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Hello everyone and welcome back to ConversationsWithT Tyler.

Today I'm chatting with Nome Chomsky who needs no introduction.

Nome, welcome.

Good to be with you.

If I think of your thought and I compare it to the thought of Wilhelm von Humboldt,

what's the common ontological element in both of your thoughts that leads you to more

or less agree on both language and liberty?

von Humboldt was first of all a great linguist who recognized some fundamental principles

of language which were rare at the time and are only beginning to be understood.

But in the social and political domain he was not only the founder of the modern research

university but also one of the founders of classical liberalism, his fundamental principle

as he said, it's actually a epigram for John Stuart Mills on liberty is that the fundamental

right of every person is to be free from external illegitimate constraints free to inquire,

create, pursue people to pursue their own interests and concerns without arbitrary authority

of any sort restricting and limiting them.

You've argued that Humboldt was a platenist of some kind that he viewed learning as some

notion of reminiscence.

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