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Avram Noam Chomsky

Noam Chomsky visiting Vancouver, Canada in 2004

Full name Avram Noam Chomsky
December 7, 1928 (age 82)
Born
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Era 20th / 21st-century philosophy
Region Western Philosophy
School Generative linguistics, Analytic philosophy
Linguistics · Psychology
Main Philosophy of language
interests Philosophy of mind
Politics · Ethics
Generative grammar, universal grammar,
transformational grammar, government and
binding, X-bar theory, Chomsky hierarchy,
Notable context-free grammar, principles and parameters,
ideas Minimalist program, language acquisition device,
poverty of the stimulus, Chomsky–
Schützenberger theorem, Chomsky Normal
Form, propaganda model[1]

Avram Noam Chomsky (pronounced /ˈnoʊm ˈtʃɒmski/; born December 7, 1928), known as
Noam Chomsky, is an American linguist, philosopher,[2][3] cognitive scientist, and political
activist. He is an Institute Professor and professor emeritus of linguistics at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology.[4] Chomsky is well known in the academic and scientific community
as one of the fathers of modern linguistics,[5][6][7] and a major figure of analytic philosophy.[2]
Since the 1960s, he has become known more widely as a political dissident and an anarchist,
[8]
referring to himself as a libertarian socialist. Chomsky is the author of more than 150
books and has received worldwide attention for his views, despite being typically absent from
the mainstream media.

In the 1950s, Chomsky began developing his theory of generative grammar, which has
undergone numerous revisions and has had a profound influence on linguistics. His approach
to the study of language emphasizes "an innate set of linguistic principles shared by all
humans" known as universal grammar, "the initial state of the language learner," and
discovering an "account for linguistic variation via the most general possible mechanisms."[9]
He elaborated on these ideas in 1957's Syntactic Structures, which then laid the groundwork
for the concept of transformational grammar. He also established the Chomsky hierarchy, a
classification of formal languages in terms of their generative power. In 1959, Chomsky
published a widely influential review of B. F. Skinner's theoretical book Verbal Behavior. In
this review and other writings, Chomsky broadly and aggressively challenged the behaviorist
approaches to studies of behavior and language dominant at the time, and contributed to the
cognitive revolution in psychology. His naturalistic[10] approach to the study of language has
influenced the philosophy of language and mind.[9]

Beginning with his opposition to the Vietnam War, first articulated in his 1967 essay "The
Responsibility of Intellectuals" and later extended in his American Power and the New
Mandarins (1969), Chomsky established himself as a prominent critic of U.S. foreign and
domestic policy. He has since become an outspoken political commentator and a dedicated
activist; he is a self-declared anarcho-syndicalist[11] and a libertarian socialist, principles he
regards as grounded in the Age of Enlightenment[12] and as "the proper and natural extension
of classical liberalism into the era of advanced industrial society."[13]

Chomsky's social criticism has also included Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy
of the Mass Media (1988), co-written with Edward S. Herman, an analysis articulating the
propaganda model theory for examining the media.

According to the Arts and Humanities Citation Index in 1992, Chomsky was cited as a source
more often than any other living scholar from 1980 to 1992. He is also the eighth most cited
source of all time, and is considered the "most cited living author".[14][15][16][17] He is also
considered a prominent cultural figure,[18] while his status as a leading critic of U.S. foreign
policy has made him controversial.[19]

Life and career

The Ray and Maria Stata Center at MIT, in which Chomsky holds his office in the
Department of Linguistics and Philosophy.

Chomsky was born on the morning of December 7, 1928 to Jewish parents in the affluent
East Oak Lane neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of noted professor of
Hebrew at Gratz College and IWW (Industrial Workers of the World) member William
Chomsky (1896–1977), a native of Ukraine. His mother, Elsie Chomsky (née Simonofsky), a
native of what is present-day Belarus, grew up in the United States and, unlike her husband,
spoke "ordinary New York English." Chomsky's parents' first language was Yiddish,[20] but
Chomsky said it was "taboo" in his family to speak it.[20] Although his mother was part of the
radical activism in the 1930s, Chomsky was largely influenced by his uncle who, having
never passed 4th grade, owned a newsstand that acted as an "intellectual center [where]
professors of this and that argu[ed] all night." [21] Chomsky was also influenced by being a
part of a Hebrew-based, Zionist organization as well as hanging around anarchist bookstores.
[21]

He describes his family as living in a sort of "Jewish ghetto," split into a "Yiddish side" and
"Hebrew side," with his family aligning with the latter and bringing him up "immersed in
Hebrew culture and literature," though he means more a "cultural ghetto than a physical
one."[22] Chomsky also describes tensions he personally experienced with Irish Catholics and
German Catholics and anti-semitism in the mid-1930s. He recalls "beer parties" celebrating
the fall of Paris to the Nazis.[22] In a discussion of the irony of his staying in the 1980s in a
Jesuit House in Central America, Chomsky explained that during his childhood, "We were
the only Jewish family around. I grew up with a visceral fear of Catholics. They're the people
who beat you up on your way to school. So I knew when they came out of that building down
the street, which was the Jesuit school, they were raving anti-Semites. So childhood
memories took a long time to overcome."[23]

Chomsky remembers the first article he wrote was at age 10 while a student at Oak Lane
Country Day School about the threat of 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.[24]

A graduate of Central High School of Philadelphia, Chomsky began studying philosophy and
linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania in 1945, taking classes with philosophers such as
C. West Churchman and Nelson Goodman and linguist Zellig Harris. Harris's teaching
included his discovery of transformations as a mathematical analysis of language structure
(mappings from one subset to another in the set of sentences). Chomsky referred to the
morphophonemic rules in his 1951 Master's Thesis, The Morphophonemics of Modern
Hebrew, as transformations in the sense of Carnap's 1938 notion of rules of transformation
(vs. rules of formation), and subsequently reinterpreted the notion of grammatical
transformations in a very different way from Harris, as operations on the productions of a
context-free grammar (derived from Post production systems). Harris's political views were
instrumental in shaping those of Chomsky.[25] Chomsky earned a BA in 1949 and an MA in
1951.

In 1949, he married linguist Carol Schatz. They remained married for 59 years until her death
from cancer in December 2008.[26] The couple had two daughters, Aviva (b. 1957) and Diane
(b. 1960), and a son, Harry (b. 1967). With his wife Carol, Chomsky spent time in 1953
living in HaZore'a, a kibbutz in Israel. Asked in an interview whether the stay was "a
disappointment" Chomsky replied, "No, I loved it," however he "couldn't stand the
ideological atmosphere" and "fervent nationalism" in the early 1950s at the kibbutz, with
Stalin being defended by many of the left-leaning kibbutz members who chose to paint a rosy
image of future possibilities and contemporary realities in the USSR.[27] Chomsky notes
seeing many positive elements in the commune-like living of the kibbutz, in which parents
and children lived in rooms of separate houses together, and when asked whether there were
"lessons that we have learned from the history of the kibbutz," responded,[28][29] that in "some
respects, the Kibbutzim came closer to the anarchist ideal than any other attempt that lasted
for more than a very brief moment before destruction, or that was on anything like a similar
scale. In these respects, I think they were extremely attractive and successful; apart from
personal accident, I probably would have lived there myself – for how long, it's hard to
guess."

Chomsky received his PhD in linguistics from the University of Pennsylvania in 1955. He
conducted part of his doctoral research during four years at Harvard University as a Harvard
Junior Fellow. In his doctoral thesis, he began to develop some of his linguistic ideas,
elaborating on them in his 1957 book Syntactic Structures, one of his best-known works in
linguistics.

Chomsky joined the staff of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1955 and in
1961 was appointed full professor in the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics
(now the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy). From 1966 to 1976 he held the Ferrari
P. Ward Professorship of Modern Languages and Linguistics, and in 1976 he was appointed
Institute Professor. As of 2010, Chomsky has taught at MIT continuously for 55 years.

In February 1967, Chomsky became one of the leading opponents of the Vietnam War with
the publication of his essay, "The Responsibility of Intellectuals",[30] in The New York Review
of Books. This was followed by his 1969 book, American Power and the New Mandarins, a
collection of essays that established him at the forefront of American dissent. His far-
reaching criticisms of U.S. foreign policy and the legitimacy of U.S. power have made him a
controversial figure: largely shunned by the mainstream media in the United States,[31][32][33][34]
he is frequently sought out for his views by publications and news outlets internationally. In
1977 he delivered the Huizinga Lecture in Leiden, The Netherlands, under the title:
Intellectuals and the State.

Chomsky has received death threats because of his criticisms of U.S. foreign policy.[35] He
was also on a list of planned targets created by Theodore Kaczynski, better known as the
Unabomber; during the period that Kaczynski was at large, Chomsky had all of his mail
checked for explosives.[35] He states that he often receives undercover police protection, in
particular while on the MIT campus, although he does not agree with the police protection.[35]

Chomsky resides in Lexington, Massachusetts and travels often, giving lectures on politics.
Contributions to linguistics
Chomskyan linguistics, beginning with his Syntactic Structures, a distillation of his Logical
Structure of Linguistic Theory (1955, 75), challenges structural linguistics and introduces
transformational grammar. This approach takes utterances (sequences of words) 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" 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.

It is a popular misconception that Chomsky proved that language is entirely innate and
discovered a "universal grammar" (UG). In fact, 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 child 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 which the cat lacks the "language acquisition
device" (LAD) and suggested that one of the tasks for linguistics should be to figure out what
the LAD is and what constraints it puts on the range of possible human languages. The
universal features that would result from these constraints are often termed "universal
grammar" or UG.[36]

The Principles and Parameters approach (P&P)—developed in his Pisa 1979 Lectures, later
published as Lectures on Government and Binding (LGB)—makes strong claims regarding
universal grammar: that the grammatical principles underlying languages are innate and
fixed, and the differences among the world's languages can be characterized in terms of
parameter settings in the brain (such as the pro-drop parameter, which indicates whether an
explicit subject is always required, as in English, or can be optionally dropped, as in
Spanish), which are often likened to switches. (Hence the term principles and parameters,
often given to this approach.) In this view, a child learning a language need only acquire the
necessary lexical items (words, grammatical morphemes, and idioms), and determine the
appropriate parameter settings, which can be done based on a few key examples.

Proponents of this view argue that the pace at which children learn languages is inexplicably
rapid, unless children have an innate ability to learn languages. The similar steps followed by
children all across the world when learning languages, and the fact that children make certain
characteristic errors as they learn their first language, whereas other seemingly logical kinds
of errors never occur (and, according to Chomsky, should be attested if a purely general,
rather than language-specific, learning mechanism were being employed), are also pointed to
as motivation for innateness.

More recently, in his Minimalist Program (1995), while retaining the core concept of
"principles and parameters," Chomsky attempts a major overhaul of the linguistic machinery
involved in the LGB model, stripping from it all but the barest necessary elements, while
advocating a general approach to the architecture of the human language faculty that
emphasizes principles of economy and optimal design, reverting to a derivational approach to
generation, in contrast with the largely representational approach of classic P&P.

Chomsky's ideas have had a strong influence on researchers of the language acquisition in
children, though many researchers in this area such as Elizabeth Bates[37] and Michael
Tomasello[38] 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.

His best-known work in phonology is The Sound Pattern of English (1968), written with
Morris Halle (and often known as simply SPE). This work has had a great significance for the
development in the field. While phonological theory has since moved beyond "SPE
phonology" in many important respects, the SPE system is considered the precursor of some
of the most influential phonological theories today, including autosegmental phonology,
lexical phonology and optimality theory. Chomsky no longer publishes on phonology.

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.[39] 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 "poverty of the stimulus" argument). 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.[40][41][42][43][44] 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.[45][46][47] Thus, Chomsky's approach has been
criticized as a form of linguistic imperialism.[48] 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,[who?] 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 (see language learning) 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

Main article: 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 (as measured by the Chomsky hierarchy) 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
(especially in compiler construction and automata theory).[49]

[show]v · d · eAutomata theory: formal languages and formal grammars

Chomsky hierarchy Grammars Languages Minimal automaton

Type-0 Unrestricted Recursively Turing machine

enumerable
— (no common name) Decider
Recursive
Type-1 Context-sensitive Linear-bounded
Context-sensitive
— Indexed Nested stack
Indexed
— Tree-adjoining etc. Embedded pushdown
Mildly context-
Type-2 Context-free sensitive Nondeterministic
pushdown
— Deterministic context- Context-free
free Deterministic
— Deterministic context- pushdown
Visibly pushdown free
Type-3 Visibly pushdown
Regular Visibly pushdown
— Finite
— Regular
Counter-free (with
Star-free aperiodic finite
monoid)

Contributions to psychology
Chomsky's work in linguistics has had profound implications for modern psychology.[50] For
Chomsky, linguistics is a branch of cognitive psychology; genuine insights in linguistics
imply concomitant understandings of aspects of mental processing and human nature. His
theory of a universal grammar was seen by many as a direct challenge to the established
behaviorist theories of the time and had major consequences for understanding how children
learn language and what, exactly, the ability to use language is.

In 1959, Chomsky published an influential critique of B.F. Skinner's Verbal Behavior, a book
in which Skinner offered a theoretical account of language in functional, behavioral terms.
He defined "Verbal Behavior" as learned behavior that has characteristic consequences
delivered through the learned behavior of others. This makes for a view of communicative
behaviors much larger than that usually addressed by linguists. Skinner's approach focused on
the circumstances in which language was used; for example, asking for water was
functionally a different response than labeling something as water, responding to someone
asking for water, etc. These functionally different kinds of responses, which required in turn
separate explanations, sharply contrasted both with traditional notions of language and
Chomsky's psycholinguistic approach. Chomsky thought that a functionalist explanation
restricting itself to questions of communicative performance ignored important questions.
(Chomsky—Language and Mind, 1968). He focused on questions concerning the operation
and development of innate structures for syntax capable of creatively organizing, cohering,
adapting and combining words and phrases into intelligible utterances.

In the review Chomsky emphasized that the scientific application of behavioral principles
from animal research is severely lacking in explanatory adequacy and is furthermore
particularly superficial as an account of human verbal behavior because a theory restricting
itself to external conditions, to "what is learned," cannot adequately account for generative
grammar. Chomsky raised the examples of rapid language acquisition of children, including
their quickly developing ability to form grammatical sentences, and the universally creative
language use of competent native speakers to highlight the ways in which Skinner's view
exemplified under-determination of theory by evidence. He argued that to understand human
verbal behavior such as the creative aspects of language use and language development, one
must first postulate a genetic linguistic endowment. The assumption that important aspects of
language are the product of universal innate ability runs counter to Skinner's radical
behaviorism.

Chomsky's 1959 review has drawn fire from a number of critics, the most famous criticism
being that of Kenneth MacCorquodale's 1970 paper On Chomsky’s Review of Skinner’s
Verbal Behavior (Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, volume 13, pages 83–
99). MacCorquodale's argument was updated and expanded in important respects by Nathan
Stemmer in a 1990 paper, Skinner's Verbal Behavior, Chomsky's review, and mentalism
(Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, volume 54, pages 307–319). These and
similar critiques have raised certain points not generally acknowledged outside of behavioral
psychology, such as the claim that Chomsky did not possess an adequate understanding of
either behavioral psychology in general, or the differences between Skinner's behaviorism
and other varieties. Consequently, it is argued that he made several serious errors. On account
of these perceived problems, the critics maintain that the review failed to demonstrate what it
has often been cited as doing. As such, it is averred that those most influenced by Chomsky's
paper probably either already substantially agreed with Chomsky or never actually read it.
The review has been further critiqued for misrepresenting the work of Skinner and others,
including by quoting out of context.[51] Chomsky has maintained that the review was directed
at the way Skinner's variant of behavioral psychology "was being used in Quinean
empiricism and naturalization of philosophy."[52]

It has been claimed that Chomsky's critique of Skinner's methodology and basic assumptions
paved the way for the "cognitive revolution", the shift in American psychology between the
1950s through the 1970s from being primarily behavioral to being primarily cognitive. In his
1966 Cartesian Linguistics and subsequent works, Chomsky laid out an explanation of
human language faculties that has become the model for investigation in some areas of
psychology. Much of the present conception of how the mind works draws directly from
ideas that found their first persuasive author of modern times in Chomsky.

There are three key ideas. First is that the mind is "cognitive," or that the mind actually
contains mental states, beliefs, doubts, and so on. Second, he argued that most of the
important properties of language and mind are innate. The acquisition and development of a
language is a result of the unfolding of innate propensities triggered by the experiential input
of the external environment. The link between human innate aptitude to language and
heredity has been at the core of the debate opposing Noam Chomsky to Jean Piaget at the
Abbaye de Royaumont in 1975 (Language and Learning. The Debate between Jean Piaget
and Noam Chomsky, Harvard University Press, 1980). Although links between the genetic
setup of humans and aptitude to language have been suggested at that time and in later
discussions, we are still far from understanding the genetic bases of human language. Work
derived from the model of selective stabilization of synapses set up by Jean-Pierre Changeux,
Philippe Courrège and Antoine Danchin,[53] and more recently developed experimentally and
theoretically by Jacques Mehler and Stanislas Dehaene in particular in the domain of
numerical cognition lend support to the Chomskyan "nativism". It does not, however, provide
clues about the type of rules that would organize neuronal connections to permit language
competence. Subsequent psychologists have extended this general "nativist" thesis beyond
language. Lastly, Chomsky made the concept of "modularity" a critical feature of the mind's
cognitive architecture. The mind is composed of an array of interacting, specialized
subsystems with limited flows of inter-communication. This model contrasts sharply with the
old idea that any piece of information in the mind could be accessed by any other cognitive
process (optical illusions, for example, cannot be "turned off" even when they are known to
be illusions).

Approach to science
Chomsky sees science as a straightforward search for explanation, and rejects the views of it
as a catalog of facts or mechanical explanations. In this light, the majority of his contributions
to science have been frameworks and hypotheses, rather than "discoveries."[54]

As such, he considers certain so-called post-structuralist or postmodern critiques of logic and

reason to be nonsensical:

I have spent a lot of my life working on questions such as these, using the only methods I
know of; those condemned here as "science", "rationality," "logic," and so on. I therefore read
the papers with some hope that they would help me "transcend" these limitations, or perhaps
suggest an entirely different course. I'm afraid I was disappointed. Admittedly, that may be
my own limitation. Quite regularly, "my eyes glaze over" when I read polysyllabic discourse
on the themes of poststructuralism and postmodernism; what I understand is largely truism or
error, but that is only a fraction of the total word count. True, there are lots of other things I
don't understand: the articles in the current issues of math and physics journals, for example.
But there is a difference. In the latter case, I know how to get to understand them, and have
done so, in cases of particular interest to me; and I also know that people in these fields can
explain the contents to me at my level, so that I can gain what (partial) understanding I may
want. In contrast, no one seems to be able to explain to me why the latest post-this-and-that is
(for the most part) other than truism, error, or gibberish, and I do not know how to proceed.[55]

Although Chomsky believes that a scientific background is important to teach proper

reasoning, he holds that science in general is "inadequate" to understand complicated
problems like human affairs:

Science talks about very simple things, and asks hard questions about them. As soon as things
become too complex, science can’t deal with them... But it’s a complicated matter: Science
studies what’s at the edge of understanding, and what’s at the edge of understanding is
usually fairly simple. And it rarely reaches human affairs. Human affairs are way too
complicated.[56]

Debates
Chomsky has been known to vigorously defend and debate his views and opinions, in
philosophy, linguistics, and politics.[2] He has had notable debates with such varied
intellectuals as Jean Piaget,[57] Michel Foucault,[58] William F. Buckley, Jr.,[59] Christopher
Hitchens,[60][61][62][63][64][65] Richard Perle,[66] Hilary Putnam,[67] Willard Quine,[68] and Alan
Dershowitz,[69] to name a few. In response to his speaking style being criticized as boring,
Chomsky said that "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."[70] "We don't want to be swayed by
superficial eloquence, by emotion and so on."[71]

Political views
Main article: Noam Chomsky's political views

Chomsky at the World Social Forum (Porto Alegre) in 2003.

Chomsky has stated that his "personal visions are fairly traditional anarchist ones, with
origins in The Enlightenment and classical liberalism"[12] and he has praised libertarian
socialism.[72] He calls himself an anarcho-syndicalist[11] and is a member of the Industrial
Workers of the World international union.[73] He published a book on anarchism titled
Chomsky on Anarchism, published by the anarchist book collective AK Press in 2006.

Chomsky has engaged in political activism all of his adult life and expressed opinions on
politics and world events, which are widely cited, publicized and discussed. Chomsky has in
turn argued that his views are those the powerful do not want to hear and for this reason he is
considered an American political dissident.

Chomsky asserts that power, 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 and 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.[74] He contends that there is no difference between 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, a view held (as he notes) by the Lowell Mill Girls.[75]

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 the secret aid given to the Contras in
Nicaragua, an event of which he has been very critical, fits any standard description of
terrorism,[76][dead link] including "official definitions in the US Code and Army Manuals in the
early 1980s."[77][78] 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."[79]

He has argued that the mass media in the United States largely serve as a propaganda arm and
"bought priesthood"[80] of the U.S. government and U.S. corporations, with the three parties
intertwined through common interests. In a famous reference to Walter Lippmann, Chomsky
along with his coauthor Edward S. Herman has written that the American media
manufactures consent among the public. Chomsky has condemned the 2010 supreme court
ruling revoking the limits on campaign finance, calling it "corporate takeover of
democracy."[81]

Chomsky opposes the U.S. global "war on drugs", claiming its language is misleading, and
refers to it as "the war on certain drugs." He favors drug policy reform, in education and
prevention rather than military or police action as a means of reducing drug use.[82] In an
interview in 1999, Chomsky argued that, whereas crops such as tobacco receive no mention
in governmental exposition, other non-profitable crops, such as marijuana are attacked
because of the effect achieved by persecuting the poor:[83] He has stated:

U.S. domestic drug policy does not carry out its stated goals, and policymakers are well
aware of that. If it isn't about reducing substance abuse, what is it about? It is reasonably
clear, both from current actions and the historical record, that substances tend to be
criminalized when they are associated with the so-called dangerous classes, that the
criminalization of certain substances is a technique of social control.[84]

Chomsky is critical of the American "state capitalist" system and big business, he describes
himself as a socialist, specifically an anarcho-syndicalist and is therefore strongly critical of
"authoritarian" Marxist and/or Leninist[citation needed] and/or Maoist branches of socialism. He
also believes that socialist values exemplify the rational and morally consistent extension of
original unreconstructed classical liberal and radical humanist ideas to an industrial context.
He believes that society should be highly organized and based on democratic control of
communities and work places. He believes that the radical humanist ideas of his two major
influences, Bertrand Russell and John Dewey, were "rooted in the Enlightenment and
classical liberalism, and retain their revolutionary character."[85]

Chomsky has stated that he believes the United States remains the "greatest country in the
world",[86] a comment that he later clarified by saying, "Evaluating countries is senseless and I
would never put things in those terms, but that some of America's advances, particularly in
the area of free speech, that have been achieved by centuries of popular struggle, are to be
admired."[87] He has also said "In many respects, the United States is the freest country in the
world. I don't just mean in terms of limits on state coercion, though that's true too, but also in
terms of individual relations. The United States comes closer to classlessness in terms of
interpersonal relations than virtually any society."[88]

Chomsky objects to the criticism that anarchism is inconsistent with support for government
welfare, stating in part:

One can, of course, take the position that we don't care about the problems people face today,
and want to think about a possible tomorrow. OK, but then don't pretend to have any interest
in human beings and their fate, and stay in the seminar room and intellectual coffee house
with other privileged people. Or one can take a much more humane position: I want to work,
today, to build a better society for tomorrow – the classical anarchist position, quite different
from the slogans in the question. That's exactly right, and it leads directly to support for the
people facing problems today: for enforcement of health and safety regulation, provision of
national health insurance, support systems for people who need them, etc. That is not a
sufficient condition for organizing for a different and better future, but it is a necessary
condition. Anything else will receive the well-merited contempt of people who do not have
the luxury to disregard the circumstances in which they live, and try to survive.[89]

Chomsky holds views that can be summarized as anti-war but not strictly pacifist. He
prominently opposed the Vietnam War and most other wars in his lifetime. He expressed
these views with tax resistance and peace walks. He published a number of articles about the
war in Vietnam, including "The Responsibility of Intellectuals". He maintains that U.S.
involvement in World War II to defeat the Axis powers was probably justified, with the
caveat that a preferable outcome would have been to end or prevent the war through earlier
diplomacy. He believes that the dropping of nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were
"among the most unspeakable crimes in history".[90]

Chomsky has made many criticisms of the Israeli government, its supporters, the United
States' support of the government and its treatment of the Palestinian people, arguing that "
'supporters of Israel' are in reality supporters of its moral degeneration and probable ultimate
destruction" and that "Israel's very clear choice of expansion over security may well lead to
that consequence."[91] Chomsky disagreed with the founding of Israel as a Jewish state,
saying, "I don't think a Jewish or Christian or Islamic state is a proper concept. I would object
to the United States as a Christian state."[92] Chomsky hesitated before publishing work
critical of Israeli policies while his parents were alive, because he "knew it would hurt them"
he says, "mostly because of their friends, who reacted hysterically to views like those
expressed in my work."[93] On May 16, 2010, Israeli authorities detained Chomsky and
ultimately refused his entry to the West Bank via Jordan.[94] A spokesman for the Israeli
Prime Minister indicated that the refusal of entry was simply due to a border guard who
"overstepped his authority" and a second attempt to enter would likely be allowed.[95]
Chomsky disagreed, saying that the Interior Ministry official who interviewed him was
taking instructions from his superiors.[95] Chomsky maintained that based on the several hours
of interviewing, he was denied entry because of the things he says and because he was
visiting a university in the West Bank but no Israeli universities.[95]

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"[96] 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."[97] Chomsky refuses to take legal action against those who may have
libeled him and prefers to counter libels through open letters in newspapers. One notable
example of this approach is his response to an article by Emma Brockes in The Guardian
which alleged he denied the existence of the Srebrenica massacre.[98][99][100]

Chomsky has frequently stated that there is no connection between his work in linguistics and
his political views and is generally critical of the idea that competent discussion of political
topics requires expert knowledge in academic fields. In a 1969 interview, he said regarding
the connection between his politics and his work in linguistics:

I still feel myself that there is a kind of tenuous connection. I would not want to overstate it
but I think it means something to me at least. I think that anyone's political ideas or their
ideas of social organization must be rooted ultimately in some concept of human nature and
human needs.[101]

Some critics have accused Chomsky of hypocrisy when, in spite of his political criticism of
American and European military imperialism, parts of his linguistic research have been
substantially funded by the American military.[102] Chomsky makes the argument that because
he has received funding from the U.S. Military, he has an even greater responsibility to
criticize and resist its actions.

Influence in other fields

Chomskyan models have been used as a theoretical basis in several other fields. 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[103] and has generated interest among mathematicians, particularly
combinatorialists. Some arguments in evolutionary psychology are derived from his research
results.[104]

The 1984 Nobel Prize laureate in Medicine and Physiology, Niels K. 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".
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.

Famous computer scientist Donald Knuth admits to reading Syntactic Structures during his
honeymoon and being greatly 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!".

Another focus of Chomsky's political work has been an analysis of mainstream mass media
(especially in the United States), its structures and constraints, and its perceived role in
supporting big business and government interests.

Edward S. Herman and Chomsky's book Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of
the Mass Media (1988) explores this topic in depth, presenting their "propaganda model" of
the news media with numerous detailed case studies demonstrating it. According to this
propaganda model, more democratic societies like the U.S. use subtle, non-violent means of
control, unlike totalitarian systems, where physical force can readily be used to coerce the
general population. In an often-quoted remark, Chomsky states that "propaganda is to a
democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state." (Media Control)

The model attempts to explain this perceived systemic bias of the mass media in terms of
structural economic causes rather than a conspiracy of people. It argues the bias derives from
five "filters" that all published news must "pass through," which combine to systematically
distort news coverage.

In explaining the first filter, ownership, he notes that most major media outlets are owned by
large corporations. The second, funding, notes that the outlets derive the majority of their
funding from advertising, not readers. Thus, since they are profit-oriented businesses selling a
product—readers and audiences—to other businesses (advertisers), the model expects them
to publish news that reflects the desires and values of those businesses. In addition, the news
media are dependent on government institutions and major businesses with strong biases as
sources (the third filter) for much of their information. Flak, the fourth filter, refers to the
various pressure groups that attack the media for supposed bias. Norms, the fifth filter, refer
to the common conceptions shared by those in the profession of journalism. (Note: in the
original text, published in 1988, the fifth filter was "anticommunism". However, with the fall
of the Soviet Union, it has been broadened to allow for shifts in public opinion.) The model
describes how the media form a decentralized and non-conspiratorial but nonetheless very
powerful propaganda system, that is able to mobilize an élite consensus, frame public debate
within élite perspectives and at the same time give the appearance of democratic consent.

Chomsky and Herman test their model empirically by picking "paired examples"—pairs of
events that were objectively similar except for the alignment of domestic élite interests. They
use a number of such examples to attempt to show that in cases where an "official enemy"
does something (like murder of a religious official), the press investigates thoroughly and
devotes a great amount of coverage to the matter, thus victims of "enemy" states are
considered "worthy". But when the domestic government or an ally does the same thing (or
worse), the press downplays the story, thus victims of US or US client states are considered
"unworthy."
They also test their model against the case that is often held up as the best example of a free
and aggressively independent press, the media coverage of the Tet Offensive during the
Vietnam War. Even in this case, they argue that the press was behaving subserviently to élite
interests.

Academic achievements, awards and honors

In the spring of 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,[105] and many others.[106]

Chomsky has received many honorary degrees from universities around the world, including
from the following:

• University of London • University of • Universidad de Chile

• University of Buenos Aires • University of Bologna
Chicago • McGill University • Universidad de La Frontera
• Loyola University of • Universitat Rovira i • University of Calcutta
Chicago Virgili • Universidad Nacional de
• Swarthmore College • Columbia Colombia
• University of Delhi University • Vrije Universiteit Brussel
• Bard College • Villanova • Santo Domingo Institute of
• University of University Technology
Massachusetts • University of • Uppsala University
• University of Connecticut • University of Athens
Pennsylvania • University of Maine • University of Cyprus
• Georgetown • Scuola Normale • Central Connecticut State
University Superiore University
• Amherst College • University of • National Autonomous
• University of Western Ontario University of Mexico
Cambridge • University of (UNAM)
Toronto • Peking University[8]
• University of
Colorado[7] • Harvard University • National Tsing Hua
University [9]

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.
[107]
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" (in
1987 and 1989).[108]
He is a member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts in Department of Social
Sciences.[109]

Chomsky is a member of the Faculty Advisory Board of MIT Harvard Research Journal.[110]

In 2005, Chomsky received an honorary fellowship from the Literary and Historical Society.
[111]

In 2007, Chomsky received The Uppsala University (Sweden) Honorary Doctor's degree in
commemoration of Carolus Linnaeus.[112]

In February 2008, he received the President's Medal from the Literary and Debating Society
of the National University of Ireland, Galway.[113]

Since 2009 he is honorary member of IAPTI.[114]

In 2010, Chomsky received the Erich Fromm Prize in Stuttgart, Germany.[115]

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".[116] In a list compiled by the magazine New Statesman in 2006, he was
voted seventh in the list of "Heroes of our time".[117]

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.[118] [119] 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.

Bibliography
Main article: Bibliography of Noam Chomsky

Filmography
• Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media, Director: Mark Achbar and
Peter Wintonick (1992)
• Last Party 2000, Director: Rebecca Chaiklin and Donovan Leitch (2001)
• Power and Terror: Noam Chomsky in Our Times, Director: John Junkerman (2002)
• Distorted Morality—America's War On Terror?, Director: John Junkerman (2003)
• Noam Chomsky: Rebel Without a Pause (TV), Director: Will Pascoe (2003)
• The Corporation, Directors: Mark Achbar and Jennifer Abbott; Writer: Joel Bakan
(2003)
• Peace, Propaganda & the Promised Land, Directors: Sut Jhally and Bathsheba
Ratzkoff (2004)
• On Power, Dissent and Racism: A discussion with Noam Chomsky, Journalist:
Nicolas Rossier; Producers: Eli Choukri, Baraka Productions (2004)
• Lake of Fire, Director: Tony Kaye (2006)
• American Feud: A History of Conservatives and Liberals, Director: Richard Hall
(2008)
• In the Time We've Got, Director: Christopher Ives (2008)
• Chomsky & Cie Director: Olivier Azam (out in 2008)
• An Inconvenient Tax, Director: Christopher P. Marshall (out in 2009)
• The Money Fix, Director: Alan Rosenblith (2009)
• Pax Americana and the Weaponization of Space, Director: Denis Delestrac (2010)
• Article 12: Waking up in a surveillance society, Director: Juan Manuel Biaiñ (2010)
• References
1. ^ Kanan Makiya, Fouad Moughrabi, Adel Safty, Rex Brynen, "Letters to the Editor"
in Journal of Palestine Studies, Journal of Palestine Studies via JSTOR (Vol. 23, No.
4, Summer, 1994, pp. 196–200), accessed December 4, 2007. Relevant quotation: "On
page 146 of my book, I clearly adopt the propaganda model developed by Noam
Chomsky and Edward Herman..."
2. ^ a b c "Noam Chomsky", by Zoltán Gendler Szabó, in Dictionary of Modern
American Philosophers, 1860–1960, ed. Ernest Lepore (2004). "Chomsky's
intellectual life had been divided between his work in linguistics and his political
activism, philosophy coming as a distant third. Nonetheless, his influence among
analytic philosophers has been enormous because of three factors. First, Chomsky
contributed substantially to a major methodological shift in the human sciences,
turning away from the prevailing empiricism of the middle of the twentieth century:
behaviorism in psychology, structuralism in linguistics and positivism in philosophy.
Second, his groundbreaking books on syntax (Chomsky (1957, 1965)) laid a
conceptual foundation for a new, cognitivist approach to linguistics and provided
philosophers with a new framework for thinking about human language and the mind.
And finally, he has persistently defended his views against all takers, engaging in
important debates with many of the major figures in analytic philosophy..."
3. ^ The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy (1999), "Chomsky, Noam," Cambridge
University Press, pg. 138. "Chomsky, Noam (born 1928), preeminent American
linguist, philosopher, and political activist...Many of Chomsky's most significant
contributions to philosophy, such as his influential rejection of behaviorism...stem
from his elaborations and defenses of the above consequences..."
4. ^ MIT Faculty website
5. ^ Clark, Neil (2003-07-14). "Great thinkers of our time – Noam Chomsky". New
Statesman. http://www.newstatesman.com/200307140016. Retrieved 2008-08-02.
"Regarded as the father of modern linguistics, founder of the field of
transformational-generative grammar, which relies heavily on logic and philosophy."
6. ^ Fox, Margalit (1998-12-05). "A Changed Noam Chomsky Simplifies". New York
Times. http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?
res=F20B1FFA3A5F0C768CDDAB0994D0494D81&n=Top%2fReference%2fTimes
%20Topics%2fPeople%2fC%2fChomsky%2c%20Noam. Retrieved 2008-08-02. "…
Noam Chomsky, father of modern linguistics and the field's most influential
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7. ^ Thomas Tymoczko, Jim Henle, James M. Henle, Sweet Reason: A Field Guide to
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8. ^ Noam Chomsky, Chomsky on Anarchism (2005), AK Press, pg. 5
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11. ^ a b Chomsky wrote the preface to an edition of Rudolf Rocker's book Anarcho-
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that Rocker was pointing the way to a much better world, one that is within our grasp,
one that may well be the only alternative to the 'universal catastrophe' towards which
'we are driving on under full sail'…" Book Citation: Rudolph Rocker. Anarcho-
Syndicalism: Theory and Practice. AK Press. p. ii. 2004.
12. ^ a b Chomsky (1996), pp. 71.
13. ^ "Government in the Future". chomsky.info. 1970.
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16. ^ Hughes, Samuel (July/August 2001). "Speech!". The Pennsylvania Gazette.
http://www.chomsky.info/onchomsky/200107--.htm. Retrieved 2007-09-03.
"According to a recent survey by the Institute for Scientific Information, only Marx,
Lenin, Shakespeare, Aristotle, the Bible, Plato, and Freud are cited more often in
academic journals than Chomsky, who edges out Hegel and Cicero."
17. ^ Robinson, Paul (1979-02-25). "The Chomsky Problem". The New York Times.
"Judged in terms of the power, range, novelty and influence of his thought, Noam
Chomsky is arguably the most important intellectual alive today. He is also a
disturbingly divided intellectual."
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03, accessed 1-26-09
19. ^ "The Accidental Bestseller, Publishers Weekly, 5-5-03, accessed 10-11-08.
"Chomsky's controversial political works...became mainstream bestsellers."
20. ^ a b "The Life and Times of Noam Chomsky, Noam Chomsky interviewed by Amy
Goodman". www.chomsky.info. http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/20041126.htm.
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21. ^ a b Conversation with Noam Chomsky, p. 1 of 5
22. ^ a b Choamsky, Noam. Conversations with History, U.C. Berkeley, March 2002.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ghoXQxdk6s
23. ^ "The Chomsky Tapes: Conversations with Michael Albert". Z magazine. November
2001. http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Chomsky/Chomsky_Tapes_MAlbert.html.
24. ^ Kreisler (2002), "Chapter 1: Background".
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26. ^ Marquard, Bryan (2008-12-20). "Carol Chomsky; at 78; Harvard language
professor was wife of MIT linguist". Boston Globe.
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27. ^ Noam Chomsky interviewed by Shira Hadad
28. ^ Eight Question on Kibbutzim: Answers from Noam Chomsky Questions from
Nikos Raptis
29. ^ Kibbutzim as a Climate for Learning
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Review of Books 8 (3). http://www.nybooks.com/articles/12172. Retrieved 2007-09-
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31. ^ Turan, Kenneth (2003-01-24). "Power and Terror— Movie review". Los Angeles
Times. Archived from the original on 2007-09-29.
http://web.archive.org/web/20070929135929/http://www.calendarlive.com/movies/re
views/cl-et-turan24jan24,0,1640744.story. Retrieved 2007-09-04. "[Chomsky] "is so
lucid" [and his] "point of view is so rarely heard."
32. ^ Wall, Richard (2004-08-17). "Who's Afraid of Noam Chomsky?".
LewRockwell.com. http://www.lewrockwell.com/wall/wall26.html. Retrieved 2007-
09-03. "[Chomsky] has historically been distrusted and shunned by the US
mainstream media."
33. ^ Flint, Anthony (1995-11-19). "Divided Legacy". The Boston Globe.
http://www.chomsky.info/onchomsky/19951119.htm. Retrieved 2007-09-04. "Ask
this intellectual radical why he is shunned by the mainstream, and he'll say that
established powers have never been able to handle his brand of dissent."
34. ^ Barsky (1997), "Chapter 4".
http://cognet.mit.edu/library/books/chomsky/chomsky/4/17.html. Retrieved 2007-09-
04. Barsky quotes an excerpt of Edward Herman examining why "one of America's
most well-known intellectuals and dissidents would be thus ignored and even
ostracized by the mainstream press." For example, "Chomsky has never had an Op Ed
column in the Washington Post, and his lone opinion piece in the New York Times
was not an original contribution but rather excerpts from testimony before the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee."
35. ^ a b c Stroumboulopoulos, George (2006-03-13). "Noam Chomsky on The Hour".
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37. ^ Elman, J., Bates, E., Johnson, M., Karmiloff-Smith, A., Parisi, D., & Plunkett, K.
(1996). Rethinking innateness: A connectionist perspective on development.
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press/Bradford Books.
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