Noam Chomsky

From Philosopedia

Chomsky, Avram Noam (7 December 1928— )

Arguably the most outspoken American linguist, Chomsky is the son of Ukrainian-born William Chomsky and Elsie Simonofsky Chomsky, who was born in what now is Belarus. Although their first language was Yiddish, the family considered it taboo to speak it. His father was a Hebrew scholar and member of the International Workers of the World (IWW, sometimes referred to as Wobblies). His mother grew up in the United States and spoke "ordinary New York English."

As a boy born in the East Oak Lane neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, he found life was like living in a sort of "Jewish ghetto," one with a "Yiddish side" and one with a "Hebrew side" - his family aligned with the Hebrew side, and he has written that he was "immersed in Hebrew culture and literature." Chomsky once told an interviewer that growing up with Irish Catholics and anti-Semitism in the mid-1930s, "I don't like to say it but I grew up with a kind of visceral fear of Catholics. I know it was irrational and got over it, but it was just the street experience.

Dr. Carol Chomsky, who taught for many years at Harvard's Graduate School of Education and wrote oft-cited articles about how young children learn to read

Marriage

Chomsky studied philosophy and linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania, receiving his Ph. D. in linguistics in 1955. In 1949, he married linguist Carol Doris Schatz (born 1 July 1930)

They had two daughters, Aviva Chomsky (born 1957, a professor of Latin American history at Salem State College in Salem, Massachusetts) and Diane Chomsky (born 1960, who lives in Mexico City, Mexico), and a son, Harry Chomsky (born 1967, who lives in Albany, California).

Mrs. Chomsky, who had taught language at Harvard, died of cancer on 19 December 2008. She was survived by a brother, Leonard Schatz of Burlington, Massachusetts, and five grandchildren. Mrs. Chomsky contrasted her brand of linguistics - practical, experimental, hands-on - with her husband's abstract, quasi-mathematical approach, telling The Pennsylvania Gazette in a 2001 interview,

• It's a very different sort of "linguistics" from Noam's pursuits. I always have to laugh when people talk about how interesting our dinner-table conversation must be since we're in the same field.

Like her husband, Mrs. Chomsky was a humanities humanist and not a member of any organized religious group.

MIT and the Bertrand Russell Society

In 1955, he joined the staff of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and in 1961 was appointed full professor in the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics (now the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy).

Chomsky was an honorary member of the Bertrand Russell Society.

On Generative Grammar

Chomsky has created a theory called generative grammar or transformational grammar, which looks at language from a descriptive, not a prescriptive, point of view. Involved is a way to describe a native speaker's tacit grammatical knowledge, using a system of rules.

Phrase-structures of sentences are described, and it is found that all languages have a deep structure but one that differs because of different rules for transfomations, pronunciation, and word insertion.

Unlike the structural linguists, who study language by starting with minimal sounds, Chomsky posited a rudimentary or primitive sentence, from which many syntactic combinations evolved through a series of transformational rules.

In a 31 January 2006 note to Warren Allen Smith, responding to some people's views that "The Chomskyan generative grammar was a theory that focused almost exclusively on syntax, or the rules of sentence formation, Chomsky wrote:

• Generative grammar from the outset until today was concerned primarily with meaning and logic. Generative semantics was a technical proposal as to how to deal with this common theme, as distinct from others. My own proposals were not actually what is described in the sentence about [the Chomskyan generative grammar theory], but I realize that this is not a technical article. As for deep and surface structure, they were conceived somewhat differently in the generative semantics technical variant of generative grammar, and called by different names - sometimes "underlying" and "surface" structure. There is a lot of confusion about this, but a look at the actual technical material reveals very little difference in general outlook.

A rival view, such as that advanced at the University of Chicago by James McCawley, was called generative semantics and held that the study of grammar must necessarily involve the study of logic and meaning as well.

On Politics

Chomsky was one of the leading opponents of the Vietnam War, writing "The Responsibility of Intellectuals" in The New York Review of Books in 1967.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez

He has continued criticizing U.S. foreign policy and the legitimacy of U.S. foreign policy. During a U.N. address by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in September 2006, Chavez held up a copy of Chomsky's Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance, advising the people of the United States to read the book, addling, later, "instead of watching Superman movies." The book, originally published in 2003, immediately jumped to the top 10 list of book sales and the publisher (Metropolitan Books, an imprint of Henry Holt) started printing an additional paperback printing of 25,000 copies.

Long an opponent of U.S. foreign policy, Chomsky wrote 9-11, a best-selling collection of interviews, and Failed States, which details his negative criticism.

On Religion

Chomsky addressed the Fifth International Humanist and Ethical Union World Congress held in Boston (1970). He does not hide his atheism, skepticism, and rationalism.

In 1995, Chomsky became an Honorary Associate of the Rationalist Press Association. Speaking at the opening plenary of the 1999 Socialist Scholars Conference in New York City, he cited Thomas Paine as an inspiration, then detailed why freedom without opportunity is a dubious gift - the United States aid to the poor is the most miserly in the world, he lamented, suggesting that the International Monetary Fund is not on the side of the world’s poor despite its claims.

Chomsky has called the Bible “probably the most genocidal book ever written.” Noting polls that show large percentages of Americans believing the Bible, he lamented that

• the figures are shocking. Three-quarters of the American population literally believe in religious miracles. The numbers who believe in the devil, in resurrection, in God doing this and that—it’s astonishing. These numbers aren’t duplicated anywhere else in the industrial world. You’d have to maybe go to mosques in Iran or do a poll among old ladies in Sicily to get numbers like this. Yet this is the American population.

On Humanism

In an interview with David Niose in The Humanist (January-February 2007), Chomsky told of his admiration for naturalist and philosopher Wilhelm von Humboldt:

• One of the historical figures whom I very much admire, and whose work is in some sense an early precursor of my own, is in some sense an early precursor of my own, is Wilhelm von Humboldt. He was one of the founders of modern linguistics, and in fact a founder of the German higher educational system. He wasn't a humanist in our terms, but in the eighteenth century was an initiator of what became secular humanism. Yes, I regard myself as being in that tradition. As for scientific naturalism in the books, I don't know of any other way to approach issues.

• When people ask me, as they sometimes do, "Are you an atheist?" I can only respond that I can't answer because I don't know what it is they're asking me. When people say, "Do you believe in God?" what do they mean by it? Do I believe in some spiritual force in the world? In a way, yes. People have thoughts, emotions. If you want to call that a spiritual force, okay. But unless there's some clarification of what we're supposed to believe in or disbelieve in, I can't answer. Does one believe in a single god? Not if you believe in the Old Testament. A lot of it's polytheistic; it becomes monotheistic later on. Take the First Commandment, which presupposes that there are in fact other gods. It says, "You shall have no other gods before me." Well, if there aren't any other gods you can't say that. And, yes, it's coming from a polytheistic period, a period when the god of the Jews was the war god and they were supported to worship him above all other gods. And he was genocidal, as you'd expect a war god to be.

He also explained how the notion of fundamentalism was founded here by people who could be described as religious extremists, and he included the Pilgrims.

Writings

Leibniz’s New Essays Concerning Human Understanding (1704) defended “innate ideas” against Locke’s attack, and Chomsky revived the concept of “innate ideas” in his Cartesian Linguistics: A Chapter in the History of Rationalist Thought (1966).

A list of his many books and articles is found on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology website [[1]].

Seleced Bibliography

• (1964). Current issues in linguistic theory. The Hague: Mouton.
• (1965). Aspects of the theory of syntax. Cambridge: M.I.T. Press.
• (1966). Cartesian linguistics: a chapter in the history of rationalist thought. New York: Harper & Row.
• (1966). Topics in the theory of generative grammar. The Hague: Mouton.
• (1966). Perspectives on Vietnam: [microform] / speech / by Noam Chomsky as part of a program presented by the Faculty Peace Committee, November 10, 1966, at the University of California - Berkeley. Berkeley: Academic Publishing.
• (1968). Language and mind. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World.
• (1968). Syntactic structures. The Hague: Mouton.
• (1969). American Power and the New Mandarins. Harmondsworth, England: Penguin.
• (1969). I nuovi mandarini; gli intellettuali e il potere in America. Torino: G. Einaudi.
• (1969) L'Amerique et ses Nouveaux Mandarins. Paris, Editions du Seuil
• (1970). "Notes on Anarchism," New York Review of Books. v. 14, no 10, May 21, 1970, pp. 31-35.
• (1970). At war with Asia. New York: Pantheon Books.
• (1970). Two essays on Cambodia. Nottingham: Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation for The Spokesman.
• (1971). Chomsky: selected readings. edited by J. P. B. Allen and Paul Van Buren. London, New York: Oxford University Press.
• (1971). Problems of knowledge and freedom. New York: Pantheon Books.
• (1972). Jakobson, Roman, Halle, Morris. Hypothèses, trois entretiens et trois etudes sur la linguistique et la poétique. [Traduction,] présentations et contributions de Jean-Pierre Faye, Jean Paris, Jacques Roubaud, Mitsou Ronat. Paris: Seghers, Laffont.
• (1972). Language and mind. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
• (1972). Studies on semantics in generative grammar. The Hague: Mouton.
• (1972). Syntactic structures. The Hague: Mouton.
• (1973). Conoscenza e libertá. Torino: Einaudi.
• (1973). For reasons of state. New York: Pantheon Books.
• (1974). Peace in the Middle East? Reflections on justice and nationhood. New York: Vintage Books.
• (1974). Proceso contra Skinner. Barcelona: Editorial Anagrama.
• (1975). The logical structure of linguistic theory. New York: Plenum Press.
• (1975). Reflections on language. New York: Pantheon Books.
• (1977). Essays on form and interpretation. New York: North-Holland.
• (1978). Human Rights and American Foreign Policy. Nottingham: Spokesman Books.
• (1978). Intellectuals and the state. Baarn: Wereldvesten Vigier, Jean-Pierre
• (1978). Verso la terza guerra mondiale? Milano: Gabriele Mazzotta. Translation from French by Sergio Mancini. Reprint. Originally published: Paris: François Maspero, 1976.
• (1979). with Herman, E. S.. After the cataclysm: postwar Indochina and the reconstruction of imperial ideology. Boston: South End Press.
• (1979). Language and responsibility: based on conversations with Mitson Ronat. translated from the French by John Viertel. New York: Pantheon Books.
• (1979). Morphophonemics of modern Hebrew. New York: Garland Publishing Co. (136 Madison Ave. NYC 10016).
• (1979) with Herman, Edward S. The political economy of human rights. Montreal: Black Rose.
• (1979). Reflexiones sobre el lenguaje. traducción de Joan A. Argente y Josep M. Nadal. Barcelona: Editorial Ariel.
• (1979). The Washington connection and Third World fascism. Boston: South End Press.
• (1981). Lectures on government and binding. Dordrecht: Foris.
• (1981). Radical priorities. Montreal: Black Rose Books.
• (1982). Some concepts and consequences of the theory of government and binding. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
• (1982). Superpowers in collision: the cold war now. Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England; New York, N.Y.: Penguin.
• (1982).Towards a new cold war: essays on the current crisis and how we got there. New York: Pantheon Books.
• (1983). The fateful triangle: the United States, Israel, and the Palestinians. Boston, MA: South End Press.
• (1984). Modular approaches to the study of the mind. San Diego: San Diego State University Press.
• (1985). Turning the tide : U.S. intervention in Central America and the struggle for peace. Boston, Mass.: South End Press.
• (1986). Barriers. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
• (1986). Knowledge of language: its nature, origins, and use. New York: Praeger.
• (1986). Pirates & emperors: international terrorism in the real world. New York: Claremont Research & Publications.
• (1986). The race to destruction: its rational basis. Nottingham: Published by Spokesman for the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation.
• (1987). The Chomsky reader. edited by James Peck. New York: Pantheon Books.
• (1987). La quinta libertad: la política internacional y de seguridad de Estados Unidos. San Salvador, El Salvador: UCA Editores.
• (1987). On Power and Ideology. Boston, MA: South End Press.
• (1987). Turning the tide: the U.S. and Latin America. Montreal: Black Rose Books; Cheektowaga, N.Y.: Univ. of Toronto Press.
• (1988). The Culture of Terrorism. Boston, MA: South End Press.
• (1988). Language and Politics. Montreal; New York: Black Rose Books.
• (1988). Language and Problems of Knowledge. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
• (1988). with Herman, Edward S. Manufacturing consent: the political economy of the mass media. New York: Pantheon Books.
• (1988). Nuestra pequena region de por aqui: politica de seguridad de los Estados Unidos. Managua: Editorial Nueva Nicaragua.
• (1989). Necessary Illusions. Boston, MA: South End Press.
• (1991). Pirates & emperors: international terrorism in the real world. Rev. ed. Montreal; New York, NY: Black Rose Books.
• (1991). The Sound Pattern of English. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
• (1991). Terrorizing the Neighborhood. San Francisco: Pressure Drop Press.
• (1992). What Uncle Sam really wants. Berkeley: Odonian Press.
• (1992). Chronicles of dissent: interviews with David Barsamian. Monroe, ME: Common Courage Press; Stirling, Scotland: AK Press.
• (1992). Deterring democracy. New York: Hill and Wang.
• (1993). Language and Thought. Wakefield, RI: Moyer Bell.
• (1993). Lectures on government and binding: the Pisa lectures. 7th ed. Berlin; New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
• (1993). Letters from Lexington: reflections on propoganda. Monroe, ME: Common Courage Press.
• (1993). The prosperous few and the restless many. Berkeley, CA: Odonian Press.
• (1993). Rethinking Camelot: JFK, the Vietnam War, and U.S. political culture''. Boston, MA: South End Press.
• (1993) World order and its rules: variations on some themes. Belfast: West Belfast Economic Forum and Centre for Research and Documentation.
• (1993). Year 501: the conquest continues. Boston: South End Press.
• (1994). Critical assessments. London; New York: Routledge.
• (1994). Keeping the rabble in line: interviews with David Barsamian. Monroe, ME: Common Courage Press.
• (1994). Manufacturing consent: Noam Chomsky and the media. The companion book to the award-winning film by Peter Wintonick and Mark Achbar. Montreal; New York: Black Rose Books.
• (1994). Secrets, lies, and democracy. Tucson, AZ: Odonian Press.
• (1994). World orders, old and new. New York: Columbia University Press.
• (1995). The minimalist program. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
• (1995) Secrets, lies, and democracy. Interviewed: David Barsamian. Tucson, Ariz. : Odonian Press
• (1995). Chiapas Insurgente. Navarra: Txalaparta.
• (1996). Powers and prospects: reflections on human nature and the social order. Boston, MA: South End Press.
• (1996). Class warfare: interviews with David Barsamian. Monroe, Me: Common Courage Press.
• (1997). Media control: the spectacular achievements of propaganda. New York: Seven Stories Press.
• (1997). The Cold War and the University. New York: New Press.
• (1998?). Terrorizing the neighborhood: American foreign policy in the post-cold war era. Stirling, Scotland, UK: AK Press; San Francisco, CA: Pressure Drop Press.
• (1999). The new military humanism: lesssons from Kosovo. Monroe, ME: Common Courage Press.

Works about Chomsky

Barsky, R. F. (1997). Noam Chomsky: A Life of Dissent. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

George, A. (1989). Reflections on Chomsky. Oxford, England; New York: B. Blackwell.

Jennings, T. (1995). Chomsky, Propaganda and the Politics of Common Sense. Anarchist Studies . Vol 3. No. 2.

Kim-Renaud, Young-Key. (1986). Studies in Korean linguistics. Followed by an interview with Noam Chomsky.

Seoul, S. Korea: Hanshin Pub. Co..

Leiber, J. (1975). Noam Chomsky: A Philosophic Overview. Boston, Twayne Publishers.

Lyons, John, (1970). Noam Chomsky. New York, Viking Press.

Rai, M. (1995). Chomsky's Politics. London; New York: Verso.

Ramiah, L.S. and T.V. Prafulla Chandra. (1984). Noam Chomsky: a bibliography. Gurgaon, Haryana:

Indian Documentation Service.

Wilkin, P. (1997). Noam Chomsky: On Power, Knowledge, and Human Nature. New York: St. Martin's Press.

Video Recording

Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media / Necessary Illusions in co-production with National Film Board of Canada; producer and director, Mark Achbar, Peter Wintonick; producer, Adam Symansky. New York, NY: Zeitgeist Films Ltd., 1994.

Noam Chomsky, Part I & II. a production of Public Affairs Television. Alexandria, Va. PBS Video, 1988.

His Impact

Chomsky presently teaches at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and his recent theory of language is called the Minimalist Program. Imagine, he told reporter Margalit Fox of The New York Times (5 December 1998), that some divine super-engineer, in a single efficient stroke, endowed humans with the power of language where formerly they had none. This simple idea, the Minimalist Program, is the cornerstone of his approach to the discipline he founded in 1957. Although previously he had taught that an inborn mental endowment allows human beings to acquire, use, and understand language, the Minimalist Program streamlines his previous views, dispensing with concepts like “deep structure” and “surface structure,” both of which were more or less canonical in his earlier work.

Some have spoken of Chomsky’s introduction of his theory of language in 1957 in the same breath with Darwin’s theory of evolution and Freud’s theory of the unconscious so far as its importance in the history of ideas.

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