Geoffrey Sampson: Liberty and Language

Extract

This book should be of interest to philosophers because it shows how important empiricist/rationalist debates are to a large range of issues. Sampson is a defender of empiricism, of liberalism, and of a tie between them. He has produced a sustained attack on Chomsky's Cartesianism and on his political views. He tells us that “the central aim of this book has been to show that Chomsky's fine-sounding words about human nature actually mean something close to the opposite of what they appear to say” (210). This suggests that Chomsky has written in an Aesopian language which Sampson has generously agreed to translate for us. It also makes Sampson's interpretation difficult to attack. Given his interpretive principle, there would appear to be no way of demonstrating that he has misinterpreted, misunderstood, or falsified the text he purports to be criticizing. Accordingly, I shall content myself with suggesting a few ways in which he seems to be in error. There can, however, be no doubt that Sampson seeks to make evident the philosophical foundations of the “principled liberalism of Margaret Thatcher and Sir Keith Joseph” (39).