Noam Chomsky is among the most influential contemporary thinkers. Peter Wilkin looks in particular at the philosophical basis of his social and political thought, especially his ideal about power, knowledge and human nature. He shows how Chomsky's ideas can help to defend naturalism as in social and political thought. Chomsky's critical writings of social inquiry and his normative ideas on libertarian socialism and human emancipation are interpreted as synthesising a number of important ideas and approaches at a time when these ideas have fallen out of favour.