within the structuralist tradition of Ferdinand de Saussure, Roman Jakobson, Leonard Bloomfield and his own teacher, Zellig Harris. Chomsky wrote Cartesian linguistics in order to signal to the world his change of mind. His distinctively 'Cartesian' approach, he now clarified, was a rebellion against the entire 20th century tradition of structural linguistics. ... A brief round-up of Chomsky's most celebrated ideas will confirm that his point of departure is invariably the soul, with the corollary that this strange entity, being perfect, is autonomous with respect to man's intrinsically imperfect body.
Take Chomsky's admission that, superficially, language does not look perfect at all: "One massive case," he notes, "is the phonological system: the whole phonological system looks like a huge imperfection; it has every bad property you can think of."[34] Phonology makes languages sound different. This is obviously anomalous: "strong minimalism", after all, would predict just one language spoken by everyone. Does this mean that the theory is falsified by the data? Not at all, claims Chomsky. Humans really do speak just one common language. Yes, he admits, they sound different. Variations exist in choice of sounds and also in arbitrary sound-meaning associations. "These," he says, "are straightforward and need not detain us." ...
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