The physicalist project is either identical to the naturalistic project or it is not.
But in other philosophical areas the methodologically naturalistic project may seem less obviously applicable.
But there is nothing metaphysical about the naturalistic project, it simply raises questions about what we can hope to explain.
So Chomsky's first point is that it is rational to pursue the naturalistic project with respect to consciousness.
Chomsky's second point is that the physicalist project in philosophy of mind is on the face of it rather different from the naturalistic project.
It is precisely at the place where the physicalist project departs from the naturalistic project that Chomsky's criticism begins to take shape.
For insofar as it is different from the naturalistic project, there are a number of ways in which the physicalist project is questionable.
In short, there doesn't seem anything particularly 'philosophical' about the naturalistic project — it simply applies the methods of science to consciousness.
On the other hand, if the physicalist project does not depart from the naturalistic project, then the usual ways of talking and thinking about that project are highly misleading.
In the second place, the physicalist project is normally thought of as being amenable to philosophical argument, whereas it is completely unclear where philosophical argument would enter the naturalistic project.
