This book is an examination of the philosophical and methodological ideas behind Noam Chomsky's revolutionary theory of human linguistic competence--ideas which are increasingly influential in cognitive and perceptual psychology, and which can be seen as the basis for a distinctive view of the human condition. D'Agostino discusses six key ideas: Chomsky's ontological subjectivism with regard to linguistic entities, his individualistic methodological orientation, his rationalistic account of language acquisition, his rules-based account of linguistic behavior, his distinctive account of human creativity, and the political relevance of his general theory of human nature.