Avram Noam Chomsky is an American linguist,
philosopher, cognitive scientist, logician,
political commentator and activist.
Sometimes described as the "father of modern
linguistics", Chomsky is also a major figure
in analytic philosophy.
He has spent most of his career at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, where he is currently
Professor Emeritus, and has authored over
100 books.
He has been described as a prominent cultural
figure, and was voted the "world's top public
intellectual" in a 2005 poll.
Born to a middle-class Ashkenazi Jewish family
in Philadelphia, Chomsky developed an early
interest in anarchism from relatives in New
York City.
He later undertook studies in linguistics
at the University of Pennsylvania, where he
obtained his BA, MA, and PhD, while from 1951
to 1955 he was appointed to Harvard University's
Society of Fellows.
In 1955 he began work at MIT, soon becoming
a significant figure in the field of linguistics
for his publications and lectures on the subject.
He is credited as the creator or co-creator
of the Chomsky hierarchy, the universal grammar
theory, and the Chomsky–Schützenberger
theorem.
Chomsky also played a major role in the decline
of behaviorism, and was especially critical
of the work of B.F. Skinner.
In 1967 he gained public attention for his
vocal opposition to U.S. involvement in the
Vietnam War, in part through his essay The
Responsibility of Intellectuals, and came
to be associated with the New Left while being
arrested on multiple occasions for his anti-war
activism.
While expanding his work in linguistics over
subsequent decades, he also developed the
propaganda model of media criticism with Edward
S. Herman.
Following his retirement from active teaching,
he has continued his vocal public activism,
praising the Occupy movement for example.
Chomsky has been a highly influential academic
figure throughout his career, and was cited
within the field of Arts and Humanities more
often than any other living scholar between
1980 and 1992.
He was also the eighth most cited scholar
overall within the Arts and Humanities Citation
Index during the same period.
His work has influenced fields such as artificial
intelligence, cognitive science, computer
science, logic, mathematics, music theory
and analysis, political science, programming
language theory and psychology.
Chomsky continues to be well known as a political
activist, and a leading critic of U.S. foreign
policy, state capitalism, and the mainstream
news media.
Ideologically, he aligns himself with anarcho-syndicalism
and libertarian socialism.
Early life
Childhood: 1928–45
Avram Noam Chomsky was born on December 7,
1928, in the affluent East Oak Lane neighborhood
of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
His father was the Ukrainian-born William
"Zev" Chomsky, an Ashkenazi Jew who had fled
to the United States in 1913 and his mother
was Elsie Simonofsky.
Having studied at Johns Hopkins University,
his father went on to become school principal
of the Congregation Mikveh Israel religious
school, and in 1924 was appointed to the faculty
at Gratz College in Philadelphia.
Independently, William researched Medieval
Hebrew, and would publish a series of books
on the subject.
William's wife, Elsie, was born in Belarus.
They met at Mikveh Israel, where both taught
Hebrew language classes.
Described as a "very warm, gentle, and engaging"
individual, William placed a great emphasis
on educating people so that they would be
"well integrated, free and independent in
their thinking, and eager to participate in
making life more meaningful and worthwhile
for all", a view subsequently adopted by his
son.
Noam was the Chomsky family's first child.
His younger brother, David Eli Chomsky, was
born five years later.
The brothers remained close, although David
was more easy-going while Noam could be very
competitive.
Chomsky's parents' first language was Yiddish,
but Chomsky said it was "taboo" in his family
to speak it.
Unlike her husband, Elsie spoke "ordinary
New York English".
The brothers were raised in this Jewish environment,
being taught Hebrew and regularly discussing
the political theories of Zionism; the family
were particularly influenced by the Left Zionist
writings of Ahad Ha'am.
Being Jewish, Noam Chomsky faced anti-semitism
as a child, particularly from the Irish and
German communities living in Philadelphia;
he recalls German "beer parties" celebrating
the fall of Paris to the Nazis.
Noam described his parents as "normal Roosevelt
Democrats", having a centre-left position
on the political spectrum, but he was exposed
to far left politics through other members
of the family, a number of whom were socialists
involved in the International Ladies' Garment
Workers' Union.
He was influenced largely by his uncle who
owned a newspaper stand in New York City where
Jewish leftists came to debate the issues
of the day.
Whenever visiting his relatives in New York
City, Chomsky frequented left-wing and anarchist
bookstores, voraciously reading political
literature.
He later described his discovery of anarchism
as a "lucky accident", allowing him to become
critical of other radical left-wing ideologies,
namely Marxism-Leninism.
Chomsky's primary education was at Oak Lane
Country Day School, an independent institution
that focused on allowing its pupils to pursue
their own interests in a non-competitive atmosphere.
It was here that he wrote his first article,
aged 10, on the spread of fascism, following
the fall of Barcelona in the Spanish Civil
War.
From the age of 12 or 13, he identified more
fully with anarchist politics.
Aged 12, he moved on to secondary education
at Central High School, where he joined various
clubs and societies but was troubled by the
hierarchical and regimented method of teaching
that they employed.
University: 1945–55
Aged 16, in 1945 Chomsky embarked on a general
program of study at the University of Pennsylvania,
where his primary interest was in learning
Arabic.
Living at home, he funded his undergraduate
degree by teaching Hebrew.
Although dissatisfied with the university's
strict structure, he was encouraged to continue
by the Russian-born linguist Zellig Harris,
who convinced Chomsky to major in the subject.
Chomsky's BA honor's thesis was titled "Morphophonemics
of Modern Hebrew", and revised it for his
MA thesis, which he attained at Penn in 1951;
it would subsequently be published as a book.
From 1951 to 1955 he was named to the Society
of Fellows at Harvard University while undertaking
his doctoral research.
Being highly critical of the established behaviourist
currents in linguistics, in 1954 he presented
his ideas at lectures given at the University
of Chicago and Yale University.
In 1955 he was awarded his PhD from the University
of Pennsylvania for a thesis setting out his
ideas on transformational grammar; it would
be published in 1975 as The Logical Structure
of Linguistic Theory.
In 1947, Chomsky entered into a romantic relationship
with Carol Doris Schatz, whom he had known
since they were toddlers.
They were married in 1949, and remained together
until her death in 2008.
They considered moving to Israel, and in 1953
spent six weeks at the HaZore'a kibbutz; although
enjoying himself, Chomsky was appalled by
the Jewish nationalism and anti-Arab racism
he encountered in the country, and the pro-Stalinist
trend that he thought pervaded the kibbutz's
leftist community.
On visits to New York City, Chomsky frequented
the office of Yiddish anarchist journal Freie
Arbeiter Stimme, becoming enamored with the
work of contributor Rudolf Rocker, whose work
introduced him to the link between anarchism
and classical liberalism.
Other political thinkers whose work Chomsky
read included the anarchist Diego Abad de
Santillán, democratic socialists George Orwell,
Bertrand Russell, and Dwight Macdonald, and
works by Marxists Karl Liebknecht, Karl Korsch,
and Rosa Luxemburg.
His readings convinced him of the desirability
of an anarcho-syndicalist society, and he
became fascinated by the anarcho-syndicalist
communes set up during the Spanish Civil War
documented in Orwell's Homage to Catalonia.
He avidly read leftist journal Politics, remarking
that it "answered to and developed" his interest
in anarchism, as well as the periodical Living
Marxism, published by council communist Paul
Mattick.
Although rejecting its Marxist basis, Chomsky
was heavily influenced by council communism,
voraciously reading articles in Living Marxism
written by Antonie Pannekoek.
He was greatly interested in the Marlenite
ideas of the Leninist League, an anti-Stalinist
Marxist-Leninist group, sharing their views
that the Second World War was orchestrated
by Western capitalists and the Soviet Union's
"state capitalists" to crush Europe's proletariat.
Early career: 1955–1966
In 1955, Chomsky obtained a job as an assistant
professor at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, spending half his time on a mechanical
translation project and the other half teaching
linguistics and philosophy.
He later described MIT as "a pretty free and
open place, open to experimentation and without
rigid requirements.
It was just perfect for someone of my idiosyncratic
interests and work."
In 1957 MIT promoted him to the position of
assistant professor, while from 1957–58
he was also employed by New York City's Columbia
University as a visiting professor.
That same year, the Chomsky's first child
was born, and he published his first work
on linguistics, Syntactic Structures, a book
that radically opposed the dominant Harris-Bloomfield
trend in the field.
The response to Chomsky's ideas ranged from
indifference to hostility, and his work proved
divisive and caused "significant upheaval"
in the discipline.
Linguist John Lyons later asserted that it
"revolutionized the scientific study of language."
From 1958–59 Chomsky was a National Science
Foundation fellow at Princeton University's
Institute for Advanced Study.
In 1959 he attracted further attention for
his review of B.F. Skinner's 1957 book Verbal
Behavior in the journal Language, in which
he argued that Skinner ignored the role of
human creativity in linguistics.
Becoming an "established intellectual", with
his colleague Morris Halle, he founded the
MIT's Graduate Program in linguistics, and
in 1961 he was made professor of foreign language
and linguistics, thereby gaining academic
tenure.
He was appointed plenary speaker at the Ninth
International Congress of Linguists, held
in 1962 at Cambridge, Massachusetts; the event
established him as the de facto spokesperson
of American linguistics.
He continued to publish his linguistic ideas
throughout the decade, as Aspects of the Theory
of Syntax, Topics in the Theory of Generative
Grammar, and Cartesian Linguistics: A Chapter
in the History of Linguistic Thought.
Along with Halle, he also edited the Studies
in Language Series of books for Harper and
Row.
He continued to receive academic recognition
and honors for his work, in 1966 visiting
a variety of Californian institutions, first
as the Linguistics Society of America Professor
at the University of California, and then
as the Beckman Professor at the University
of California, Berkeley.
His Beckman lectures would be assembled and
published as Language and Mind in 1968.
Rise to prominence
Anti-Vietnam War activism: 1967–1975
1967 marked Chomsky's entry into the public
debate on the United States' foreign policy.
In February he published an influential essay
in The New York Review of Books titled The
Responsibility of Intellectuals, in which
he criticized the country's involvement in
the Vietnam War.
He expanded on his argument to produce his
first political book, American Power and the
New Mandarins, which was published in 1969
and soon established him at the forefront
of American dissent.
In 1971 he gave the Bertrand Russell Memorial
Lectures in Cambridge, which were published
as Problems of Knowledge and Freedom later
that year, while other political books at
the time included At War with Asia and For
Reasons of State.
Coming to be associated with the American
New Left movement, he nevertheless thought
little of prominent New Left intellectuals
Herbert Marcuse and Erich Fromm, and preferred
the company of activists to intellectuals.
Although he had initially arisen to attention
for his political views in The New York Review
of Books, throughout the late 1960s and early
1970s, he was virtually ignored by the mainstream
press.
Along with his writings, Chomsky also became
actively involved in left-wing activism.
Refusing to pay half his taxes, in 1967 he
publicly supported students who refused the
draft, and was arrested for being part of
an anti-war teach-in outside the Pentagon.
During this time Chomsky founded the anti-war
collective RESIST along with Mitchell Goodman,
Denise Levertov, William Sloane Coffin, and
Dwight Macdonald.
Supporting the student protest movement, he
gave many lectures to student activist groups,
though questioned the objectives of the 1968
student protests.
Along with colleague Louis Kampf, he also
began running undergraduate courses on politics
at MIT, independent of the conservative-dominated
political science department.
His public talks often generated considerable
controversy, particularly when he criticized
actions of the Israeli government and military.
His political views came under attack from
right-wing and centrist figures, the most
prominent of whom was Alan Dershowitz; Chomsky
considered Dershowitz "a complete liar" and
accused him of actively misrepresenting his
position on issues.
As a result of his anti-war activism, Chomsky
was arrested on multiple occasions, and U.S.
President Richard Nixon included him on his
Enemies' List.
He was aware of the potential repercussions
of his activism, and so his wife began training
to become an academic in order to support
the family in the event of Chomsky's unemployment
or imprisonment.
Although under some pressure to do so, MIT
refused to fire him due to his influential
standing in the field of linguistics.
His work in this area continued to gain international
recognition: in 1967 the University of London
awarded him an honorary D. Litt while the
University of Chicago gave him an honorary
D.H.L.
In 1970, Loyola University and Swarthmore
College also awarded him honorary D.H.L.'s,
as did Bard College in 1971, Delhi University
in 1972, and the University of Massachusetts
in 1973.
In 1974 he became a corresponding fellow of
the British Academy.
Chomsky continued to write on the subject,
publishing Studies on Semantics in Generative
Grammar.
In 1971 he carried out a televised interview
with French philosopher Michel Foucault on
Dutch television; he largely agreed with Foucault's
ideas, but was critical of post-modernism
and French philosophy generally, lambasting
France as having "a highly parochial and remarkably
illiterate culture."
Work on the media: 1976–1989
Throughout the late 1970s and 1980s, Chomsky's
publications expanded and clarified his earlier
work, addressing his critics and updating
his grammatical theory.
In 1979, Chomsky and Herman published the
two-volume The Political Economy of Human
Rights, comparing U.S. media reactions to
the Cambodian genocide and the Indonesian
occupation of East Timor.
They argued that because Indonesia was a U.S.
ally, U.S. media ignored the East Timorian
situation while focusing on that in Cambodia,
a U.S. enemy.
The following year, Steven Lukas wrote an
article for the Times Higher Education Supplement
accusing Chomsky of betraying his anarchist
ideals and acting as an apologist for Cambodian
leader Pol Pot.
Although Laura J. Summers and Robin Woodsworth
Carlsen replied to the article, arguing that
Lukas completely misunderstood Chomsky and
Herman's work, Chomsky himself did not.
The controversy damaged his reputation.
Chomsky maintained that his critics printed
lies about him to discredit his reputation.
Although Chomsky had long publicly criticised
Nazism and totalitarianism more generally,
his commitment to freedom of speech led him
to defend the right of French historian Robert
Faurisson to advocate a position widely characterised
as Holocaust denial.
Chomsky's plea for the historian's freedom
of speech would be published as the preface
to Faurisson's 1980 book Mémoire en défense
contre ceux qui m'accusent de falsifier l'histoire.
Chomsky was widely condemned for defending
Faurisson.
France's mainstream press accused Chomsky
of being a Holocaust denier himself, and refused
to publish his rebuttals to their accusations.
The Faurrison Affair had a lasting, damaging
effect on Chomsky's career; Werner Cohn's
Partners in Hate: Noam Chomsky and the Holocaust
Deniers contained numerous falsified claims.
Increased political activism: 1990–present
In the 1990s, Chomsky embraced political activism
to a greater degree than before.
His far-reaching criticisms of U.S. foreign
policy and the legitimacy of U.S. power have
raised controversy.
Chomsky has received death threats because
of his criticisms of U.S. foreign policy.
He has often received undercover police protection
at MIT and when speaking on the Middle East,
although he has refused uniformed police protection.
The Electronic Intifada website claims that
the Anti-Defamation League "spied on" Chomsky's
appearances, and quotes Chomsky as being unsurprised
at that discovery or the use of what Chomsky
claims is "fantasy material" provided to Alan
Dershowitz for debating him.
Amused, Chomsky compares the ADL's reports
to FBI files.
Chomsky resides in Lexington, Massachusetts,
and travels, giving lectures on politics and
linguistics.
Linguistic theory
The basis to Chomsky's linguistic theory is
that the principles underlying the structure
of language are biologically determined in
the human mind and hence genetically transmitted.
He therefore argues that all humans share
the same underlying linguistic structure,
irrespective of socio-cultural difference.
In this he opposes the radical behaviourist
psychology of B.F. Skinner, instead arguing
that human language is unlike modes of communication
used by any other animal species.
Chomskyan linguistics, beginning with his
Syntactic Structures, a distillation of his
Logical Structure of Linguistic Theory, challenges
structural linguistics and introduces transformational
grammar.
This approach takes utterances to have a syntax
characterized by a formal grammar; in particular,
a context-free grammar extended with transformational
rules.
Perhaps his most influential and time-tested
contribution to the field is the claim that
modeling knowledge of language using a formal
grammar accounts for the "productivity" or
"creativity" of language.
In other words, a formal grammar of a language
can explain the ability of a hearer-speaker
to produce and interpret an infinite number
of utterances, including novel ones, with
a limited set of grammatical rules and a finite
set of terms.
He has always acknowledged his debt to Pāṇini
for his modern notion of an explicit generative
grammar, although it is also related to rationalist
ideas of a priori knowledge.
A popular misconception is that Chomsky proved
that language is entirely innate, and that
he discovered a "universal grammar".
Chomsky simply observed that while a human
baby and a kitten are both capable of inductive
reasoning, if they are exposed to exactly
the same linguistic data, the human will always
acquire the ability to understand and produce
language, while the kitten will never acquire
either ability.
Chomsky labeled whatever the relevant capacity
the human has that the cat lacks as the language
acquisition device, and he suggested that
one of the tasks for linguistics should be
to determine what the LAD is and what constraints
it imposes on the range of possible human
languages.
The universal features that would result from
these constraints are often termed "universal
grammar" or UG.
Though Chomsky generated the universal grammar
theory with the belief that language is uniquely
human, a series of studies from various laboratories
have shown the existence of acquired language
in several great ape species, including common
chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans.
Thus, great apes at least partially possess
whatever mental functions might underlie the
LAD, and are therefore important species of
study for exploring the neural basis of language.
Chomsky's ideas have had a strong influence
on researchers of language acquisition in
children, though many researchers in this
area such as Elizabeth Bates and Michael Tomasello
argue very strongly against Chomsky's theories,
and instead advocate emergentist or connectionist
theories, explaining language with a number
of general processing mechanisms in the brain
that interact with the extensive and complex
social environment in which language is used
and learned.
Generative grammar
The Chomskyan approach towards syntax, often
termed generative grammar, studies grammar
as a body of knowledge possessed by language
users.
Since the 1960s, Chomsky has maintained that
much of this knowledge is innate, implying
that children need only learn certain parochial
features of their native languages.
The innate body of linguistic knowledge is
often termed universal grammar.
From Chomsky's perspective, the strongest
evidence for the existence of Universal Grammar
is simply the fact that children successfully
acquire their native languages in so little
time.
Furthermore, he argues that there is an enormous
gap between the linguistic stimuli to which
children are exposed and the rich linguistic
knowledge they attain.
The knowledge of Universal Grammar would serve
to bridge that gap.
Chomsky's theories have been immensely influential
within linguistics, but they have also received
criticism.
One recurring criticism of the Chomskyan variety
of generative grammar is that it is Anglocentric
and Eurocentric, and that often linguists
working in this tradition have a tendency
to base claims about Universal Grammar on
a very small sample of languages, sometimes
just one.
Initially, the Eurocentrism was exhibited
in an overemphasis on the study of English.
However, hundreds of different languages have
now received at least some attention within
Chomskyan linguistic analyses.
In spite of the diversity of languages that
have been characterized by UG derivations,
critics continue to argue that the formalisms
within Chomskyan linguistics are Anglocentric
and misrepresent the properties of languages
that are different from English.
Thus, Chomsky's approach has been criticized
as a form of linguistic imperialism.
In addition, Chomskyan linguists rely heavily
on the intuitions of native speakers regarding
which sentences of their languages are well-formed.
This practice has been criticized on general
methodological grounds.
Some psychologists and psycholinguists, though
sympathetic to Chomsky's overall program,
have argued that Chomskyan linguists pay insufficient
attention to experimental data from language
processing, with the consequence that their
theories are not psychologically plausible.
Other critics have questioned whether it is
necessary to posit Universal Grammar to explain
child language acquisition, arguing that domain-general
learning mechanisms are sufficient.
Today there are many different branches of
generative grammar.
One can view grammatical frameworks such as
head-driven phrase structure grammar, lexical
functional grammar, and combinatory categorial
grammar as broadly Chomskyan and generative
in orientation, but with significant differences
in execution.
Chomsky hierarchy
Chomsky is famous for investigating various
kinds of formal languages and whether or not
they might be capable of capturing key properties
of human language.
His Chomsky hierarchy partitions formal grammars
into classes, or groups, with increasing expressive
power, i.e., each successive class can generate
a broader set of formal languages than the
one before.
Interestingly, Chomsky argues that modeling
some aspects of human language requires a
more complex formal grammar than modeling
others.
For example, while a regular language is powerful
enough to model English morphology, it is
not powerful enough to model English syntax.
In addition to being relevant in linguistics,
the Chomsky hierarchy has also become important
in computer science.
Indeed, there is an equivalence between the
Chomsky language hierarchy and the different
kinds of automata.
Thus theorems about languages are often dealt
with as either languages or automata.
Political views
Chomsky's political views have changed little
since his childhood.
His ideological position revolves around "nourishing
the libertarian and creative character of
the human being", and he has described his
beliefs as "fairly traditional anarchist ones,
with origins in the Enlightenment and classical
liberalism."
He has praised libertarian socialism, and
has described himself as an anarcho-syndicalist.
He is a member of the Campaign for Peace and
Democracy and the Industrial Workers of the
World international union.
Chomsky is also a member of the interim consultative
committee of the International Organization
for a Participatory Society, which he describes
as having the potential to "...carry us a
long way towards unifying the many initiatives
here and around the world and molding them
into a powerful and effective force."
He advocates popular struggle for greater
democracy.
He has stated his opposition to ruling elites,
among them institutions like the IMF, World
Bank, and GATT.
Chomsky asserts that authority, unless justified,
is inherently illegitimate, and that the burden
of proof is on those in authority.
If this burden can't be met, the authority
in question should be dismantled.
Authority for its own sake is inherently unjustified.
An example given by Chomsky of a legitimate
authority is that exerted by an adult to prevent
a young child from wandering into traffic.
He contends that there is little moral difference
between chattel slavery and renting one's
self to an owner or "wage slavery".
He feels that it is an attack on personal
integrity that undermines individual freedom.
He holds that workers should own and control
their workplace.
Chomsky is critical of both the American state
capitalist system and the authoritarian branches
of socialism.
He argues that libertarian socialist values
are the proper extension of classical liberalism
to an advanced industrial context, and that
society should be highly organized and based
on democratic control of communities and work
places.
He views the radical humanist ideas of his
two major influences, Bertrand Russell and
John Dewey, as "rooted in the Enlightenment
and classical liberalism, while retaining
their revolutionary character."
Chomsky has strongly criticized the foreign
policy of the United States.
He claims double standards in a foreign policy
preaching democracy and freedom for all while
allying itself with non-democratic and repressive
organizations and states such as Chile under
Augusto Pinochet and argues that this results
in massive human rights violations.
He often argues that America's intervention
in foreign nations — including secret aid
the U.S. gave to the Contras in Nicaragua,
an event he has been critical of — fits
any standard description of terrorism, including
"official definitions in the US Code and Army
Manuals in the early 1980s."
Before its collapse, Chomsky also condemned
Soviet imperialism; for example in 1986 during
a question/answer following a lecture he gave
at Universidad Centroamericana in Nicaragua,
when challenged about how he could "talk about
North American imperialism and Russian imperialism
in the same breath," Chomsky responded: "One
of the truths about the world is that there
are two superpowers, one a huge power which
happens to have its boot on your neck; another,
a smaller power which happens to have its
boot on other people's necks.
I think that anyone in the Third World would
be making a grave error if they succumbed
to illusions about these matters."
Martha Nussbaum criticizes Chomsky for failing
to condemn atrocities by leftist insurgents
because "for some leftists … one should
not criticize one's friends, that solidarity
is more important than ethical correctness."
Chomsky has a broad view of free-speech rights,
especially in the mass media, and opposes
censorship.
He has stated that "with regard to freedom
of speech there are basically two positions:
you defend it vigorously for views you hate,
or you reject it and prefer Stalinist/fascist
standards".
With reference to the United States diplomatic
cables leak, Chomsky suggested that "perhaps
the most dramatic revelation ... is the bitter
hatred of democracy that is revealed both
by the U.S.
Government – Hillary Clinton, others –
and also by the diplomatic service."
Chomsky refuses to take legal action against
those who may have libeled him and prefers
to counter libels through open letters in
newspapers.
One example of this approach is his response
to an article by Emma Brockes in The Guardian
at the end of October 2005, which alleged
that he had denied the Srebrenica massacre
in 1995.
At issue was Chomsky's attitude to the writings
of journalist Diana Johnstone on the subject.
His complaint prompted The Guardian to publish
an apologetic correction and to withdraw the
article from the paper's website, which remains
available on his own website.
Nick Cohen has criticised Chomsky for frequently
making overly critical statements about Western
governments, especially the US, and for allegedly
refusing to retract his speculations when
facts become available that disprove them.
Debates
Chomsky has been known to defend vigorously
and debate his views and opinions, in philosophy,
linguistics, and politics.
He has had notable debates with Jean Piaget,
Michel Foucault, William F. Buckley, Jr.,
Christopher Hitchens, George Lakoff, Richard
Perle, Hilary Putnam, Willard Van Orman Quine,
John Maynard Smith, and Alan Dershowitz, to
name a few.
The Guardian said of Chomsky's debating ability,
"His boldness and clarity infuriates opponents—academe
is crowded with critics who have made twerps
of themselves taking him on."
In response to his speaking style being criticized
as boring, Chomsky said, "I'm a boring speaker
and I like it that way. ...
I doubt that people are attracted to whatever
the persona is. ...
People are interested in the issues, and they're
interested in the issues because they are
important."
"We don't want to be swayed by superficial
eloquence, by emotion and so on."
Personal life
Chomsky endeavors to keep his family life
strictly separate from his political activism
and career, and considers himself "scrupulous
at keeping my politics out of the classroom."
He is uninterested in appearances and the
fame that his work has brought him.
He also has little interest in art and music,
though he does enjoy reading non-fiction literature.
Chomsky is known for his "dry, laconic wit",
although he has attracted controversy for
labeling established political and academic
figures with terms like "corrupt", "fascist",
and "fraudulent".
When asked if he is an atheist, Chomsky replied
"What is it that I'm supposed to not believe
in?
Until you can answer that question I can't
tell you whether I'm an atheist."
Chomsky was married to Carol Doris Schatz
from 1949 until her death in 2008.
They had 3 children together: Aviva, Diane
and Harry.
Influence
Chomsky's legacy is as both a "leader in the
field" of linguistics and "a figure of enlightenment
and inspiration" for political dissenters.
Linguist John Lyons remarked that within a
few decades of publication, Chomskyan linguistics
had become "the most dynamic and influential"
school of thought in the field.
Chomskyan models have been used as a theoretical
basis in various fields of study.
The Chomsky hierarchy is often taught in fundamental
computer science courses as it confers insight
into the various types of formal languages.
This hierarchy can also be discussed in mathematical
terms and has generated interest among mathematicians,
particularly combinatorialists.
Some arguments in evolutionary psychology
are derived from his research results.
Chomsky's work in linguistics has had implications
for modern psychology.
Nim Chimpsky, a chimpanzee who was the subject
of a study in animal language acquisition
at Columbia University, was named after Chomsky
in reference to his view of language acquisition
as a uniquely human ability.
The 1984 Nobel Prize laureate in Medicine
and Physiology, Niels Kaj Jerne, used Chomsky's
generative model to explain the human immune
system, equating "components of a generative
grammar ... with various features of protein
structures".
The title of Jerne's Stockholm Nobel Lecture
was "The Generative Grammar of the Immune
System".
Computer scientist Donald Knuth read Syntactic
Structures during his honeymoon and was influenced
by it.
"I must admit to taking a copy of Noam Chomsky's
Syntactic Structures along with me on my honeymoon
in 1961 ... Here was a marvelous thing: a
mathematical theory of language in which I
could use a computer programmer's intuition!"
Academic achievements, awards, and honors
In early 1969, he delivered the John Locke
Lectures at Oxford University; in January
1970, the Bertrand Russell Memorial Lecture
at University of Cambridge; in 1972, the Nehru
Memorial Lecture in New Delhi; in 1977, the
Huizinga Lecture in Leiden; in 1988 the Massey
Lectures at the University of Toronto, titled
"Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic
Societies"; in 1997, The Davie Memorial Lecture
on Academic Freedom in Cape Town, in 2011,
the Rickman Godlee Lecture at University College,
London many others.
Chomsky has received many honorary degrees
from universities around the world, including
from the following:
He is a member of the American Academy of
Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of
Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society.
In addition, he is a member of other professional
and learned societies in the United States
and abroad, and is a recipient of the Distinguished
Scientific Contribution Award of the American
Psychological Association, the Kyoto Prize
in Basic Sciences, the Helmholtz Medal, the
Dorothy Eldridge Peacemaker Award, the 1999
Benjamin Franklin Medal in Computer and Cognitive
Science, and others.
He is twice winner of The Orwell Award, granted
by The National Council of Teachers of English
for "Distinguished Contributions to Honesty
and Clarity in Public Language".
He is a member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences
and Arts in Department of Social Sciences.
In 2005, Chomsky received an honorary fellowship
from the Literary and Historical Society.
In 2007, Chomsky received The Uppsala University
Honorary Doctor's degree in commemoration
of Carolus Linnaeus.
In February 2008, he received the President's
Medal from the Literary and Debating Society
of the National University of Ireland, Galway.
Since 2009 he is an honorary member of IAPTI.
In 2010, Chomsky received the Erich Fromm
Prize in Stuttgart, Germany.
In April 2010, Chomsky became the third scholar
to receive the University of Wisconsin's A.E.
Havens Center's Award for Lifetime Contribution
to Critical Scholarship.
Chomsky has an Erdős number of four.
Chomsky was voted the leading living public
intellectual in The 2005 Global Intellectuals
Poll conducted by the British magazine Prospect.
He reacted, saying "I don't pay a lot of attention
to polls".
In a list compiled by the magazine New Statesman
in 2006, he was voted seventh in the list
of "Heroes of our time".
Actor Viggo Mortensen with avant-garde guitarist
Buckethead dedicated their 2006 album, called
Pandemoniumfromamerica, to Chomsky.
On January 22, 2010, a special honorary concert
for Chomsky was given at Kresge Auditorium
at MIT.
The concert, attended by Chomsky and dozens
of his family and friends, featured music
composed by Edward Manukyan and speeches by
Chomsky's colleagues, including David Pesetsky
of MIT and Gennaro Chierchia, head of the
linguistics department at Harvard University.
In June 2011, Chomsky was awarded the Sydney
Peace Prize, which cited his "...unfailing
courage, critical analysis of power and promotion
of human rights."
In 2011, Chomsky was inducted into IEEE Intelligent
Systems' AI's Hall of Fame for the "significant
contributions to the field of AI and intelligent
systems".
In 2013, a newly described species of bee
was named after him: Megachile chomskyi.
Bibliography
Filmography
See also
American philosophy
Axiom of categoricity
Colorless green ideas sleep furiously
English studies
Knowledge worker
List of American philosophers
List of important publications in computability
List of peace activists
The Anti-Chomsky Reader
References
Footnotes
Bibliography
External links
Official website
Noam Chomsky at MIT
Noam Chomsky at DMOZ
Noam Chomsky articles on libcom.org
Noam Chomsky at Democracy Now!
Column archive at The Guardian
Appearances on C-SPAN
In Depth interview with Chomsky, June 1, 2003
Noam Chomsky at the Internet Movie Database
Works by or about Noam Chomsky in libraries
Noam Chomsky at ZSpace
Noam Chomsky: Politics or Science?
Articles and videos featuring Noam Chomsky
at AnarchismToday.org
Noam Chomsky collected news and commentary
at The Guardian
Noam Chomsky collected news and commentary
at The Jerusalem Post
Noam Chomsky collected news and commentary
at The New York Times
Noam Chomsky at the Mathematics Genealogy
Project
Noam Chomsky at the AI Genealogy Project.
Interviews and articles
Talks by Noam Chomsky at A-Infos Radio Project
Interview about Human Rights by scholars – 2009
Interview with Noam Chomsky, 'Human nature
and the origins of language.'
Radical Anthropology 2008.
Chomsky media files at the Internet Archive
Noam Chomsky interviewed by Alyssa McDonald
on New Statesman, September 2010.
The Real News interviews with Chomsky: 2007-2010
and June 2014
Noam Chomsky on Where Artificial Intelligence
Went Wrong – interview in The Atlantic,
November 2012
A Brief History of Anarchism.
Noam Chomsky, In These Times.
January 9, 2014.
American Socrates.
Interviewed by Chris Hedges for Truthdig,
June 15, 2014.
