On Evolution and Exceptionality

This article looks at Nietzsche’s bases for what makes humans unique. It then discusses the psycholinguism of Noam Chomsky and the capacity for generative language that is innate and uniquely human. It would be difficult to imagine two thinkers of the Western canon more dissimilar than Friedrich Nietzsche and Noam Chomsky, but both embraced categories of human exceptionality, an issue that lies at the heart of contemporary posthumanism. In his essay, “Schopenhauer as Educator,” Nietzsche presents the Philosopher, Artist, and Saint as human paragons, and the qualities that make these distinct as categories also make them distinctly human as superlatives. I conclude with the view that, although humans can never be separated from or considered a type set apart from nature – and although Nietzsche categories ultimately fail as distinctions of kind (as opposed to degree) – our capacity for generative grammar (and therefore, abstract ideas whose formulation and expression rely on this fundamentally creative form of language), does make humans distinctive among living species.