Noam Chomsky
Avram Noam Chomsky[a] (born December 7, 1928) is an American professor and public intellectual known for his work in linguistics, political activism, and social criticism. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics",[b] Chomsky is also a major figure in analytic philosophy and one of the founders of the field of cognitive science. He is a laureate professor of linguistics at the University of Arizona and an institute professor emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Among the most cited living authors, Chomsky has written more than 150 books on topics such as linguistics, war, and politics. Ideologically, he aligns with anarcho-syndicalism and libertarian socialism.
"Chomsky" redirects here. For other uses, see Chomsky (disambiguation).
Noam Chomsky
3, including Aviva
- William Chomsky (father)
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- Guggenheim Fellowship (1971)
- Member of the National Academy of Sciences (1972)
- APA Award for Distinguished Scientific Contributions to Psychology (1984)
- Orwell Award (1987, 1989)
- Kyoto Prize in Basic Sciences (1988)
- Helmholtz Medal (1996)
- Benjamin Franklin Medal in Computer and Cognitive Science (1999)
- Sydney Peace Prize (2011)
- Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (2014)
University of Pennsylvania (AB, MA, PhD)
Transformational Analysis (1955)
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Academic
- J. L. Austin, William Chomsky, C. West Churchman, René Descartes, Galileo,[2] Nelson Goodman, Morris Halle, Zellig Harris, Wilhelm von Humboldt, David Hume,[3] Roman Jakobson, Immanuel Kant,[4] George Armitage Miller, Pāṇini, Hilary Putnam,[5] W. V. O. Quine, Bertrand Russell, Ferdinand de Saussure, Marcel-Paul Schützenberger, Alan Turing,[2] Ludwig Wittgenstein[6]
Political- Mikhail Bakunin, Alex Carey, William Chomsky, John Dewey,[7] Zellig Harris, Wilhelm von Humboldt,[8] David Hume,[9] Thomas Jefferson, Karl Korsch, Peter Kropotkin,[9] Karl Liebknecht, Rosa Luxemburg, John Locke, Dwight Macdonald, Paul Mattick,[9] John Stuart Mill, George Orwell, Anton Pannekoek, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon,[10] Rudolf Rocker, Jean-Jacques Rousseau,[9] Bertrand Russell, Diego Abad de Santillán, Adam Smith[9]
- University of Arizona (2017–present)
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1955–present)
- Institute for Advanced Study (1958–1959)
- Gülşat Aygen, Mark Baker, Jonathan Bobaljik, Joan Bresnan, Peter Culicover, Ray C. Dougherty, Janet Dean Fodor, John Goldsmith, C.-T. James Huang, Sabine Iatridou, Ray Jackendoff, Edward Klima, Jan Koster, Jaklin Kornfilt, S.-Y. Kuroda, Howard Lasnik, Robert Lees, Alec Marantz, Diane Massam, James D. McCawley, Jacques Mehler, Andrea Moro, Barbara Partee, David Perlmutter, David Pesetsky, Tanya Reinhart, John R. Ross, Ivan Sag, Edwin S. Williams
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In academia
- John Backus, Derek Bickerton, Julian C. Boyd, Daniel Dennett,[11] Daniel Everett, Jerry Fodor, Gilbert Harman, Marc Hauser, Norbert Hornstein, Niels Kaj Jerne, Donald Knuth, Georges J. F. Köhler, Peter Ludlow, Colin McGinn,[12] César Milstein, Steven Pinker,[13] John Searle,[14] Neil Smith, Crispin Wright[11]
In politics- Michael Albert, Julian Assange, Bono,[15] Jean Bricmont, Hugo Chávez, Zack de la Rocha, Clinton Fernandes, Norman Finkelstein, Robert Fisk, Amy Goodman, Stephen Jay Gould,[16] Glenn Greenwald, Christopher Hitchens,[15] Naomi Klein,[15] Kyle Kulinski,[17] Michael Moore,[15] John Nichols, Ann Nocenti,[18] John Pilger, Harold Pinter,[15] Arundhati Roy, Edward Said, Aaron Swartz[19]
Born to Ashkenazi Jewish immigrants in Philadelphia, Chomsky developed an early interest in anarchism from alternative bookstores in New York City. He studied at the University of Pennsylvania. During his postgraduate work in the Harvard Society of Fellows, Chomsky developed the theory of transformational grammar for which he earned his doctorate in 1955. That year he began teaching at MIT, and in 1957 emerged as a significant figure in linguistics with his landmark work Syntactic Structures, which played a major role in remodeling the study of language. From 1958 to 1959 Chomsky was a National Science Foundation fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study. He created or co-created the universal grammar theory, the generative grammar theory, the Chomsky hierarchy, and the minimalist program. Chomsky also played a pivotal role in the decline of linguistic behaviorism, and was particularly critical of the work of B. F. Skinner.
An outspoken opponent of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, which he saw as an act of American imperialism, in 1967 Chomsky rose to national attention for his anti-war essay "The Responsibility of Intellectuals". Becoming associated with the New Left, he was arrested multiple times for his activism and placed on President Richard Nixon's list of political opponents. While expanding his work in linguistics over subsequent decades, he also became involved in the linguistics wars. In collaboration with Edward S. Herman, Chomsky later articulated the propaganda model of media criticism in Manufacturing Consent, and worked to expose the Indonesian occupation of East Timor. His defense of unconditional freedom of speech, including that of Holocaust denial, generated significant controversy in the Faurisson affair of the 1980s. Chomsky's commentary on the Cambodian genocide and the Bosnian genocide also generated controversy. Since retiring from active teaching at MIT, he has continued his vocal political activism, including opposing the 2003 invasion of Iraq and supporting the Occupy movement. An anti-Zionist, Chomsky considers Israel's treatment of Palestinians to be worse than South African-style apartheid, and criticizes U.S. support for Israel.
Chomsky is widely recognized as having helped to spark the cognitive revolution in the human sciences, contributing to the development of a new cognitivistic framework for the study of language and the mind. Chomsky remains a leading critic of U.S. foreign policy, contemporary capitalism, U.S. involvement and Israel's role in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, and mass media. Chomsky and his ideas are highly influential in the anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist movements. He has been teaching at the University of Arizona since 2017.
Life
Childhood: 1928–1945
Chomsky was born on December 7, 1928, in the East Oak Lane neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.[20] His parents, William Chomsky and Elsie Simonofsky, were Jewish immigrants.[21] William had fled the Russian Empire in 1913 to escape conscription and worked in Baltimore sweatshops and Hebrew elementary schools before attending university.[22] After moving to Philadelphia, William became principal of the Congregation Mikveh Israel religious school and joined the Gratz College faculty. He placed great emphasis on educating people so that they would be "well integrated, free and independent in their thinking, concerned about improving and enhancing the world, and eager to participate in making life more meaningful and worthwhile for all", a mission that shaped and was subsequently adopted by his son.[23] Elsie, who also taught at Mikveh Israel, shared her leftist politics and care for social issues with her sons.[23]
Noam's only sibling, David Eli Chomsky (1934–2021), was born five years later, and worked as a cardiologist in Philadelphia.[23][24] The brothers were close, though David was more easygoing while Noam could be very competitive. They were raised Jewish, being taught Hebrew and regularly involved with discussing the political theories of Zionism; the family was particularly influenced by the Left Zionist writings of Ahad Ha'am.[25] He faced antisemitism as a child, particularly from Philadelphia's Irish and German communities.[26]
Chomsky attended the independent, Deweyite Oak Lane Country Day School[27] and Philadelphia's Central High School, where he excelled academically and joined various clubs and societies, but was troubled by the school's hierarchical and domineering teaching methods.[28] He also attended Hebrew High School at Gratz College, where his father taught.[29]
Chomsky has described his parents as "normal Roosevelt Democrats" with center-left politics, but relatives involved in the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union exposed him to socialism and far-left politics.[30] He was substantially influenced by his uncle and the Jewish leftists who frequented his New York City newspaper stand to debate current affairs.[31] Chomsky himself often visited left-wing and anarchist bookstores when visiting his uncle in the city, voraciously reading political literature.[32] He became absorbed in the story of the 1939 fall of Barcelona and suppression of the Spanish anarchosyndicalist movement, writing his first article on the topic at the age of 10.[33] That he came to identify with anarchism first rather than another leftist movement, he described as a "lucky accident".[34] Chomsky was firmly anti-Bolshevik by his early teens.[35]
Philosophy
Chomsky has also been active in a number of philosophical fields, including philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, and philosophy of science.[246] In these fields he is credited with ushering in the "cognitive revolution",[246] a significant paradigm shift that rejected logical positivism, the prevailing philosophical methodology of the time, and reframed how philosophers think about language and the mind.[168] Chomsky views the cognitive revolution as rooted in 17th-century rationalist ideals.[247] His position—the idea that the mind contains inherent structures to understand language, perception, and thought—has more in common with rationalism than behaviorism.[248] He named one of his key works Cartesian Linguistics: A Chapter in the History of Rationalist Thought (1966).[247] This sparked criticism from historians and philosophers who disagreed with Chomsky's interpretations of classical sources and use of philosophical terminology.[f] In the philosophy of language, Chomsky is particularly known for his criticisms of the notion of reference and meaning in human language and his perspective on the nature and function of mental representations.[249]
Chomsky's famous 1971 debate on human nature with the French philosopher Michel Foucault was a symbolic clash of the analytic and continental philosophy traditions, represented by Chomsky and Foucault, respectively.[98] It showed what appeared to be irreconcilable differences between two moral and intellectual luminaries of the 20th century. Foucault held that any definition of human nature is connected to our present-day conceptions of ourselves; Chomsky held that human nature contained universals such as a common standard of moral justice as deduced through reason.[250] Chomsky criticized postmodernism and French philosophy generally, arguing that the obscure language of postmodern, leftist philosophers gives little aid to the working classes.[251] He has also debated analytic philosophers, including Tyler Burge, Donald Davidson, Michael Dummett, Saul Kripke, Thomas Nagel, Hilary Putnam, Willard Van Orman Quine, and John Searle.[168]
Chomsky's contributions span intellectual and world history, including the history of philosophy.[252] Irony is a recurring characteristic of his writing, such as rhetorically implying that his readers already know something to be true, which engages the reader more actively in assessing the veracity of his claims.[253]
