Chomsky, Noam
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Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is an American professor and
public intellectual An intellectual is a person who engages in critical thinking, research, and Human self-reflection, reflection about the nature of reality, especially the nature of society and proposed solutions for its normative problems. Coming from the wor ...
known for his work in
linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...
, political activism, and
social criticism Social criticism is a form of academic or journalistic criticism focusing on social issues in contemporary society, in respect to perceived injustices and power relations in general. Social criticism of the Enlightenment The origin of modern ...
. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky is also a major figure in
analytic philosophy Analytic philosophy is a broad movement within Western philosophy, especially English-speaking world, anglophone philosophy, focused on analysis as a philosophical method; clarity of prose; rigor in arguments; and making use of formal logic, mat ...
and one of the founders of the field of
cognitive science Cognitive science is the interdisciplinary, scientific study of the mind and its processes. It examines the nature, the tasks, and the functions of cognition (in a broad sense). Mental faculties of concern to cognitive scientists include percep ...
. He is a laureate professor of linguistics at the
University of Arizona The University of Arizona (Arizona, U of A, UArizona, or UA) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Tucson, Arizona, United States. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, it ...
and an
institute professor An institute is an organizational body created for a certain purpose. They are often research organisations (research institutes) created to do research on specific topics, or can also be a professional body. In some countries, institutes ca ...
emeritus at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...
(MIT). Among the most cited living authors, Chomsky has written more than 150 books on topics such as linguistics, war, and politics. In addition to his work in linguistics, since the 1960s Chomsky has been an influential voice on the
American left The American Left refers to the groups or ideas on the left of the political spectrum in the United States. It is occasionally used as a shorthand for groups aligned with the Democratic Party. At other times, it refers to groups that have soug ...
as a consistent critic of
U.S. foreign policy The officially stated goals of the foreign policy of the United States of America, including all the bureaus and offices in the United States Department of State, as mentioned in the ''Foreign Policy Agenda'' of the Department of State, are ...
, contemporary capitalism, and corporate influence on political institutions and the media. Born to
Ashkenazi Jewish Ashkenazi Jews ( ; also known as Ashkenazic Jews or Ashkenazim) form a distinct subgroup of the Jewish diaspora, that Ethnogenesis, emerged in the Holy Roman Empire around the end of the first millennium Common era, CE. They traditionally spe ...
immigrants in
Philadelphia Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...
, Chomsky developed an early interest in
anarchism Anarchism is a political philosophy and Political movement, movement that seeks to abolish all institutions that perpetuate authority, coercion, or Social hierarchy, hierarchy, primarily targeting the state (polity), state and capitalism. A ...
from alternative bookstores in New York City. He studied at the
University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. One of nine colonial colleges, it was chartered in 1755 through the efforts of f ...
. During his postgraduate work in the
Harvard Society of Fellows The Society of Fellows is a group of scholars selected at the beginnings of their careers by Harvard University for their potential to advance academic wisdom, upon whom are bestowed distinctive opportunities to foster their individual and intellect ...
, Chomsky developed the theory of
transformational grammar In linguistics, transformational grammar (TG) or transformational-generative grammar (TGG) was the earliest model of grammar proposed within the research tradition of generative grammar. Like current generative theories, it treated grammar as a sys ...
for which he earned his doctorate in 1955. That year he began teaching at MIT, and in 1957 emerged as a significant figure in linguistics with his landmark work '' Syntactic Structures'', which played a major role in remodeling the study of language. From 1958 to 1959 Chomsky was a
National Science Foundation The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) is an Independent agencies of the United States government#Examples of independent agencies, independent agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government that su ...
fellow at the
Institute for Advanced Study The Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) is an independent center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry located in Princeton, New Jersey. It has served as the academic home of internationally preeminent scholars, including Albert Ein ...
. He created or co-created the universal grammar theory, the
generative grammar Generative grammar is a research tradition in linguistics that aims to explain the cognitive basis of language by formulating and testing explicit models of humans' subconscious grammatical knowledge. Generative linguists, or generativists (), ...
theory, the
Chomsky hierarchy The Chomsky hierarchy in the fields of formal language theory, computer science, and linguistics, is a containment hierarchy of classes of formal grammars. A formal grammar describes how to form strings from a formal language's alphabet that are v ...
, and the
minimalist program In linguistics, the minimalist program is a major line of inquiry that has been developing inside generative grammar since the early 1990s, starting with a 1993 paper by Noam Chomsky. Following Imre Lakatos's distinction, Chomsky presents minima ...
. Chomsky also played a pivotal role in the decline of linguistic
behaviorism Behaviorism is a systematic approach to understand the behavior of humans and other animals. It assumes that behavior is either a reflex elicited by the pairing of certain antecedent stimuli in the environment, or a consequence of that indivi ...
, and was particularly critical of the work of
B. F. Skinner Burrhus Frederic Skinner (March 20, 1904 – August 18, 1990) was an American psychologist, behaviorist, inventor, and social philosopher. He was the Edgar Pierce Professor of Psychology at Harvard University from 1948 until his retirement in ...
. An outspoken opponent of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, which he saw as an act of
American imperialism U.S. imperialism or American imperialism is the expansion of political, economic, cultural, media, and military influence beyond the boundaries of the United States. Depending on the commentator, it may include imperialism through outright mi ...
, in 1967 Chomsky rose to national attention for his
anti-war An anti-war movement is a social movement in opposition to one or more nations' decision to start or carry on an armed conflict. The term ''anti-war'' can also refer to pacifism, which is the opposition to all use of military force during conf ...
essay "
The Responsibility of Intellectuals "The Responsibility of Intellectuals" is an essay by the American academic Noam Chomsky, which was published as a special supplement by ''The New York Review of Books'' on 23 February 1967. Content The article was written during the then-ongoing ...
". Becoming associated with the
New Left The New Left was a broad political movement that emerged from the counterculture of the 1960s and continued through the 1970s. It consisted of activists in the Western world who, in reaction to the era's liberal establishment, campaigned for freer ...
, he was arrested multiple times for his activism and placed on President
Richard Nixon Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 until Resignation of Richard Nixon, his resignation in 1974. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican ...
's list of political opponents. While expanding his work in linguistics over subsequent decades, he also became involved in the
linguistics wars The linguistics wars were extended disputes among American theoretical linguists that occurred mostly during the 1960s and 1970s, stemming from a disagreement between Noam Chomsky and several of his associates and students. The debates started in ...
. In collaboration with Edward S. Herman, Chomsky later articulated the
propaganda model The propaganda model is a conceptual model in political economy advanced by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky to explain how propaganda and systemic biases function in corporate mass media. The model seeks to explain how populations are manipu ...
of
media criticism Media studies is a discipline and field of study that deals with the content, history, and effects of various media; in particular, the mass media. Media studies may draw on traditions from both the social sciences and the humanities, but it mos ...
in ''
Manufacturing Consent ''Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media'' is a 1988 book by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky. It argues that the mass communication media of the U.S. "are effective and powerful ideological institutions that carry out ...
'', and worked to expose the
Indonesian occupation of East Timor The Indonesian occupation of East Timor began in December 1975 and lasted until October 1999. After centuries of Portuguese Timor, Portuguese colonial rule in East Timor, the 1974 Carnation Revolution in Portugal led to the decolonisation of ...
. His defense of unconditional
freedom of speech Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction. The rights, right to freedom of expression has been r ...
, including that of
Holocaust denial Historical negationism, Denial of the Holocaust is an antisemitic conspiracy theory that asserts that the genocide of Jews by the Nazi Party, Nazis is a fabrication or exaggeration. It includes making one or more of the following false claims: ...
, generated significant controversy in the Faurisson affair of the 1980s. Chomsky's commentary on the
Cambodian genocide The Cambodian genocide was the systematic persecution and killing of Cambodian citizens by the Khmer Rouge under the leadership of Pol Pot. It resulted in the deaths of 1.5 to 2 million people from 1975 to 1979, nearly 25% of Cambodia's populati ...
and the
Bosnian genocide The Bosnian genocide () took place during the Bosnian War of 1992–1995 and included both the Srebrenica massacre and the wider crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing in the Bosnian War, ethnic cleansing campaign perpetrated throughout ar ...
also generated controversy. Since retiring from active teaching at MIT, he has continued his vocal political activism, including opposing the 2003 invasion of Iraq and supporting the
Occupy movement The Occupy movement was an international populist Social movement, socio-political movement that expressed opposition to Social equality, social and economic inequality and to the perceived lack of real democracy around the world. It aimed primar ...
. An
anti-Zionist Anti-Zionism is opposition to Zionism. Although anti-Zionism is a heterogeneous phenomenon, all its proponents agree that the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, and the movement to create a sovereign Jewish state in the Palestine (region) ...
, Chomsky considers Israel's treatment of Palestinians to be worse than South African–style apartheid, and criticizes U.S. support for Israel. Chomsky is widely recognized as having helped to spark the
cognitive revolution The cognitive revolution was an intellectual movement that began in the 1950s as an interdisciplinary study of the mind and its processes, from which emerged a new field known as cognitive science. The preexisting relevant fields were psychology, ...
in the
human sciences Human science (or human sciences in the plural) studies the philosophical, biological, social, justice, and cultural aspects of human life. Human science aims to expand the understanding of the human world through a broad interdisciplinary appro ...
, contributing to the development of a new cognitivistic framework for the study of language and the mind. Chomsky remains a leading critic of
U.S. foreign policy The officially stated goals of the foreign policy of the United States of America, including all the bureaus and offices in the United States Department of State, as mentioned in the ''Foreign Policy Agenda'' of the Department of State, are ...
, contemporary
capitalism Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their use for the purpose of obtaining profit. This socioeconomic system has developed historically through several stages and is defined by ...
, U.S. involvement and Israel's role in the
Israeli–Palestinian conflict The Israeli–Palestinian conflict is an ongoing military and political conflict about Territory, land and self-determination within the territory of the former Mandatory Palestine. Key aspects of the conflict include the Israeli occupation ...
, and
mass media Mass media include the diverse arrays of media that reach a large audience via mass communication. Broadcast media transmit information electronically via media such as films, radio, recorded music, or television. Digital media comprises b ...
. Chomsky and his ideas remain highly influential in the
anti-capitalist Anti-capitalism is a political ideology and Political movement, movement encompassing a variety of attitudes and ideas that oppose capitalism. Anti-capitalists seek to combat the worst effects of capitalism and to eventually replace capitalism ...
and
anti-imperialist Anti-imperialism in political science and international relations is opposition to imperialism or neocolonialism. Anti-imperialist sentiment typically manifests as a political principle in independence struggles against intervention or influenc ...
movements.


Life


Childhood: 1928–1945

Chomsky was born on December 7, 1928, in the East Oak Lane neighborhood of
Philadelphia Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...
, Pennsylvania. His parents,
William Chomsky William Chomsky (born Ze'ev Chomsky; January 15, 1896July 19, 1977) was an American scholar of the Hebrew language. He was born in the Russian Empire (modern Ukraine) and settled in the United States in 1913. From 1924 until 1969, he was a membe ...
and Elsie Simonofsky, were Jewish immigrants. William had fled the
Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...
in 1913 to escape conscription and worked in Baltimore
sweatshop A sweatshop or sweat factory is a cramped workplace with very poor and/or illegal working conditions, including little to no breaks, inadequate work space, insufficient lighting and ventilation, or uncomfortably or dangerously high or low temperat ...
s and Hebrew elementary schools before attending university. After moving to Philadelphia, William became principal of the
Congregation Mikveh Israel Congregation Mikveh Israel (), is a Sephardic Orthodox Jewish synagogue located at 44 North Fourth Street in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the United States. The congregation traces its history from 1740. Mikveh Israel is a Spanish and Portu ...
religious school and joined the
Gratz College Gratz College is a private Jewish college in Melrose Park, Pennsylvania, United States. The college traces its origins to 1856 when banker, philanthropist, and communal leader Hyman Gratz and the Hebrew Education Society of Philadelphia (es ...
faculty. He placed great emphasis on educating people so that they would be "well integrated, free and independent in their thinking, concerned about improving and enhancing the world, and eager to participate in making life more meaningful and worthwhile for all", a mission that shaped and was subsequently adopted by his son. Elsie, who also taught at Mikveh Israel, shared her leftist politics and care for social issues with her sons. Noam's only sibling, David Eli Chomsky (1934–2021), was born five years later, and worked as a cardiologist in Philadelphia. The brothers were close, though David was more easygoing while Noam could be very competitive. They were raised Jewish, being taught
Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...
and regularly involved with discussing the political theories of
Zionism Zionism is an Ethnic nationalism, ethnocultural nationalist movement that emerged in History of Europe#From revolution to imperialism (1789–1914), Europe in the late 19th century that aimed to establish and maintain a national home for the ...
; the family was particularly influenced by the Left Zionist writings of
Ahad Ha'am Asher Zvi Hirsch Ginsberg (18 August 1856 – 2 January 1927), primarily known by his Hebrew name and pen name Ahad Ha'am (, lit. 'one of the people', ), was a Hebrew journalist and essayist, and one of the foremost pre-state Zionist thinkers. ...
. He faced
antisemitism Antisemitism or Jew-hatred is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who harbours it is called an antisemite. Whether antisemitism is considered a form of racism depends on the school of thought. Antisemi ...
as a child, particularly from Philadelphia's Irish and German communities. Chomsky attended the independent, Deweyite Oak Lane Country Day School and Philadelphia's Central High School, where he excelled academically and joined various clubs and societies, but was troubled by the school's hierarchical and domineering teaching methods. He also attended Hebrew High School at Gratz College, where his father taught. Chomsky has described his parents as "normal Roosevelt Democrats" with
center-left politics Centre-left politics is the range of left-wing political ideologies that lean closer to the political centre. Ideologies commonly associated with it include social democracy, social liberalism, progressivism, and green politics. Ideas commonly ...
, but relatives involved in the
International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union The International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union (ILGWU) was a labor union for employees in the women's clothing industry in the United States. It was one of the largest unions in the country, one of the first to have a primarily female membersh ...
exposed him to
socialism Socialism is an economic ideology, economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse Economic system, economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership. It describes ...
and
far-left politics Far-left politics, also known as extreme left politics or left-wing extremism, are politics further to the left on the left–right political spectrum than the standard political left. The term does not have a single, coherent definition; some ...
. He was substantially influenced by his uncle and the Jewish leftists who frequented his New York City newspaper stand to debate current affairs. Chomsky himself often visited left-wing and anarchist bookstores when visiting his uncle in the city, voraciously reading political literature. He became absorbed in the story of the 1939 fall of Barcelona and suppression of the Spanish anarchosyndicalist movement, writing his first article on the topic at the age of 10. That he came to identify with anarchism first rather than another leftist movement, he described as a "lucky accident". Chomsky was firmly anti-Bolshevik by his early teens.


University: 1945–1955

In 1945, at the age of 16, Chomsky began a general program of study at the
University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. One of nine colonial colleges, it was chartered in 1755 through the efforts of f ...
, where he explored philosophy, logic, and languages and developed a primary interest in learning
Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...
. Living at home, he funded his undergraduate degree by teaching Hebrew. Frustrated with his experiences at the university, he considered dropping out and moving to a
kibbutz A kibbutz ( / , ; : kibbutzim / ) is an intentional community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. The first kibbutz, established in 1910, was Degania Alef, Degania. Today, farming has been partly supplanted by other economi ...
in
Mandatory Palestine Mandatory Palestine was a British Empire, British geopolitical entity that existed between 1920 and 1948 in the Palestine (region), region of Palestine, and after 1922, under the terms of the League of Nations's Mandate for Palestine. After ...
, but his intellectual curiosity was reawakened through conversations with the linguist
Zellig Harris Zellig Sabbettai Harris (; October 23, 1909 – May 22, 1992) was an influential American linguist, mathematical syntactician, and methodologist of science. Originally a Semiticist, he is best known for his work in structural linguistics and di ...
, whom he first met in a political circle in 1947. Harris introduced Chomsky to the field of theoretical linguistics and convinced him to major in the subject. Chomsky's BA honors thesis, "Morphophonemics of Modern Hebrew", applied Harris's methods to the language. Chomsky revised this thesis for his MA, which he received from the University of Pennsylvania in 1951; it was subsequently published as a book. He also developed his interest in philosophy while at university, in particular under the tutelage of
Nelson Goodman Henry Nelson Goodman (7 August 1906 – 25 November 1998) was an American philosopher, known for his work on counterfactuals, mereology, the problem of induction, irrealism, and aesthetics. Life and career Goodman was born in Somerville, Ma ...
. From 1951 to 1955, Chomsky was a member of the Society of Fellows at
Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...
, where he undertook research on what became his doctoral dissertation. Having been encouraged by Goodman to apply, Chomsky was attracted to Harvard in part because the philosopher
Willard Van Orman Quine Willard Van Orman Quine ( ; known to his friends as "Van"; June 25, 1908 – December 25, 2000) was an American philosopher and logician in the analytic tradition, recognized as "one of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century" ...
was based there. Both Quine and a visiting philosopher,
J. L. Austin John Langshaw Austin (26 March 1911 – 8 February 1960) was an English philosopher of language and leading proponent of ordinary language philosophy, best known for developing the theory of speech acts. Austin pointed out that we use lan ...
of the
University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...
, strongly influenced Chomsky. In 1952, Chomsky published his first academic article in ''
The Journal of Symbolic Logic ''The'' is a grammatical article in English, denoting nouns that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The ...
''. Highly critical of the established
behaviorist Behaviorism is a systematic approach to understand the behavior of humans and other animals. It assumes that behavior is either a reflex elicited by the pairing of certain antecedent stimuli in the environment, or a consequence of that indivi ...
currents in linguistics, in 1954, he presented his ideas at lectures at the
University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...
and
Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...
. He had not been registered as a student at Pennsylvania for four years, but in 1955 he submitted a thesis setting out his ideas on
transformational grammar In linguistics, transformational grammar (TG) or transformational-generative grammar (TGG) was the earliest model of grammar proposed within the research tradition of generative grammar. Like current generative theories, it treated grammar as a sys ...
; he was awarded a Doctor of Philosophy degree for it, and it was privately distributed among specialists on microfilm before being published in 1975 as part of '' The Logical Structure of Linguistic Theory''. Harvard professor
George Armitage Miller George Armitage Miller (February 3, 1920 – July 22, 2012) was an American psychologist who was one of the founders of cognitive psychology, and more broadly, of cognitive science. He also contributed to the birth of psycholinguistics. Miller ...
was impressed by Chomsky's thesis and collaborated with him on several technical papers in
mathematical linguistics Mathematical linguistics is the application of mathematics to model phenomena and solve problems in general linguistics and theoretical linguistics. Mathematical linguistics has a significant amount of overlap with computational linguistic ...
. Chomsky's doctorate exempted him from
compulsory military service Conscription, also known as the draft in the United States and Israel, is the practice in which the compulsory enlistment in a national service, mainly a military service, is enforced by law. Conscription dates back to antiquity and it contin ...
, which was otherwise due to begin in 1955. In 1947, Chomsky began a romantic relationship with Carol Doris Schatz, whom he had known since early childhood. They married in 1949. After Chomsky was made a Fellow at Harvard, the couple moved to the
Allston Allston is an officially recognized neighborhood in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. It was named after the American painter and poet Washington Allston. It comprises the land covered by the zip code 02134. For the most part, Allston is ...
area of Boston and remained there until 1965, when they relocated to the suburb of Lexington. The couple took a Harvard travel grant to Europe in 1953. He enjoyed living in
Hashomer Hatzair Hashomer Hatzair (, , 'The Young Guard') is a Labor Zionism, Labor Zionist, secular Jewish youth movement founded in 1913 in the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, Austria-Hungary. It was also the name of the Hashomer Hatzair Workers Party, the ...
's
HaZore'a HaZore'a (, ''lit.'' The Sower, named after the neighbouring Tel Zariq, ) is a kibbutz in northern Israel established in 1936 by German Jews. It is the only kibbutz that was established by members of the movement. Located in the western rim of ...
kibbutz while in Israel, but was appalled by his interactions with Jewish nationalism,
anti-Arab racism Anti-Arab racism, also called Anti-Arabism, Anti-Arab sentiment, or Arabophobia, refers to feelings and expressions of hostility, hatred, discrimination, fear, or prejudice toward Arab people, the Arab world or the Arabic language on the basis ...
and, within the kibbutz's leftist community,
Stalinism Stalinism (, ) is the Totalitarianism, totalitarian means of governing and Marxism–Leninism, Marxist–Leninist policies implemented in the Soviet Union (USSR) from History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953), 1927 to 1953 by dictator Jose ...
. On visits to New York City, Chomsky continued to frequent the office of the Yiddish anarchist journal ''
Fraye Arbeter Shtime ''Freie Arbeiter Stimme'' ( Daytshmerish spelling of romanized: ''Fraye arbeṭer shṭime'', ''lit.'' 'Free Voice of Labor' also spelled with an extra '' mem'' ) was a Yiddish-language anarchist newspaper published from New York City's Lower ...
'' and became enamored with the ideas of
Rudolf Rocker Johann Rudolf Rocker (; March 25, 1873 – September 19, 1958) was a German anarchist writer and activist. He was born in Mainz to an artisan family. His father died when he was a child, and his mother when he was in his teens, so he spent som ...
, a contributor whose work introduced Chomsky to the link between
anarchism Anarchism is a political philosophy and Political movement, movement that seeks to abolish all institutions that perpetuate authority, coercion, or Social hierarchy, hierarchy, primarily targeting the state (polity), state and capitalism. A ...
and
classical liberalism Classical liberalism is a political tradition and a branch of liberalism that advocates free market and laissez-faire economics and civil liberties under the rule of law, with special emphasis on individual autonomy, limited governmen ...
. Chomsky also read other political thinkers: the anarchists
Mikhail Bakunin Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin. Sometimes anglicized to Michael Bakunin. ( ; – 1 July 1876) was a Russian revolutionary anarchist. He is among the most influential figures of anarchism and a major figure in the revolutionary socialist, s ...
and
Diego Abad de Santillán Sinesio Baudillo García Fernández (20 May 1897 – 18 October 1983), commonly known by his pseudonym Diego Abad de Santillán, was a Spanish Argentine anarcho-syndicalist economist. Born in León, his family moved to Argentina while he was ...
, democratic socialists
George Orwell Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950) was an English novelist, poet, essayist, journalist, and critic who wrote under the pen name of George Orwell. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to a ...
,
Bertrand Russell Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, and public intellectual. He had influence on mathematics, logic, set theory, and various areas of analytic ...
, and
Dwight Macdonald Dwight Macdonald (March 24, 1906 – December 19, 1982) was an American writer, critic, philosopher, and activist. Macdonald was a member of the New York Intellectuals and editor of their leftist magazine '' Partisan Review'' for six years. He ...
, and works by Marxists
Karl Liebknecht Karl Paul August Friedrich Liebknecht (; ; 13 August 1871 – 15 January 1919) was a German politician and revolutionary socialist. A leader of the far-left wing of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), Liebknecht was a co-founder of both ...
,
Karl Korsch Karl Korsch (; August 15, 1886 – October 21, 1961) was a German Marxist theoretician and political philosopher. He is recognized as one of the "dissidents" that challenged the Marxism of the Second International of Karl Kautsky, Georgi Plekhan ...
, and
Rosa Luxemburg Rosa Luxemburg ( ; ; ; born Rozalia Luksenburg; 5 March 1871 – 15 January 1919) was a Polish and naturalised-German revolutionary and Marxist theorist. She was a key figure of the socialist movements in Poland and Germany in the early 20t ...
. His politics were reaffirmed by Orwell's depiction of
Barcelona Barcelona ( ; ; ) is a city on the northeastern coast of Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second-most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within c ...
's functioning anarchist society in ''
Homage to Catalonia ''Homage to Catalonia'' is a 1938 memoir by English writer George Orwell, in which he accounts his personal experiences and observations while fighting in the Spanish Civil War. Covering the period between December 1936 and June 1937, Orwell re ...
'' (1938). Chomsky read the leftist journal ''
Politics Politics () is the set of activities that are associated with decision-making, making decisions in social group, groups, or other forms of power (social and political), power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of Social sta ...
'', which furthered his interest in anarchism, and the
council communist Council communism or councilism is a current of communist thought that emerged in the 1920s. Inspired by the November Revolution, council communism was opposed to state socialism and advocated workers' councils and council democracy. Co ...
periodical ''
Living Marxism ''Living Marxism'' was a British magazine originally launched in 1988 as the journal of the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP). The magazine attracted attention for denying both the Rwandan genocide and Bosnian genocide. Rebranded as ''LM'' ...
'', though he rejected the Marxist orthodoxy of its editor,
Paul Mattick Paul Mattick Sr. (March 13, 1904 – February 7, 1981) was a German-American Marxist political writer, activist, and theorist, associated with the council communist movement. Throughout his life, Mattick was critical of capitalism, Bolshevism ...
.


Early career: 1955–1966

Chomsky befriended two linguists at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...
(MIT)—
Morris Halle Morris Halle, Pinkowitz (; July 23, 1923 – April 2, 2018), was a Latvian-born American linguist who was an Institute Professor, and later professor emeritus, of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The father of "modern ...
and
Roman Jakobson Roman Osipovich Jakobson (, ; 18 July 1982) was a Russian linguist and literary theorist. A pioneer of structural linguistics, Jakobson was one of the most celebrated and influential linguists of the twentieth century. With Nikolai Trubetzk ...
—the latter of whom secured him an assistant professor position there in 1955. At MIT, Chomsky spent half his time on a mechanical translation project and half teaching a course on linguistics and philosophy. He described MIT as open to experimentation where he was free to pursue his idiosyncratic interests. MIT promoted him to the position of
associate professor Associate professor is an academic title with two principal meanings: in the North American system and that of the ''Commonwealth system''. In the ''North American system'', used in the United States and many other countries, it is a position ...
in 1957, and over the next year he was also a visiting professor at
Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...
. The Chomskys had their first child,
Aviva Aviva plc is a British multinational insurance company headquartered in London, England. It has about 19 million customers across its core markets of the United Kingdom, Ireland and Canada. In the United Kingdom, Aviva is the largest general ...
, that same year. He also published his first book on linguistics, '' Syntactic Structures'', a work that radically opposed the dominant Harris– Bloomfield trend in the field. Responses to Chomsky's ideas ranged from indifference to hostility, and his work proved divisive and caused "significant upheaval" in the discipline. The linguist John Lyons later asserted that ''Syntactic Structures'' "revolutionized the scientific study of language". From 1958 to 1959 Chomsky was a
National Science Foundation The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) is an Independent agencies of the United States government#Examples of independent agencies, independent agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government that su ...
fellow at the
Institute for Advanced Study The Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) is an independent center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry located in Princeton, New Jersey. It has served as the academic home of internationally preeminent scholars, including Albert Ein ...
in
Princeton, New Jersey The Municipality of Princeton is a Borough (New Jersey), borough in Mercer County, New Jersey, United States. It was established on January 1, 2013, through the consolidation of the Borough of Princeton, New Jersey, Borough of Princeton and Pri ...
. Chomsky's provocative critique of
B. F. Skinner Burrhus Frederic Skinner (March 20, 1904 – August 18, 1990) was an American psychologist, behaviorist, inventor, and social philosopher. He was the Edgar Pierce Professor of Psychology at Harvard University from 1948 until his retirement in ...
, who viewed language as learned behavior, and that critique's challenge to the dominant behaviorist paradigm thrust Chomsky into the limelight. Chomsky argued that behaviorism underplayed the role of human creativity in learning language and overplayed the role of external conditions in influencing verbal behavior. He proceeded to found MIT's graduate program in linguistics with Halle. In 1961, Chomsky received tenure and became a
full professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a 'person who professes'. Professors ...
in the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics. He was appointed plenary speaker at the Ninth
International Congress of Linguists The International Congress of Linguists (ICL) takes place every five years, under the governance of the Permanent International Committee of Linguists (PICL) / ''Comité International Permanent des Linguistes''CIPL. The 19th ICL was held in Geneva, ...
, held in 1962 in
Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. It is a suburb in the Greater Boston metropolitan area, located directly across the Charles River from Boston. The city's population as of the 2020 United States census, ...
, which established him as the ''de facto'' spokesperson of American linguistics. Between 1963 and 1965 he consulted on a military-sponsored project to teach computers to understand natural English commands from military generals. Chomsky continued to publish his linguistic ideas throughout the decade, including in ''
Aspects of the Theory of Syntax ''Aspects of the Theory of Syntax'' (known in linguistic circles simply as ''Aspects'') is a book on linguistics written by American linguist Noam Chomsky, first published in 1965. In ''Aspects'', Chomsky presented a deeper, more extensive reformu ...
'' (1965), ''Topics in the Theory of Generative Grammar'' (1966), and '' Cartesian Linguistics: A Chapter in the History of Rationalist Thought'' (1966). Along with Halle, he also edited the ''
Studies in Language Study or studies may refer to: General * Education **Higher education * Clinical trial * Experiment * Field of study * Observational study * Scientific study * Research * Study skills, abilities and approaches applied to learning Other * Study ...
'' series of books for
Harper and Row Harper is an American publishing house, the flagship imprint of global publisher HarperCollins, based in New York City. Founded in New York in 1817 by James Harper and his brother John, the company operated as J. & J. Harper until 1833, when ...
. As he began to accrue significant academic recognition and honors for his work, Chomsky lectured at the
University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...
, in 1966. These lectures were published as '' Language and Mind'' in 1968. In the late 1960s, a high-profile intellectual rift later known as the
linguistic wars The linguistics wars were extended disputes among American theoretical linguists that occurred mostly during the 1960s and 1970s, stemming from a disagreement between Noam Chomsky and several of his associates and students. The debates started i ...
developed between Chomsky and some of his colleagues and doctoral students—including
Paul Postal Paul Martin Postal (born November 10, 1936, in Weehawken, New Jersey) is an American linguist. Biography Postal received his PhD from Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New ...
, John Ross,
George Lakoff George Philip Lakoff ( ; born May 24, 1941) is an American cognitive linguist and philosopher, best known for his thesis that people's lives are significantly influenced by the conceptual metaphors they use to explain complex phenomena. The ...
, and
James D. McCawley James David McCawley (March 30, 1938 – April 10, 1999) was a Scottish-American linguist. Biography McCawley was born James Quillan McCawley, Jr. to Dr. Monica Bateman McCawley (b. 1901), a physician and surgeon, and James Quillan McCawley (b. ...
—who contended that Chomsky's syntax-based, interpretivist linguistics did not properly account for semantic context (
general semantics General semantics is a school of thought that incorporates philosophy, philosophic and science, scientific aspects. Although it does not stand on its own as a separate list of schools of philosophy, school of philosophy, a separate science, or ...
). A post hoc assessment of this period concluded that the opposing programs ultimately were complementary, each informing the other.


Anti-war activism and dissent: 1967–1975

Chomsky joined
protests against U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War Opposition to United States involvement in the Vietnam War began in 1965 with demonstrations against the escalating role of the United States in the war. Over the next several years, these demonstrations grew into a social movement which was ...
in 1962, speaking on the subject at small gatherings in churches and homes. His 1967 critique of U.S. involvement, "
The Responsibility of Intellectuals "The Responsibility of Intellectuals" is an essay by the American academic Noam Chomsky, which was published as a special supplement by ''The New York Review of Books'' on 23 February 1967. Content The article was written during the then-ongoing ...
", among other contributions to ''
The New York Review of Books ''The New York Review of Books'' (or ''NYREV'' or ''NYRB'') is a semi-monthly magazine with articles on literature, culture, economics, science and current affairs. Published in New York City, it is inspired by the idea that the discussion of ...
'', debuted Chomsky as a public dissident. This essay and other political articles were collected and published in 1969 as part of Chomsky's first political book, ''
American Power and the New Mandarins ''American Power and the New Mandarins'' is a book by American academic Noam Chomsky. Largely written in 1968 and published in 1969, it was his first text focused on politics and sets out in detail his opposition to U.S. involvement in the Vietna ...
''. He followed this with further political books, including ''At War with Asia'' (1970), ''The Backroom Boys'' (1973), ''
For Reasons of State For or FOR may refer to: English language *For, a preposition *For, a complementizer *For, a grammatical conjunction Science and technology * Fornax, a constellation * for loop, a programming language statement * Frame of reference In phy ...
'' (1973), and ''Peace in the Middle East?'' (1974), published by
Pantheon Books Pantheon Books is an American book publishing imprint. Founded in 1942 as an independent publishing house in New York City by Kurt and Helen Wolff, it specialized in introducing progressive European works to American readers. In 1961, it was ...
. These publications led to Chomsky's association with the American
New Left The New Left was a broad political movement that emerged from the counterculture of the 1960s and continued through the 1970s. It consisted of activists in the Western world who, in reaction to the era's liberal establishment, campaigned for freer ...
movement, though he thought little of prominent New Left intellectuals
Herbert Marcuse Herbert Marcuse ( ; ; July 19, 1898 – July 29, 1979) was a German–American philosopher, social critic, and Political philosophy, political theorist, associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theory. Born in Berlin, Marcuse studied at ...
and
Erich Fromm Erich Seligmann Fromm (; ; March 23, 1900 – March 18, 1980) was a German-American social psychologist, psychoanalyst, sociologist, humanistic philosopher, and democratic socialist. He was a German Jew who fled the Nazi regime and set ...
and preferred the company of activists to that of intellectuals. Chomsky remained largely ignored by the mainstream press throughout this period. Chomsky also became involved in left-wing activism. Chomsky refused to pay half his taxes, publicly supported students who refused the draft, and was arrested while participating in an
anti-war An anti-war movement is a social movement in opposition to one or more nations' decision to start or carry on an armed conflict. The term ''anti-war'' can also refer to pacifism, which is the opposition to all use of military force during conf ...
teach-in A teach-in is similar to a general educational forum on any complicated issue, usually an issue involving current political affairs. The main difference between a teach-in and a seminar is the refusal to limit the discussion to a specific tim ...
outside the Pentagon. During this time, Chomsky co-founded the anti-war collective
RESIST A resist, used in many areas of manufacturing and art, is something that is added to parts of an object to create a pattern by protecting these parts from being affected by a subsequent stage in the process. Often the resist is then removed. For ...
with
Mitchell Goodman Mitchell Goodman (December 13, 1923 – February 1, 1997) was an American writer, teacher, and activist. He is best known for his role in the Vietnam draft resistance movement, which drew the high-profile 1968 federal prosecution of the "Boston ...
,
Denise Levertov Priscilla Denise Levertov (24 October 1923 – 20 December 1997) was a British-born naturalised American poet. She was heavily influenced by the Black Mountain poets and by the political context of the Vietnam War, which she explored in her p ...
,
William Sloane Coffin William Sloane Coffin Jr. (June 1, 1924 – April 12, 2006) was an American Christian clergyman and peace activist. He was ordained in the Presbyterian Church, and later received ministerial standing in the United Church of Christ. In his young ...
, and
Dwight Macdonald Dwight Macdonald (March 24, 1906 – December 19, 1982) was an American writer, critic, philosopher, and activist. Macdonald was a member of the New York Intellectuals and editor of their leftist magazine '' Partisan Review'' for six years. He ...
. Although he questioned the objectives of the
1968 student protests The protests of 1968 comprised a worldwide escalation of social conflicts, which were predominantly characterized by the rise of left-wing politics, Anti-war movement, anti-war sentiment, Civil and political rights, civil rights urgency, youth C ...
, Chomsky regularly gave lectures to student activist groups and, with his colleague
Louis Kampf Louis Kampf (May 12, 1929 – May 30, 2020) was an American professor of literature and former president of the Modern Language Association. Louis Kampf was born on May 12, 1929 in Vienna. In 1938 he fled Nazi Germany with his parents, and, via ...
, ran undergraduate courses on politics at MIT independently of the conservative-dominated
political science Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and Power (social and political), power, and the analysis of political activities, political philosophy, political thought, polit ...
department. When student activists campaigned to stop weapons and counterinsurgency research at MIT, Chomsky was sympathetic but felt that the research should remain under MIT's oversight and limited to systems of deterrence and defense. Chomsky has acknowledged that his MIT lab's funding at this time came from the military. He later said he considered resigning from MIT during the Vietnam War. There has since been a wide-ranging debate about what effects Chomsky's employment at MIT had on his political and linguistic ideas. Chomsky's anti-war activism led to his arrest on multiple occasions and he was on President
Richard Nixon's master list of political opponents The master list of Nixon's political opponents was a secret list compiled by President of the United States, US President Richard Nixon's White House Counsel, Presidential Counselor Charles Colson. It was an expansion of the original Nixon's Enemi ...
. Chomsky was aware of the potential repercussions of his civil disobedience, and his wife began studying for her own doctorate in linguistics to support the family in the event of Chomsky's imprisonment or joblessness. Chomsky's scientific reputation insulated him from administrative action based on his beliefs. In 1970 he visited southeast Asia to lecture at Vietnam's
Hanoi University of Science and Technology The Hanoi University of Science and Technology (HUST; , formerly known in English as ''Hanoi University of Technology (HUT)'' until 2010) is the first and largest technical university and the most prestigious university in Vietnam. History Af ...
and toured war refugee camps in
Laos Laos, officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic (LPDR), is the only landlocked country in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by Myanmar and China to the northwest, Vietnam to the east, Cambodia to the southeast, and Thailand to the west and ...
. In 1973 he helped lead a committee commemorating the 50th anniversary of the
War Resisters League The War Resisters League (WRL) is the oldest secular pacifist organization in the United States, having been founded in 1923. History Founded in 1923 by men and women who had opposed World War I, it is a section of the London-based War Resisters' ...
. Chomsky's work in linguistics continued to gain international recognition as he received multiple honorary doctorates. He delivered
public lectures A public lecture (also known as an open lecture) is one means employed for educating the public. Gresham College, in London, has been providing free public lectures since its founding in 1597 through the will of Sir Thomas Gresham. The Royal ...
at the
University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...
,
Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...
( Woodbridge Lectures), and
Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...
. His appearance in a 1971 debate with French continental philosopher
Michel Foucault Paul-Michel Foucault ( , ; ; 15 October 192625 June 1984) was a French History of ideas, historian of ideas and Philosophy, philosopher who was also an author, Literary criticism, literary critic, Activism, political activist, and teacher. Fo ...
positioned Chomsky as a symbolic figurehead of
analytic philosophy Analytic philosophy is a broad movement within Western philosophy, especially English-speaking world, anglophone philosophy, focused on analysis as a philosophical method; clarity of prose; rigor in arguments; and making use of formal logic, mat ...
. He continued to publish extensively on linguistics, producing ''Studies on Semantics in Generative Grammar'' (1972), an enlarged edition of '' Language and Mind'' (1972), and '' Reflections on Language'' (1975). In 1974 Chomsky became a
corresponding fellow of the British Academy Fellowship of the British Academy (post-nominal letters FBA) is an award granted by the British Academy to leading academics for their distinction in the humanities and social sciences. The categories are: # Fellows – scholars resident in t ...
.


Edward S. Herman and the Faurisson affair: 1976–1980

In the late 1970s and 1980s, Chomsky's linguistic publications expanded and clarified his earlier work, addressing his critics and updating his grammatical theory. His political talks often generated considerable controversy, particularly when he criticized the Israeli government and military. In the early 1970s Chomsky began collaborating with Edward S. Herman, who had also published critiques of the U.S. war in Vietnam. Together they wrote '' Counter-Revolutionary Violence: Bloodbaths in Fact & Propaganda'', a book that criticized U.S. military involvement in Southeast Asia and the mainstream media's failure to cover it. Warner Modular published it in 1973, but its parent company disapproved of the book's contents and ordered all copies destroyed. While mainstream publishing options proved elusive, Chomsky found support from
Michael Albert Michael Albert (born April 8, 1947) is an American economist, speaker, writer, and political critic. Since the late 1970s, he has published on a variety of subjects. He has set up his own media outfits, magazines, and podcasts. He is known for ...
's
South End Press South End Press was a non-profit book publisher run on a model of participatory economics. It was founded in 1977 in Boston's South End. It published books written by political activists, notably Arundhati Roy, Noam Chomsky, bell hooks, Win ...
, an activist-oriented publishing company. In 1979, South End published Chomsky and Herman's revised ''Counter-Revolutionary Violence'' as the two-volume ''
The Political Economy of Human Rights ''The Political Economy of Human Rights'' is a 1979 two-volume work by Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman. The authors offer a critique of United States foreign policy, particularly in Indochina. Summary Chomsky and Herman discuss United Sta ...
'', which compares U.S. media reactions to the
Cambodian genocide The Cambodian genocide was the systematic persecution and killing of Cambodian citizens by the Khmer Rouge under the leadership of Pol Pot. It resulted in the deaths of 1.5 to 2 million people from 1975 to 1979, nearly 25% of Cambodia's populati ...
and the
Indonesian occupation of East Timor The Indonesian occupation of East Timor began in December 1975 and lasted until October 1999. After centuries of Portuguese Timor, Portuguese colonial rule in East Timor, the 1974 Carnation Revolution in Portugal led to the decolonisation of ...
. It argues that because Indonesia was a U.S. ally, U.S. media ignored the East Timorese situation while focusing on events in Cambodia, a U.S. enemy. Chomsky's response included two testimonials before the United Nations'
Special Committee on Decolonization The United Nations Special Committee on the Situation with Regard to the Implementation of the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples, or the Special Committee on Decolonization (C-24), is a committee of ...
, successful encouragement for American media to cover the occupation, and meetings with refugees in
Lisbon Lisbon ( ; ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 567,131, as of 2023, within its administrative limits and 3,028,000 within the Lisbon Metropolitan Area, metropolis, as of 2025. Lisbon is mainlan ...
. Marxist academic
Steven Lukes Steven Michael Lukes (born 8 March 1941) is a British political and social theorist. Currently he is a professor of politics and sociology at New York University. He was formerly a professor at the University of Siena, the European University ...
most prominently publicly accused Chomsky of betraying his anarchist ideals and acting as an apologist for Cambodian leader
Pol Pot Pol Pot (born Saloth Sâr; 19 May 1925 – 15 April 1998) was a Cambodian politician, revolutionary, and dictator who ruled the communist state of Democratic Kampuchea from 1976 until Cambodian–Vietnamese War, his overthrow in 1979. During ...
. Herman said that the controversy "imposed a serious personal cost" on Chomsky, who considered the personal criticism less important than the evidence that "mainstream intelligentsia suppressed or justified the crimes of their own states". Chomsky had long publicly criticized
Nazism Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During Hitler's rise to power, it was fre ...
, and
totalitarianism Totalitarianism is a political system and a form of government that prohibits opposition from political parties, disregards and outlaws the political claims of individual and group opposition to the state, and completely controls the public s ...
more generally, but his commitment to freedom of speech led him to defend the right of French historian
Robert Faurisson Robert Faurisson (; born Robert Faurisson Aitken; 25 January 1929 – 21 October 2018) was a British-born French academic who became best known for Holocaust denial. Faurisson generated much controversy with several articles published in the '' ...
to advocate a position widely characterized as
Holocaust denial Historical negationism, Denial of the Holocaust is an antisemitic conspiracy theory that asserts that the genocide of Jews by the Nazi Party, Nazis is a fabrication or exaggeration. It includes making one or more of the following false claims: ...
. Without Chomsky's knowledge, his plea for Faurisson's freedom of speech was published as the preface to the latter's 1980 book . Chomsky was widely condemned for defending Faurisson, and France's mainstream press accused Chomsky of being a Holocaust denier himself, refusing to publish his rebuttals to their accusations. Critiquing Chomsky's position, sociologist Werner Cohn later published an analysis of the affair titled ''Partners in Hate: Noam Chomsky and the Holocaust Deniers''. The Faurisson affair had a lasting, damaging effect on Chomsky's career, especially in France.


Critique of propaganda and international affairs

In 1985, during the Nicaraguan Contra War—in which the U.S. supported the contra militia against the
Sandinista The Sandinista National Liberation Front (, FSLN) is a socialist political party in Nicaragua. Its members are called Sandinistas () in both English and Spanish. The party is named after Augusto César Sandino, who led the Nicaraguan resistan ...
government—Chomsky traveled to
Managua Managua () is the capital city, capital and largest city of Nicaragua, and one of the List of largest cities in Central America, largest cities in Central America. Located on the shores of Lake Managua, the city had an estimated population of 1, ...
to meet with workers' organizations and refugees of the conflict, giving public lectures on politics and linguistics. Many of these lectures were published in 1987 as ''On Power and Ideology: The Managua Lectures''. In 1983 he published ''
The Fateful Triangle ''The Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel and the Palestinians'' is a 1983 book by Noam Chomsky about the relationship between the US, Israel and Palestine. Chomsky examines the origins of this relationship and its meaningful consequences ...
'', which argued that the U.S. had continually used the
Israeli–Palestinian conflict The Israeli–Palestinian conflict is an ongoing military and political conflict about Territory, land and self-determination within the territory of the former Mandatory Palestine. Key aspects of the conflict include the Israeli occupation ...
for its own ends. In 1988, Chomsky visited the
Palestinian territories The occupied Palestinian territories, also referred to as the Palestinian territories, consist of the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and the Gaza Strip—two regions of the former Mandate for Palestine, British Mandate for Palestine ...
to witness the impact of Israeli occupation. Chomsky and Herman's '' Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media'' (1988) outlines their
propaganda model The propaganda model is a conceptual model in political economy advanced by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky to explain how propaganda and systemic biases function in corporate mass media. The model seeks to explain how populations are manipu ...
for understanding mainstream media. Even in countries without official censorship, they argued, the news is censored through five filters that greatly influence both what and how news is presented. The book received a 1992 film adaptation. In 1989, Chomsky published ''Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies,'' in which he suggests that a worthwhile democracy requires that its citizens undertake intellectual self-defense against the media and elite intellectual culture that seeks to control them. By the 1980s, Chomsky's students had become prominent linguists who, in turn, expanded and revised his linguistic theories. In the 1990s, Chomsky embraced political activism to a greater degree than before. Retaining his commitment to the cause of East Timorese independence, in 1995 he visited Australia to talk on the issue at the behest of the East Timorese Relief Association and the National Council for East Timorese Resistance. The lectures he gave on the subject were published as ''Powers and Prospects'' in 1996. As a result of the international publicity Chomsky generated, his biographer Wolfgang Sperlich opined that he did more to aid the cause of East Timorese independence than anyone but the investigative journalist
John Pilger John Richard Pilger (; 9 October 1939 – 30 December 2023) was an Australian journalist, writer, scholar and documentary filmmaker. From 1962, he was based mainly in Britain. He was also a visiting professor at Cornell University in New York. ...
. After East Timor attained independence from Indonesia in 1999, the Australian-led
International Force for East Timor The International Force East Timor (INTERFET) was a multinational non-United Nations peacemaking task force, organised and led by Australia in accordance with United Nations resolutions to address the humanitarian and security crisis that took ...
arrived as a peacekeeping force; Chomsky was critical of this, believing it was designed to secure Australian access to East Timor's oil and gas reserves under the
Timor Gap Treaty The Timor Gap Treaty was formally known as the ''Treaty between Australia and the Republic of Indonesia on the zone of cooperation in an area between the Indonesian province of East Timor and Northern Australia''. It was a bilateral treaty betwe ...
. Chomsky was widely interviewed after the
September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, also known as 9/11, were four coordinated Islamist terrorist suicide attacks by al-Qaeda against the United States in 2001. Nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners, crashing the first two into ...
in 2001 as the American public attempted to make sense of the attacks. He argued that the ensuing War on Terror was not a new development but a continuation of U.S. foreign policy and concomitant rhetoric since at least the Reagan era. He gave the D.T. Lakdawala Memorial Lecture in New Delhi in 2001, and in 2003 visited Cuba at the invitation of the Latin American Association of Social Scientists. Chomsky's 2003 ''
Hegemony or Survival ''Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance'' is a book about the United States and its foreign policy written by American political activist and linguist Noam Chomsky. It was first published in the United States in November 20 ...
'' articulated what he called the United States' "imperial grand strategy" and critiqued the
Iraq War The Iraq War (), also referred to as the Second Gulf War, was a prolonged conflict in Iraq lasting from 2003 to 2011. It began with 2003 invasion of Iraq, the invasion by a Multi-National Force – Iraq, United States-led coalition, which ...
and other aspects of the War on Terror. Chomsky toured internationally with greater regularity during this period. During the
2014 Scottish independence referendum A independence referendum, referendum on Scottish independence from the United Kingdom was held in Scotland on 18 September 2014. The referendum question was "Should Scotland be an independent country?", which voters answered with "Yes" or ...
, Chomsky supported Scottish independence.


Retirement

Chomsky retired from MIT in 2002, but continued to conduct research and seminars on campus as an
emeritus ''Emeritus/Emerita'' () is an honorary title granted to someone who retires from a position of distinction, most commonly an academic faculty position, but is allowed to continue using the previous title, as in "professor emeritus". In some c ...
. That same year he visited Turkey to attend the trial of a publisher who had been accused of treason for printing one of Chomsky's books; Chomsky insisted on being a co-defendant and amid international media attention, the Security Courts dropped the charge on the first day. During that trip Chomsky visited Kurdish areas of Turkey and spoke out in favor of the Kurds' human rights. A supporter of the
World Social Forum The World Social Forum (WSF, ) is an annual meeting of civil society organizations, first held in Brazil, which offers a self-conscious effort to develop an alternative future through the championing of counter-hegemonic globalization. The Worl ...
, he attended its conferences in Brazil in both 2002 and 2003, also attending the Forum event in India. Chomsky supported the 2011
Occupy movement The Occupy movement was an international populist Social movement, socio-political movement that expressed opposition to Social equality, social and economic inequality and to the perceived lack of real democracy around the world. It aimed primar ...
, speaking at encampments and publishing on the movement, which he called a reaction to a 30-year
class war Class War is an anarchist group and newspaper established by Ian Bone and others in 1983 in the United Kingdom. An incarnation of Class War was briefly registered as a political party for the purposes of fighting the 2015 United Kingdom gener ...
. The 2015 documentary '' Requiem for the American Dream'' summarizes his views on capitalism and economic inequality through a "75-minute
teach-in A teach-in is similar to a general educational forum on any complicated issue, usually an issue involving current political affairs. The main difference between a teach-in and a seminar is the refusal to limit the discussion to a specific tim ...
". In 2015 Chomsky and his wife purchased a residence in
São Paulo São Paulo (; ; Portuguese for 'Paul the Apostle, Saint Paul') is the capital of the São Paulo (state), state of São Paulo, as well as the List of cities in Brazil by population, most populous city in Brazil, the List of largest cities in the ...
, Brazil, and began splitting their time between Brazil and the U.S. Chomsky taught a short-term politics course at the
University of Arizona The University of Arizona (Arizona, U of A, UArizona, or UA) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Tucson, Arizona, United States. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, it ...
in 2017. He was later hired as the Agnese Nelms Haury Chair in the Agnese Nelms Haury Program in Environment and Social Justice, a part-time professorship in the linguistics department with duties including teaching and public seminars. His salary was covered by philanthropic donations. After a stroke in June 2023, Chomsky moved to Brazil full-time.


Linguistic theory

The basis of Chomsky's linguistic theory lies in
biolinguistics Biolinguistics can be defined as the Biology, biological and Evolutionary linguistics, evolutionary study of language. It is highly interdisciplinary as it draws from various fields such as sociobiology, linguistics, psychology, anthropology, math ...
, the linguistic school that holds that the principles underpinning the structure of language are biologically preset in the human mind and hence genetically inherited. He argues that all humans share the same underlying linguistic structure, irrespective of sociocultural differences. In adopting this position Chomsky rejects the radical behaviorist psychology of B. F. Skinner, who viewed speech, thought, and all behavior as a completely learned product of the interactions between organisms and their environments. Accordingly, Chomsky argues that language is a unique evolutionary development of the human species and distinguished from modes of communication used by any other animal species. Chomsky argues that his nativist, internalist view of language is consistent with the philosophical school of "
rationalism In philosophy, rationalism is the Epistemology, epistemological view that "regards reason as the chief source and test of knowledge" or "the position that reason has precedence over other ways of acquiring knowledge", often in contrast to ot ...
" and contrasts with the anti-nativist, externalist view of language consistent with the philosophical school of "
empiricism In philosophy, empiricism is an epistemological view which holds that true knowledge or justification comes only or primarily from sensory experience and empirical evidence. It is one of several competing views within epistemology, along ...
", which contends that all knowledge, including language, comes from external stimuli. Historians have disputed Chomsky's claim about rationalism on the basis that his theory of innate grammar excludes
propositional knowledge Declarative knowledge is an awareness of facts that can be expressed using declarative sentences. It is also called theoretical knowledge, descriptive knowledge, propositional knowledge, and knowledge-that. It is not restricted to one specific ...
and instead focuses on innate learning capacities or structures.


Universal grammar

Since the 1960s, Chomsky has maintained that syntactic knowledge is partially inborn, implying that children need only learn certain language-specific features of their
native language A first language (L1), native language, native tongue, or mother tongue is the first language a person has been exposed to from birth or within the critical period hypothesis, critical period. In some countries, the term ''native language'' ...
s. He bases his argument on observations about human
language acquisition Language acquisition is the process by which humans acquire the capacity to perceive and comprehend language. In other words, it is how human beings gain the ability to be aware of language, to understand it, and to produce and use words and s ...
and describes a "
poverty of the stimulus In linguistics, the poverty of the stimulus is the claim that children are not exposed to rich enough data within their linguistic environments to acquire every feature of their language without innate language-specific cognitive biases. Argumen ...
": an enormous gap between the linguistic stimuli to which children are exposed and the rich
linguistic competence In linguistics, linguistic competence is the system of unconscious knowledge that one has when they know a language. It is distinguished from linguistic performance, which includes all other factors that allow one to use one's language in practic ...
they attain. For example, although children are exposed to only a very small and finite subset of the allowable syntactic variants within their first language, they somehow acquire the highly organized and systematic ability to understand and produce an infinite number of sentences, including ones that have never before been uttered, in that language. To explain this, Chomsky proposed that the primary linguistic data must be supplemented by an innate linguistic capacity. Furthermore, while a human baby and a kitten are both capable of
inductive reasoning Inductive reasoning refers to a variety of method of reasoning, methods of reasoning in which the conclusion of an argument is supported not with deductive certainty, but with some degree of probability. Unlike Deductive reasoning, ''deductive'' ...
, 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 referred to this difference in capacity as the
language acquisition device The Language Acquisition Device (LAD) is a claim from language acquisition research proposed by Noam Chomsky in the 1960s. The LAD concept is a purported instinctive mental capacity which enables an infant to acquire and produce language. It is a ...
, and suggested that linguists needed to determine both what that device is and what constraints it imposes on the range of possible human languages. The universal features that result from these constraints would constitute "universal grammar". Multiple researchers have challenged universal grammar on the grounds of the evolutionary infeasibility of its genetic basis for language, the lack of crosslinguistic surface universals, and the unproven link between innate/universal structures and the structures of specific languages.
Michael Tomasello Michael Tomasello (born January 18, 1950) is an American developmental and comparative psychologist, as well as a linguist. He is professor of psychology at Duke University. Earning many prizes and awards from the end of the 1990s onward, he is ...
has challenged Chomsky's theory of innate syntactic knowledge as based on theory and not behavioral observation. The empirical basis of poverty of the stimulus arguments has been challenged by
Geoffrey Pullum Geoffrey Keith Pullum (; born 8 March 1945) is a British and American linguist specialising in the study of English. Pullum has published over 300 articles and books on various topics in linguistics, including phonology, morphology, semantics ...
and others, leading to back-and-forth debate in the
language acquisition Language acquisition is the process by which humans acquire the capacity to perceive and comprehend language. In other words, it is how human beings gain the ability to be aware of language, to understand it, and to produce and use words and s ...
literature. Recent work has also suggested that some
recurrent neural network Recurrent neural networks (RNNs) are a class of artificial neural networks designed for processing sequential data, such as text, speech, and time series, where the order of elements is important. Unlike feedforward neural networks, which proces ...
architectures can learn hierarchical structure without an explicit constraint.


Generative grammar

Chomsky is generally credited with launching the research tradition of
generative grammar Generative grammar is a research tradition in linguistics that aims to explain the cognitive basis of language by formulating and testing explicit models of humans' subconscious grammatical knowledge. Generative linguists, or generativists (), ...
, which aims to explain the
cognitive Cognition is the "mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses". It encompasses all aspects of intellectual functions and processes such as: perception, attention, thought, ...
basis of language by formulating and testing explicit models of humans' subconscious grammatical knowledge. Generative grammar proposes models of language consisting of explicit rule systems, which make testable
falsifiable Falsifiability (or refutability) is a deductive standard of evaluation of scientific theories and hypotheses, introduced by the philosopher of science Karl Popper in his book '' The Logic of Scientific Discovery'' (1934). A theory or hypothesi ...
predictions. The goal of generative grammar is sometimes described as answering the question "What is that that you know when you know a language?" Within generative grammar, Chomsky's initial model was called
transformational grammar In linguistics, transformational grammar (TG) or transformational-generative grammar (TGG) was the earliest model of grammar proposed within the research tradition of generative grammar. Like current generative theories, it treated grammar as a sys ...
. Chomsky developed transformational grammar in the mid-1950s, whereupon it became the dominant syntactic theory in linguistics for two decades. "Transformations" are syntactic rules that derive ''surface structure'' from ''deep structure'', which was often considered to reflect the structure of meaning. Transformational grammar later developed into the 1980s
government and binding theory Government and binding (GB, GBT) is a theory of syntax and a phrase structure grammar in the tradition of transformational grammar developed principally by Noam Chomsky in the 1980s. This theory is a radical revision of his earlier theories and was ...
and thence into the
minimalist program In linguistics, the minimalist program is a major line of inquiry that has been developing inside generative grammar since the early 1990s, starting with a 1993 paper by Noam Chomsky. Following Imre Lakatos's distinction, Chomsky presents minima ...
. This research focused on the
principles and parameters Principles and parameters is a framework within generative linguistics in which the syntax of a natural language is described in accordance with general ''principles'' (i.e. abstract rules or grammars) and specific ''parameters'' (i.e. markers, sw ...
framework, which explained children's ability to learn any language by filling open parameters (a set of universal grammar principles) that adapt as the child encounters linguistic data. The minimalist program, initiated by Chomsky, asks which minimal principles and parameters theory fits most elegantly, naturally, and simply. Chomsky is commonly credited with inventing transformational-generative grammar, but his original contribution was considered modest when he first published his theory. In his 1955 dissertation and his 1957 textbook '' Syntactic Structures'', he presented recent developments in the analysis formulated by
Zellig Harris Zellig Sabbettai Harris (; October 23, 1909 – May 22, 1992) was an influential American linguist, mathematical syntactician, and methodologist of science. Originally a Semiticist, he is best known for his work in structural linguistics and di ...
, who was Chomsky's PhD supervisor, and by
Charles F. Hockett Charles Francis Hockett (January 17, 1916 – November 3, 2000) was an American linguist who developed many influential ideas in American structuralist linguistics. He represents the post- Bloomfieldian phase of structuralism often referred to ...
. Their method derives from the work of the structural linguist
Louis Hjelmslev Louis Trolle Hjelmslev (; 3 October 189930 May 1965) was a Danish linguist whose ideas formed the basis of the Copenhagen School of linguistics. Born into an academic family (his father was the mathematician Johannes Hjelmslev), Hjelmslev studi ...
, who introduced algorithmic grammar to general linguistics. Based on this rule-based notation of grammars, Chomsky grouped logically possible phrase-structure grammar types into a series of four nested subsets and increasingly complex types, together known as the
Chomsky hierarchy The Chomsky hierarchy in the fields of formal language theory, computer science, and linguistics, is a containment hierarchy of classes of formal grammars. A formal grammar describes how to form strings from a formal language's alphabet that are v ...
. This classification remains relevant to
formal language theory In logic, mathematics, computer science, and linguistics, a formal language is a set of string (computer science), strings whose symbols are taken from a set called "#Definition, alphabet". The alphabet of a formal language consists of symbol ...
and
theoretical computer science Theoretical computer science is a subfield of computer science and mathematics that focuses on the Abstraction, abstract and mathematical foundations of computation. It is difficult to circumscribe the theoretical areas precisely. The Associati ...
, especially
programming language theory Programming language theory (PLT) is a branch of computer science that deals with the design, implementation, analysis, characterization, and classification of formal languages known as programming languages. Programming language theory is clos ...
,
compiler In computing, a compiler is a computer program that Translator (computing), translates computer code written in one programming language (the ''source'' language) into another language (the ''target'' language). The name "compiler" is primaril ...
construction, and
automata theory Automata theory is the study of abstract machines and automata, as well as the computational problems that can be solved using them. It is a theory in theoretical computer science with close connections to cognitive science and mathematical l ...
. Chomsky's ''Syntactic Structures'' became, beyond generative linguistics as such, a catalyst for connecting what in Hjelmslev's and
Jespersen Jespersen is a Danish and Norwegian patronymic surname that may refer to: People * Anna Jespersen (1895–1989), American geologist * Chris Jespersen (born 1983), Norwegian cross-country skier * Eric Jespersen (born 1961), Canadian sailor * Finn ...
's time was the beginnings of
structural linguistics Structural linguistics, or structuralism, in linguistics, denotes schools or theories in which language is conceived as a self-contained, self-regulating semiotic system whose elements are defined by their relationship to other elements within th ...
, which has become
cognitive linguistics Cognitive linguistics is an interdisciplinary branch of linguistics, combining knowledge and research from cognitive science, cognitive psychology, neuropsychology and linguistics. Models and theoretical accounts of cognitive linguistics are cons ...
.


Political views

Chomsky is a prominent political dissident. His political views have changed little since his childhood, when he was influenced by the emphasis on political activism that was ingrained in Jewish working-class tradition. He usually identifies as an
anarcho-syndicalist Anarcho-syndicalism is an anarchist organisational model that centres trade unions as a vehicle for class conflict. Drawing from the theory of libertarian socialism and the practice of syndicalism, anarcho-syndicalism sees trade unions as both ...
or a
libertarian socialist Libertarian socialism is an anti-authoritarian and anti-capitalist political current that emphasises self-governance and workers' self-management. It is contrasted from other forms of socialism by its rejection of state ownership and from other ...
. He views these positions not as precise political theories but as ideals that he thinks best meet human needs: liberty, community, and freedom of association. Unlike some other socialists, such as Marxists, Chomsky believes that politics lies outside the remit of science, but he still roots his ideas about an ideal society in empirical data and empirically justified theories. In Chomsky's view, the truth about political realities is systematically distorted or suppressed by an elite
corporatocracy Corporatocracy or corpocracy is an economic, political and judicial system controlled or influenced by business corporations or corporate Interest group, interests. The concept has been used in explanations of bank bailouts, excessive pay for ...
, which uses corporate media, advertising, and
think tanks A think tank, or public policy institute, is a research institute that performs research and advocacy concerning topics such as social policy, political strategy, economics, military, technology, and culture. Most think tanks are non-gov ...
to promote its own propaganda. His work seeks to reveal such manipulations and the truth they obscure. Chomsky believes this web of falsehood can be broken by "common sense", critical thinking, and understanding the roles of self-interest and self-deception, and that intellectuals abdicate their moral responsibility to tell the truth about the world in fear of losing prestige and funding. He argues that, as such an intellectual, it is his duty to use his
social privilege Social privilege is an advantage or entitlement that benefits individuals belonging to certain groups, often to the detriment of others. Privileged groups can be advantaged based on social class, wealth, education, caste, age, height, skin col ...
, resources, and training to aid popular democracy movements in their struggles. Although he has participated in
direct action Direct action is a term for economic and political behavior in which participants use agency—for example economic or physical power—to achieve their goals. The aim of direct action is to either obstruct a certain practice (such as a governm ...
demonstrations—joining protests, being arrested, organizing groups—Chomsky's primary political outlet is education, i.e., free public lessons. He is a longtime member of the
Industrial Workers of the World The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), whose members are nicknamed "Wobblies", is an international labor union founded in Chicago, United States in 1905. The nickname's origin is uncertain. Its ideology combines general unionism with indu ...
international union, as was his father.


United States foreign policy

Chomsky has been a prominent critic of "
American imperialism U.S. imperialism or American imperialism is the expansion of political, economic, cultural, media, and military influence beyond the boundaries of the United States. Depending on the commentator, it may include imperialism through outright mi ...
", but is not a pacifist, believing
World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
was justified as America's last defensive war. He believes that
U.S. foreign policy The officially stated goals of the foreign policy of the United States of America, including all the bureaus and offices in the United States Department of State, as mentioned in the ''Foreign Policy Agenda'' of the Department of State, are ...
's basic principle is the establishment of "open societies" that are economically and politically controlled by the U.S. and where U.S.-based businesses can prosper. He argues that the U.S. seeks to suppress any movements within these countries that are not compliant with U.S. interests and to ensure that U.S.-friendly governments are placed in power. When discussing current events, he emphasizes their place within a wider historical perspective. He believes that official, sanctioned historical accounts of U.S. and British extraterritorial operations have consistently whitewashed these nations' actions in order to present them as having benevolent motives in either spreading democracy or, in older instances, spreading Christianity; by criticizing these accounts, he seeks to correct them. Prominent examples he regularly cites are the actions of the British Empire in India and Africa and U.S. actions in Vietnam, the Philippines, Latin America, and the Middle East. Chomsky's political work has centered heavily on criticizing the actions of the United States. He has said he focuses on the U.S. because the country has militarily and economically dominated the world during his lifetime and because its
liberal democratic Liberal democracy, also called Western-style democracy, or substantive democracy, is a form of government that combines the organization of a democracy with ideas of liberal political philosophy. Common elements within a liberal democracy are: ...
electoral system allows the citizenry to influence government policy. His hope is that, by spreading awareness of the impact U.S. foreign policies have on the populations affected by them, he can sway the populations of the U.S. and other countries into opposing the policies. He urges people to criticize their governments' motivations, decisions, and actions, to accept responsibility for their own thoughts and actions, and to apply the same standards to others as to themselves. Chomsky has been critical of U.S. involvement in the
Israeli–Palestinian conflict The Israeli–Palestinian conflict is an ongoing military and political conflict about Territory, land and self-determination within the territory of the former Mandatory Palestine. Key aspects of the conflict include the Israeli occupation ...
, arguing that it has consistently blocked a peaceful settlement. He also criticizes the U.S.'s close ties with Saudi Arabia and involvement in
Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen On 26 March 2015, Saudi Arabia, leading a coalition of nine countries from West Asia and North Africa, launched a military intervention in Yemen at the request of Yemeni president Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, who had been ousted from the capital, Sa ...
, highlighting that Saudi Arabia has "one of the most grotesque human rights records in the world". Chomsky called the
Russian invasion of Ukraine On 24 February 2022, , starting the largest and deadliest war in Europe since World War II, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, conflict between the two countries which began in 2014. The fighting has caused hundreds of thou ...
a criminal act of aggression and noted that Russia was committing major war crimes in the country. He considered support for Ukraine's self-defense legitimate and said Ukraine should be given enough military aid to defend itself, but not enough to cause "an escalation". His criticism of the war focused on the United States. He alleged that the U.S. rejected any compromise with Russia and that this might have provoked the invasion. According to Chomsky, the U.S. was arming Ukraine only to weaken Russia, and Ukrainian requests for heavy weaponry were untrue "Western propaganda", despite Ukraine's President
Volodymyr Zelenskyy Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelenskyy (born 25 January 1978) is a Ukrainian politician and former entertainer who has served as the sixth and current president of Ukraine since 2019. He took office five years after the start of the Russo-Ukraini ...
repeatedly asking for them. More than a year into the invasion, Chomsky argued that Russia was waging the war "more humanely" than the U.S. did the
invasion of Iraq An invasion is a military offensive of combatants of one geopolitical entity, usually in large numbers, entering territory controlled by another similar entity, often involving acts of aggression. Generally, invasions have objectives ...
.


Capitalism and socialism

In his youth, Chomsky developed a dislike of
capitalism Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their use for the purpose of obtaining profit. This socioeconomic system has developed historically through several stages and is defined by ...
and the pursuit of material wealth. At the same time, he developed a disdain for
authoritarian socialism Authoritarian socialism, or socialism from above, is an Economic system, economic and political system supporting some form of socialist economics while rejecting Pluralism (political philosophy), political pluralism. As a term, it represents a s ...
, as represented by the Marxist–Leninist policies of the Soviet Union. Rather than accepting the common view among U.S. economists that a spectrum exists between total state ownership of the economy and total private ownership, he instead suggests that a spectrum should be understood between total democratic control of the economy and total autocratic control (whether state or private). He argues that Western capitalist countries are not really democratic, because, in his view, a truly democratic society is one in which all persons have a say in public economic policy. He has stated his opposition to ruling elites, among them institutions like the
IMF The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is a major financial agency of the United Nations, and an international financial institution funded by 191 member countries, with headquarters in Washington, D.C. It is regarded as the global lender of la ...
,
World Bank The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and Grant (money), grants to the governments of Least developed countries, low- and Developing country, middle-income countries for the purposes of economic development ...
, and
GATT The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) is a legal agreement between many countries, whose overall purpose was to promote international trade by reducing or eliminating trade barriers such as tariffs or quotas. According to its p ...
(precursor to the
WTO The World Trade Organization (WTO) is an intergovernmental organization headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland that regulates and facilitates international trade. Governments use the organization to establish, revise, and enforce the rules that g ...
). Chomsky highlights that, since the 1970s, the U.S. has become increasingly economically unequal as a result of the repeal of various financial regulations and the unilateral rescinding of the Bretton Woods financial control agreement by the U.S. He characterizes the U.S. as a ''de facto''
one-party state A one-party state, single-party state, one-party system or single-party system is a governance structure in which only a single political party controls the ruling system. In a one-party state, all opposition parties are either outlawed or en ...
, viewing both the Republican Party and Democratic Party as manifestations of a single "Business Party" controlled by corporate and financial interests. Chomsky highlights that, within Western capitalist liberal democracies, at least 80% of the population has no control over economic decisions, which are instead in the hands of a management class and ultimately controlled by a small, wealthy elite. Noting the entrenchment of such an economic system, Chomsky believes that change is possible through the organized cooperation of large numbers of people who understand the problem and know how they want to reorganize the economy more equitably. Acknowledging that corporate domination of media and government stifles any significant change to this system, he sees reason for optimism in historical examples such as the social rejection of slavery as immoral, the advances in women's rights, and the forcing of government to justify invasions. He views violent revolution to overthrow a government as a last resort to be avoided if possible, citing the example of historical revolutions where the population's welfare has worsened as a result of upheaval. Chomsky sees libertarian socialist and anarcho-syndicalist ideas as the descendants of the
classical liberal Classical liberalism is a political tradition and a branch of liberalism that advocates free market and laissez-faire economics and civil liberties under the rule of law, with special emphasis on individual autonomy, limited government, eco ...
ideas of the
Age of Enlightenment The Age of Enlightenment (also the Age of Reason and the Enlightenment) was a Europe, European Intellect, intellectual and Philosophy, philosophical movement active from the late 17th to early 19th century. Chiefly valuing knowledge gained th ...
, arguing that his ideological position revolves around "nourishing the libertarian and creative character of the human being". He envisions an anarcho-syndicalist future with direct worker control of the
means of production In political philosophy, the means of production refers to the generally necessary assets and resources that enable a society to engage in production. While the exact resources encompassed in the term may vary, it is widely agreed to include the ...
and government by
workers' council A workers' council, also called labour council, is a type of council in a workplace or a locality made up of workers or of temporary and instantly revocable delegates elected by the workers in a locality's workplaces. In such a system of polit ...
s, who would select temporary and revocable representatives to meet together at general assemblies. The point of this self-governance is to make each citizen, in
Thomas Jefferson Thomas Jefferson (, 1743July 4, 1826) was an American Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father and the third president of the United States from 1801 to 1809. He was the primary author of the United States Declaration of Indepe ...
's words, "a direct participator in the government of affairs". He believes that there will be no need for political parties. By controlling their productive life, he believes that individuals can gain job satisfaction and a sense of fulfillment and purpose. He argues that unpleasant and unpopular jobs could be fully automated, specially remunerated, or communally shared.


Israeli–Palestinian conflict

Chomsky has written prolifically about the
Israeli–Palestinian conflict The Israeli–Palestinian conflict is an ongoing military and political conflict about Territory, land and self-determination within the territory of the former Mandatory Palestine. Key aspects of the conflict include the Israeli occupation ...
, aiming to raise public awareness of it. A
labor Zionist Labor Zionism () or socialist Zionism () is the Left-wing politics, left-wing, socialism, socialist variant of Zionism. For many years, it was the most significant tendency among Zionists and Zionist organizations, and was seen as the Zionist ...
who later became what is today considered an
anti-Zionist Anti-Zionism is opposition to Zionism. Although anti-Zionism is a heterogeneous phenomenon, all its proponents agree that the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, and the movement to create a sovereign Jewish state in the Palestine (region) ...
, Chomsky has criticized the
Israeli settlements Israeli settlements, also called Israeli colonies, are the civilian communities built by Israel throughout the Israeli-occupied territories. They are populated by Israeli citizens, almost exclusively of Jewish identity or ethnicity, and hav ...
in the Israeli-occupied
West Bank The West Bank is located on the western bank of the Jordan River and is the larger of the two Palestinian territories (the other being the Gaza Strip) that make up the State of Palestine. A landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediter ...
, which he likens to a
settler colony A settler or a colonist is a person who establishes or joins a permanent presence that is separate to existing communities. The entity that a settler establishes is a Human settlement, settlement. A settler is called a pioneer if they are among ...
. He has said that the 1947
United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine The United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine was a proposal by the United Nations to partition Mandatory Palestine at the end of the British Mandate. Drafted by the U.N. Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) on 3 September 1947, the Pl ...
was a bad decision, but given the
realpolitik ''Realpolitik'' ( ; ) is the approach of conducting diplomatic or political policies based primarily on considerations of given circumstances and factors, rather than strictly following ideological, moral, or ethical premises. In this respect, ...
of the situation, he has also considered a
two-state solution The two-state solution is a proposed approach to resolving the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, by creating two states on the territory of the former Mandatory Palestine. It is often contrasted with the one-state solution, which is the esta ...
on the condition that the nation-states exist on equal terms. Chomsky has said that characterizing Israel's treatment of the Palestinians as apartheid, similar to the system that existed in South Africa, would be a "gift to Israel", as he has long held that "the
Occupied Territories Military occupation, also called belligerent occupation or simply occupation, is temporary hostile control exerted by a ruling power's military apparatus over a sovereign territory that is outside of the legal boundaries of that ruling powe ...
are much worse than South Africa". South Africa depended on its black population for labor, but Chomsky argues the same is not true of Israel, which in his view seeks to make the situation for Palestinians under its occupation unlivable, especially in the
West Bank The West Bank is located on the western bank of the Jordan River and is the larger of the two Palestinian territories (the other being the Gaza Strip) that make up the State of Palestine. A landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediter ...
and the
Gaza Strip The Gaza Strip, also known simply as Gaza, is a small territory located on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea; it is the smaller of the two Palestinian territories, the other being the West Bank, that make up the State of Palestine. I ...
, where "atrocities" take place every day. He also argues that, unlike South Africa, Israel has not sought the international community's approval, but rather relies solely on U.S. support. Chomsky has said that the Israeli-led
blockade A blockade is the act of actively preventing a country or region from receiving or sending out food, supplies, weapons, or communications, and sometimes people, by military force. A blockade differs from an embargo or sanction, which are ...
of the
Gaza Strip The Gaza Strip, also known simply as Gaza, is a small territory located on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea; it is the smaller of the two Palestinian territories, the other being the West Bank, that make up the State of Palestine. I ...
has turned it into a "concentration camp" and expressed fears similar to Israeli intellectual
Yeshayahu Leibowitz Yeshayahu Leibowitz (; 29 January 1903 – 18 August 1994) was an Israeli Orthodox Jewish public intellectual and polymath. He was a professor of biochemistry, organic chemistry, and neurophysiology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and a ...
's 1990s warning that the continued occupation of the
Palestinian territories The occupied Palestinian territories, also referred to as the Palestinian territories, consist of the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and the Gaza Strip—two regions of the former Mandate for Palestine, British Mandate for Palestine ...
could turn
Israeli Jews Israeli Jews or Jewish Israelis ( ) comprise Israel's largest ethnic and religious community. The core of their demographic consists of those with a Jewish identity and their descendants, including ethnic Jews and religious Jews alike. Appr ...
into "Judeo-Nazis". Chomsky has said that Leibowitz's warning "was a direct reflection of the continued occupation, the humiliation of people, the degradation, and the terrorist attacks by the Israeli government". He has also called the U.S. a violent state that exports violence by supporting Israeli "atrocities" against the Palestinians and said that listening to American mainstream media, including
CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS (an abbreviation of its original name, Columbia Broadcasting System), is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainme ...
, is like listening to "Israeli propaganda agencies". Chomsky was denied entry to the
West Bank The West Bank is located on the western bank of the Jordan River and is the larger of the two Palestinian territories (the other being the Gaza Strip) that make up the State of Palestine. A landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediter ...
in 2010 because of his criticisms of Israel. He had been invited to deliver a lecture at
Bir Zeit University Birzeit University () is a public university in the West Bank, Palestine, registered by the Palestinian Ministry of Social Affairs as a charitable organization. It is accredited by the Ministry of Higher Education and located in the outskirts o ...
and was to meet with Palestinian Prime Minister
Salam Fayyad Salam Fayyad (; born 12 April 1952) is a Palestinian politician and economist who served as the first prime minister of Palestine from January 2013 until his resigned in July of that same year. He was previously the fourth prime minister of the ...
. An
Israeli Foreign Ministry The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs (; ) is one of the most important ministries in the Israeli government. The ministry's role is to implement Israel's foreign policy, and promote economic, cultural, and scientific relations with other c ...
spokesman later said that Chomsky was denied entry by mistake. In his 1983 book ''The Fateful Triangle'', Chomsky criticized the
Palestine Liberation Organization The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO; ) is a Palestinian nationalism, Palestinian nationalist coalition that is internationally recognized as the official representative of the Palestinians, Palestinian people in both the occupied Pale ...
for its "self-destructiveness" and "suicidal character" and disapproved of its programs of "armed struggle" and "erratic violence". He also criticized the Arab governments as not "decent". Given what he has described as his very Jewish upbringing with deeply Zionist activist parents, Chomsky's views have drawn controversy and criticism. They are rooted in the
kibbutz A kibbutz ( / , ; : kibbutzim / ) is an intentional community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. The first kibbutz, established in 1910, was Degania Alef, Degania. Today, farming has been partly supplanted by other economi ...
im and socialist binational cooperation. In a 2014 interview on ''
Democracy Now! ''Democracy Now!'' is an hour-long TV, radio, and Internet news program based in Manhattan and hosted by journalists Amy Goodman (who also acts as the show's executive producer), Juan González, and Nermeen Shaikh. The show, which airs live ...
'', Chomsky said that the charter of
Hamas The Islamic Resistance Movement, abbreviated Hamas (the Arabic acronym from ), is a Palestinian nationalist Sunni Islam, Sunni Islamism, Islamist political organisation with a military wing, the Qassam Brigades. It has Gaza Strip under Hama ...
, which calls for Israel's destruction, "means practically nothing", having been created "by a small group of people under siege, under attack in 1988". He compared it to the electoral program of the
Likud Likud (, ), officially known as Likud – National Liberal Movement (), is a major Right-wing politics, right-wing, political party in Israel. It was founded in 1973 by Menachem Begin and Ariel Sharon in an alliance with several right-wing par ...
party, which, he said, "states explicitly that there can never be a Palestinian state west of the Jordan River. And they not only state it in their charter, that's a call for the destruction of Palestine, explicit call for it".


Mass media and propaganda

Chomsky's political writings have largely focused on ideology, social and political power, mass media, and state policy. One of his best-known works, ''
Manufacturing Consent ''Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media'' is a 1988 book by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky. It argues that the mass communication media of the U.S. "are effective and powerful ideological institutions that carry out ...
'', dissects the media's role in reinforcing and acquiescing to state policies across the political spectrum while marginalizing contrary perspectives. Chomsky asserts that this version of censorship, by government-guided "free market" forces, is subtler and harder to undermine than was the equivalent propaganda system in the Soviet Union. As he argues, the mainstream press is corporate-owned and thus reflects corporate priorities and interests. Acknowledging that many American journalists are dedicated and well-meaning, he argues that the mass media's choices of topics and issues, the unquestioned premises on which that coverage rests, and the range of opinions expressed are all constrained to reinforce the state's ideology: although mass media will criticize individual politicians and political parties, it will not undermine the wider state-corporate nexus of which it is a part. As evidence, he highlights that the U.S. mass media does not employ any socialist journalists or political commentators. He also points to examples of important news stories that the U.S. mainstream media has ignored because reporting on them would reflect badly upon the country, including the murder of Black Panther
Fred Hampton Fredrick Allen Hampton Sr. (August 30, 1948 – December 4, 1969) was an American activist and revolutionary socialist. He came to prominence in his late teens and early 20s in Chicago as deputy chairman of the national Black Panther Party and c ...
with possible
FBI The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and Federal law enforcement in the United States, its principal federal law enforcement ag ...
involvement, the massacres in Nicaragua perpetrated by U.S.-funded
Contras In the history of Nicaragua, the Contras (Spanish: ''La contrarrevolución'', the counter-revolution) were the right-wing militias who waged anti-communist guerilla warfare (1979–1990) against the Marxist governments of the Sandinista Na ...
, and the constant reporting on Israeli deaths without equivalent coverage of the far larger number of Palestinian deaths in that conflict. To remedy this situation, Chomsky calls for grassroots democratic control and involvement of the media. Chomsky considers most
conspiracy theories A conspiracy theory is an explanation for an event or situation that asserts the existence of a conspiracy (generally by powerful sinister groups, often political in motivation), when other explanations are more probable.Additional sources: * ...
fruitless, distracting substitutes for thinking about policy formation in an institutional framework, where individual manipulation is secondary to broader social imperatives. He separates his Propaganda Model from conspiracy in that he is describing institutions following their natural imperatives rather than collusive forces with secret controls. Instead of supporting the educational system as an antidote, he believes that most education is counterproductive. Chomsky describes mass education as a system solely intended to turn farmers from independent producers into unthinking industrial employees.


Reactions of critics and counter-criticism: 1980s–present

In the 2004 book '' The Anti-Chomsky Reader'', Peter Collier and
David Horowitz David Joel Horowitz (January 10, 1939 – April 29, 2025) was an American conservative writer and activist. He was a founder and president of the David Horowitz Freedom Center (DHFC); editor of the Center's website '' FrontPage Magazine''; and ...
accuse Chomsky of
cherry-picking Cherry picking, suppressing evidence, or the fallacy of incomplete evidence is the act of pointing to individual cases or data that seem to confirm a particular position while ignoring a significant portion of related and similar cases or data th ...
facts to suit his theories. Horowitz has also criticized Chomsky's
anti-Americanism Anti-Americanism (also called anti-American sentiment and Americanophobia) is a term that can describe several sentiments and po ...
: For the
conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy and ideology that seeks to promote and preserve traditional institutions, customs, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civiliza ...
public policy
think tank A think tank, or public policy institute, is a research institute that performs research and advocacy concerning topics such as social policy, political strategy, economics, military, technology, and culture. Most think tanks are non-governme ...
the
Hoover Institution The Hoover Institution (officially The Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace and formerly The Hoover Institute and Library on War, Revolution, and Peace) is an American public policy think tank which promotes personal and economic ...
, Peter Schweizer wrote in January 2006, "Chomsky favors the estate tax and massive income redistribution—just not the redistribution of his income." Schweizer criticized Chomsky for setting up an estate plan and protecting his own intellectual property as it relates to his published works, as well as the high speaking fees that Chomsky received on a regular basis, around $9,000–$12,000 per talk at that time. Chomsky has been accused of treating socialist or communist regimes with credulity and examining capitalist regimes with greater scrutiny or criticism:According to Nikolas Kozloff, writing for ''Al Jazeera'' in September 2012, Chomsky "has drawn the world's attention to the various misdeeds of the US and its proxies around the world, and for that he deserves credit. Yet, in seeking to avoid controversy at all costs Chomsky has turned into something of an ideologue. Scour the Chomsky web site and you won't find significant discussion of Belarus or Latin America's flirtation with outside authoritarian leaders, for that matter." Political activist
George Monbiot George Joshua Richard Monbiot ( ; born 27 January 1963) is an English journalist, author, and Environmental movement, environmental and political activist. He writes a regular column for ''The Guardian'' and has written several books. Monbiot ...
has argued that "Part of the problem is that a kind of cult has developed around Noam Chomsky and
John Pilger John Richard Pilger (; 9 October 1939 – 30 December 2023) was an Australian journalist, writer, scholar and documentary filmmaker. From 1962, he was based mainly in Britain. He was also a visiting professor at Cornell University in New York. ...
, which cannot believe they could ever be wrong, and produces ever more elaborate conspiracy theories to justify their mistakes." Anarchist and primitivist
John Zerzan John Edward Zerzan ( ; born August 10, 1943) is an American anarchist and primitivist author. His works criticize agricultural civilization as inherently oppressive, and advocate drawing upon the ways of life of hunter-gatherers as an inspirat ...
has accused Chomsky of not being a real anarchist, saying that he is instead "a liberal-leftist politically, and downright reactionary in his academic specialty, linguistic theory. Chomsky is also, by all accounts, a generous, sincere, tireless activist—which does not, unfortunately, ensure his thinking has liberatory value." Defenders of Chomsky have countered that he has been censored or left out of public debate. Claims of this nature date to the Reagan era. Writing for ''
The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...
'' in February 1988,
Saul Landau Saul Landau (January 15, 1936 – September 9, 2013) was an American journalist, filmmaker and commentator. He was also a professor emeritus at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, where he taught history and digital media. Educa ...
wrote, "It is unhealthy that Chomsky's insights are excluded from the policy debate. His relentless prosecutorial prose, with a hint of Talmudic whine and the rationalist anarchism of Tom Paine, may reflect a justified frustration."


Philosophy

Chomsky has also been active in a number of philosophical fields, including
philosophy of mind Philosophy of mind is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of the mind and its relation to the Body (biology), body and the Reality, external world. The mind–body problem is a paradigmatic issue in philosophy of mind, although a ...
,
philosophy of language Philosophy of language refers to the philosophical study of the nature of language. It investigates the relationship between language, language users, and the world. Investigations may include inquiry into the nature of Meaning (philosophy), me ...
, and
philosophy of science Philosophy of science is the branch of philosophy concerned with the foundations, methods, and implications of science. Amongst its central questions are the difference between science and non-science, the reliability of scientific theories, ...
. In these fields he is credited with ushering in the "
cognitive revolution The cognitive revolution was an intellectual movement that began in the 1950s as an interdisciplinary study of the mind and its processes, from which emerged a new field known as cognitive science. The preexisting relevant fields were psychology, ...
", a significant
paradigm shift A paradigm shift is a fundamental change in the basic concepts and experimental practices of a scientific discipline. It is a concept in the philosophy of science that was introduced and brought into the common lexicon by the American physicist a ...
that rejected
logical positivism Logical positivism, also known as logical empiricism or neo-positivism, was a philosophical movement, in the empiricist tradition, that sought to formulate a scientific philosophy in which philosophical discourse would be, in the perception of ...
, the prevailing philosophical methodology of the time, and reframed how philosophers think about
language Language is a structured system of communication that consists of grammar and vocabulary. It is the primary means by which humans convey meaning, both in spoken and signed language, signed forms, and may also be conveyed through writing syste ...
and the
mind The mind is that which thinks, feels, perceives, imagines, remembers, and wills. It covers the totality of mental phenomena, including both conscious processes, through which an individual is aware of external and internal circumstances ...
. Chomsky views the cognitive revolution as rooted in 17th-century rationalist ideals. His position—the idea that the mind contains inherent structures to understand language, perception, and thought—has more in common with rationalism than behaviorism. He named one of his key works ''Cartesian Linguistics: A Chapter in the History of Rationalist Thought'' (1966). This sparked criticism from historians and philosophers who disagreed with Chomsky's interpretations of classical sources and use of philosophical terminology. In the philosophy of language, Chomsky is particularly known for his criticisms of the notion of reference and meaning in human language and his perspective on the nature and function of mental representations. Chomsky's famous 1971 debate on
human nature Human nature comprises the fundamental dispositions and characteristics—including ways of Thought, thinking, feeling, and agency (philosophy), acting—that humans are said to have nature (philosophy), naturally. The term is often used to denote ...
with the French philosopher
Michel Foucault Paul-Michel Foucault ( , ; ; 15 October 192625 June 1984) was a French History of ideas, historian of ideas and Philosophy, philosopher who was also an author, Literary criticism, literary critic, Activism, political activist, and teacher. Fo ...
was a symbolic clash of the
analytic Analytic or analytical may refer to: Chemistry * Analytical chemistry, the analysis of material samples to learn their chemical composition and structure * Analytical technique, a method that is used to determine the concentration of a chemical ...
and
continental Continental may refer to: Places * Continental, Arizona, a small community in Pima County, Arizona, US * Continental, Ohio, a small town in Putnam County, US Arts and entertainment * ''Continental'' (album), an album by Saint Etienne * Continen ...
philosophy traditions, represented by Chomsky and Foucault, respectively. It showed what appeared to be irreconcilable differences between two moral and intellectual luminaries of the 20th century. Foucault held that any definition of human nature is connected to our present-day conceptions of ourselves; Chomsky held that human nature contained universals such as a common standard of moral justice as deduced through reason. Chomsky criticized
postmodernism Postmodernism encompasses a variety of artistic, Culture, cultural, and philosophical movements that claim to mark a break from modernism. They have in common the conviction that it is no longer possible to rely upon previous ways of depicting ...
and
French philosophy French philosophy, here taken to mean philosophy in the French language, has been extremely diverse and has influenced Western philosophy as a whole for centuries, from the medieval scholasticism of Peter Abelard, through the founding of modern ph ...
generally, arguing that the obscure language of postmodern, leftist philosophers gives little aid to the working classes. He has also debated analytic philosophers, including
Tyler Burge Tyler Burge (; born 1946) is an American philosopher who is a Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at UCLA. Burge has made contributions to many areas of philosophy, including the philosophy of mind, philosophy of logic, epistemology, philoso ...
, Donald Davidson,
Michael Dummett Sir Michael Anthony Eardley Dummett (; 27 June 1925 – 27 December 2011) was an English academic described as "among the most significant British philosophers of the last century and a leading campaigner for racial tolerance and equality." H ...
,
Saul Kripke Saul Aaron Kripke (; November 13, 1940 – September 15, 2022) was an American analytic philosophy, analytic philosopher and logician. He was Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and emer ...
,
Thomas Nagel Thomas Nagel (; born July 4, 1937) is an American philosopher. He is the University Professor of Philosophy and Law Emeritus at New York University, where he taught from 1980 until his retirement in 2016. His main areas of philosophical interest ...
,
Hilary Putnam Hilary Whitehall Putnam (; July 31, 1926 – March 13, 2016) was an American philosopher, mathematician, computer scientist, and figure in analytic philosophy in the second half of the 20th century. He contributed to the studies of philosophy of ...
,
Willard Van Orman Quine Willard Van Orman Quine ( ; known to his friends as "Van"; June 25, 1908 – December 25, 2000) was an American philosopher and logician in the analytic tradition, recognized as "one of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century" ...
, and
John Searle John Rogers Searle (; born July 31, 1932) is an American philosopher widely noted for contributions to the philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, and social philosophy. He began teaching at UC Berkeley in 1959 and was Willis S. and Mario ...
. Chomsky's contributions span
intellectual An intellectual is a person who engages in critical thinking, research, and Human self-reflection, reflection about the nature of reality, especially the nature of society and proposed solutions for its normative problems. Coming from the wor ...
and world history, including the history of philosophy. Irony is a recurring characteristic of his writing, such as rhetorically implying that his readers already know something to be true, which engages the reader more actively in assessing the veracity of his claims.


Personal life

Chomsky endeavors to separate his family life, linguistic scholarship, and political activism from each other. An intensely private person, he is uninterested in appearances and the fame his work has brought him. McGilvray suggests that Chomsky is not motivated by a desire for fame, but impelled to tell what he perceives as the truth and a desire to aid others in doing so. Chomsky acknowledges that his income affords him a privileged life compared to the majority of the world's population; nevertheless, he characterizes himself as a "worker", albeit one who uses his intellect as his employable skill. He reads four or five newspapers daily; in the U.S., he subscribes to ''
The Boston Globe ''The Boston Globe,'' also known locally as ''the Globe'', is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes. ''The Boston Globe'' is the oldest and largest daily new ...
'', ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'', ''
The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' (''WSJ''), also referred to simply as the ''Journal,'' is an American newspaper based in New York City. The newspaper provides extensive coverage of news, especially business and finance. It operates on a subscriptio ...
'', ''
Financial Times The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and also published digitally that focuses on business and economic Current affairs (news format), current affairs. Based in London, the paper is owned by a Jap ...
'', and ''
The Christian Science Monitor ''The Christian Science Monitor'' (''CSM''), commonly known as ''The Monitor'', is a nonprofit news organization that publishes daily articles both in Electronic publishing, electronic format and a weekly print edition. It was founded in 1908 ...
''. Chomsky is not religious but has expressed approval of forms of religion such as liberation theology. Chomsky is known to use charged language ("corrupt", "fascist", "fraudulent") when describing established political and academic figures, which can polarize his audience but is in keeping with his belief that much scholarship is self-serving. His colleague
Steven Pinker Steven Arthur Pinker (born September 18, 1954) is a Canadian-American cognitive psychology, cognitive psychologist, psycholinguistics, psycholinguist, popular science author, and public intellectual. He is an advocate of evolutionary psycholo ...
has said that Chomsky "portrays people who disagree with him as stupid or evil, using withering scorn in his rhetoric", and that this contributes to the extreme reactions he receives. Chomsky avoids
academic conferences An academic conference or scientific conference (also congress, symposium, workshop, or meeting) is an event for researchers (not necessarily academics) to present and discuss their scholarly work. Together with academic or scientific journals a ...
, including left-oriented ones such as the Socialist Scholars Conference, preferring to speak to activist groups or hold university seminars for mass audiences. His approach to academic freedom has led him to support MIT academics whose actions he deplores; in 1969, when Chomsky heard that
Walt Rostow Walt Whitman Rostow (; October 7, 1916 – February 13, 2003) was an American economist, professor and political theorist who served as national security advisor to president of the United States Lyndon B. Johnson from 1966 to 1969. Rostow wor ...
, a major architect of the Vietnam war, wanted to return to work at MIT, Chomsky threatened "to protest publicly" if Rostow were denied a position at MIT. In 1989, when Pentagon adviser
John Deutch John Mark Deutch (born July 27, 1938) is an American civil servant and physical chemist. He was the United States Deputy Secretary of Defense from 1994 to 1995 and Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) from May 10, 1995, until December 15, 1996 ...
applied to be president of MIT, Chomsky supported his candidacy. Later, when Deutch became head of the CIA, ''The New York Times'' quoted Chomsky as saying, "He has more honesty and integrity than anyone I've ever met.... If somebody's got to be running the CIA, I'm glad it's him." Chomsky was married to Carol Chomsky, Carol Doris () from 1949 until her death in 2008. They had three children together:
Aviva Aviva plc is a British multinational insurance company headquartered in London, England. It has about 19 million customers across its core markets of the United Kingdom, Ireland and Canada. In the United Kingdom, Aviva is the largest general ...
(b. 1957), Diane (b. 1960), and Harry (b. 1967). In 2014, Chomsky married Valeria Wasserman. They have owned a home in Wasserman's native country, Brazil, since 2015. Judith Chomsky and Marvin J. Chomsky are cousins of Noam Chomsky. In 2023, Chomsky suffered a massive stroke and was flown to a hospital in
São Paulo São Paulo (; ; Portuguese for 'Paul the Apostle, Saint Paul') is the capital of the São Paulo (state), state of São Paulo, as well as the List of cities in Brazil by population, most populous city in Brazil, the List of largest cities in the ...
, Brazil, to recuperate. He can no longer walk or communicate, making his return to public life improbable, but he continues to follow current events such as the Gaza war. He was discharged in June 2024 to continue his recovery at home. The same month, Chomsky trended on social media amid false reports of his death. Periodicals retracted List of prematurely reported obituaries, premature obituaries.


Reception and influence

Chomsky has been a defining Western intellectual figure, central to the field of linguistics and definitive in cognitive science, computer science, philosophy, and psychology. In addition to being known as one of the most important intellectuals of his time, Chomsky has a dual legacy as a leader and luminary in both linguistics and the realm of political dissent. Despite his academic success, his political viewpoints and activism have resulted in his being distrusted by mainstream media, and he is regarded as being "on the outer margin of acceptability". Chomsky's public image and social reputation often color his work's public reception.


In academia

McGilvray observes that Chomsky inaugurated the "
cognitive revolution The cognitive revolution was an intellectual movement that began in the 1950s as an interdisciplinary study of the mind and its processes, from which emerged a new field known as cognitive science. The preexisting relevant fields were psychology, ...
" in linguistics, and that he is largely responsible for establishing the field as a formal, natural science, moving it away from the procedural form of
structural linguistics Structural linguistics, or structuralism, in linguistics, denotes schools or theories in which language is conceived as a self-contained, self-regulating semiotic system whose elements are defined by their relationship to other elements within th ...
dominant during the mid-20th century. As such, some have called Chomsky "the father of modern linguistics". Linguist John Lyons further remarked that within a few decades of publication, Chomskyan linguistics had become "the most dynamic and influential" school of thought in the field. By the 1970s his work had also come to exert a considerable influence on philosophy, and a Minnesota State University Moorhead poll ranked ''Syntactic Structures'' as the single most important work in
cognitive science Cognitive science is the interdisciplinary, scientific study of the mind and its processes. It examines the nature, the tasks, and the functions of cognition (in a broad sense). Mental faculties of concern to cognitive scientists include percep ...
. In addition, his work in
automata theory Automata theory is the study of abstract machines and automata, as well as the computational problems that can be solved using them. It is a theory in theoretical computer science with close connections to cognitive science and mathematical l ...
and the Chomsky hierarchy have become well known in computer science, and he is much cited in computational linguistics. Chomsky's criticisms of behaviorism contributed substantially to the decline of behaviorist psychology; in addition, he is generally regarded as one of the primary founders of the field of cognitive science. Some arguments in evolutionary psychology are derived from his research results; 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. ACM Turing Award winner Donald Knuth credited Chomsky's work with helping him combine his interests in mathematics, linguistics, and computer science. IBM computer scientist John Backus, another Turing Award winner, used some of Chomsky's concepts to help him develop FORTRAN, the first widely used high-level computer programming language. Chomsky's theory of generative grammar has also influenced work in music theory and musical analysis, analysis, such as Fred Lerdahl's and Ray Jackendoff's generative theory of tonal music. Chomsky is among the most cited authors living or dead. He was cited within the Arts and Humanities Citation Index more often than any other living scholar from 1980 to 1992. Chomsky was also extensively cited in the Social Sciences Citation Index and Science Citation Index during the same period. The librarian who conducted the research said that the statistics show that "he is very widely read across disciplines and that his work is used by researchers across disciplines... it seems that you can't write a paper without citing Noam Chomsky." As a result of his influence, there are dueling camps of Chomskyan and non-Chomskyan linguistics. Their disputes are often acrimonious. Additionally, according to journalist Maya Jaggi, Chomsky is among the most quoted sources in the humanities, ranking alongside Karl Marx, Marx, Shakespeare and the Bible.


In politics

Chomsky's status as the "most-quoted living author" is credited to his political writings, which vastly outnumber his writings on linguistics. Chomsky biographer Wolfgang B. Sperlich characterizes him as "one of the most notable contemporary champions of the people"; journalist
John Pilger John Richard Pilger (; 9 October 1939 – 30 December 2023) was an Australian journalist, writer, scholar and documentary filmmaker. From 1962, he was based mainly in Britain. He was also a visiting professor at Cornell University in New York. ...
has described him as a "genuine people's hero; an inspiration for struggles all over the world for that basic decency known as freedom. To a lot of people in the margins—activists and movements—he's unfailingly supportive." Arundhati Roy has called him "one of the greatest, most radical public thinkers of our time", and Edward Said thought him "one of the most significant challengers of unjust power and delusions". Fred Halliday has said that by the start of the 21st century Chomsky had become a "guru" for the world's anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist movements. The propaganda model of media criticism that he and Herman developed has been widely accepted in radical media critiques and adopted to some level in mainstream criticism of the media, also exerting a significant influence on the growth of alternative media, including radio, publishers, and the Internet, which in turn have helped to disseminate his work. Despite this broad influence, university departments devoted to history and political science rarely include Chomsky's work on their undergraduate syllabi. Critics have argued that despite publishing widely on social and political issues, Chomsky has no formal expertise in these areas; he has responded that such issues are not as complex as many social science, social scientists claim and that almost everyone is able to comprehend them regardless of whether they have been academically trained to do so. Some have responded to these criticisms by questioning the critics' motives and their understanding of Chomsky's ideas. Sperlich, for instance, says that Chomsky has been vilified by corporate interests, particularly in the mainstream press. Likewise, according to McGilvray, many of Chomsky's critics "do not bother quoting his work or quote out of context, distort, and create straw men that cannot be supported by Chomsky's text". Chomsky drew criticism for not calling the Bosnian War's Srebrenica massacre a "genocide". While he did not deny the fact of the massacre, which he called "a horror story and major crime", he felt the massacre did not meet the definition of genocide. Critics have accused Chomsky of Bosnian genocide denial, denying the Bosnian genocide. Chomsky's far-reaching criticisms of U.S. foreign policy and the legitimacy of U.S. power have raised controversy. A document obtained pursuant to a Freedom of Information Act (United States), Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request from the U.S. government revealed that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) monitored his activities and for years denied doing so. The CIA also destroyed its files on Chomsky at some point, possibly in violation of federal law. He has often received undercover police protection at MIT and when speaking on the Middle East but has refused uniformed police protection. German news magazine ''Der Spiegel'' described Chomsky as "the Ayatollah of anti-American hatred", while American
conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy and ideology that seeks to promote and preserve traditional institutions, customs, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civiliza ...
commentator
David Horowitz David Joel Horowitz (January 10, 1939 – April 29, 2025) was an American conservative writer and activist. He was a founder and president of the David Horowitz Freedom Center (DHFC); editor of the Center's website '' FrontPage Magazine''; and ...
called him "the most devious, the most dishonest and ... the most treacherous intellect in America", whose work is infused with "anti-American dementia" and evidences his "pathological hatred of his own country". Chomsky's criticism of Israel has led to his being called a traitor to the Jewish people and an anti-Semitism, anti-Semite. Criticizing Chomsky's defense of the right of individuals to engage in Holocaust denial on the grounds that freedom of speech must be extended to all viewpoints, Werner Cohn called Chomsky "the most important patron" of the Neo-Nazism, neo-Nazi movement. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) called him a Holocaust denier, describing him as a "dupe of intellectual pride so overweening that he is incapable of making distinctions between totalitarian and democratic societies, between oppressors and victims". In turn, Chomsky has claimed that the ADL is dominated by "Stalinist types" who oppose democracy in Israel. The lawyer Alan Dershowitz has called Chomsky a "false prophet of the left"; Chomsky called Dershowitz "a complete liar" who is on "a crazed jihad, dedicating much of his life to trying to destroy my reputation". In early 2016, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of Turkey publicly rebuked Chomsky after he signed an open letter condemning Erdoğan for his Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)#2015–present, anti-Kurdish repression and double standards on terrorism. Chomsky accused Erdoğan of hypocrisy, noting that Erdoğan supports al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate, the al-Nusra Front.


Academic achievements, awards, and honors

In 1970, the London ''The Times, Times'' named Chomsky one of the "makers of the twentieth century". He was voted the world's leading public intellectual in The 2005 Global Intellectuals Poll jointly conducted by American magazine ''Foreign Policy'' and British magazine Prospect (magazine), ''Prospect''. ''New Statesman'' readers listed Chomsky among the world's foremost heroes in 2006. In 2011, the US Peace Memorial Foundation awarded The US Peace Prize to Chomsky, "whose antiwar activities for five decades both educate and inspire." In the United States he is a Member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Linguistic Society of America, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Philosophical Association, and the American Philosophical Society. Abroad he is a corresponding fellow of the British Academy, an honorary member of the British Psychological Society, a member of the Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina, and a foreign member of the Department of Social Sciences of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts. He received a 1971 Guggenheim Fellowship, the 1984 American Psychological Association Award for Distinguished Contributions to Psychology, the 1988 Kyoto Prize in Basic Sciences, the 1996 Helmholtz Medal, the 1999 Benjamin Franklin Medal (Franklin Institute), Benjamin Franklin Medal in Computer and Cognitive Science, the 2010 Erich Fromm Prize, and the British Academy's 2014 Neil and Saras Smith Medal for Linguistics. He is also a two-time winner of the NCTE George Orwell Award for Distinguished Contribution to Honesty and Clarity in Public Language (1987 and 1989). He has also received the Rabindranath Tagore Centenary Award from The Asiatic Society. Chomsky received the 2004 Carl von Ossietzky, Carl-von-Ossietzky Prize from the city of Oldenburg (city), Oldenburg, Germany, to acknowledge his body of work as a political analyst and media critic. He received an honorary fellowship in 2005 from the Literary and Historical Society (University College Dublin), Literary and Historical Society of University College Dublin. He received the 2008 President's Medal from the Literary and Debating Society of the National University of Ireland, Galway. Since 2009, he has been an honorary member of International Association of Professional Translators and Interpreters (IAPTI). He received the University of Wisconsin's A.E. Havens Center's Award for Lifetime Contribution to Critical Scholarship and was inducted into IEEE Intelligent Systems' AI's Hall of Fame for "significant contributions to the field of AI and intelligent systems." Chomsky has an Erdős number of four. In 2011, the US Peace Memorial Foundation awarded Chomsky the US Peace Prize for anti-war activities over five decades. For his work in human rights, peace, and social criticism, he received the 2011 Sydney Peace Prize, the Sretenje Order in 2015, the 2017 Seán MacBride Peace Prize and the Dorothy Eldridge Peacemaker Award. Chomsky has received honorary doctorates from institutions including the University of London and the
University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...
(1967), Loyola University Chicago and Swarthmore College (1970), Bard College (1971), Delhi University (1972), the University of Massachusetts (1973), and the International School for Advanced Studies (2012). Public lectures given by Chomsky include the 1969 John Locke Lectures, 1975 Whidden Lectures, 1977 Huizinga Lecture, and 1988 Massey Lectures. Various tributes to Chomsky have been dedicated over the years. He is the :wikt:eponym, eponym for Megachile chomskyi, a bee species, Pristimantis chomskyi, a frog species, an Meanings of minor planet names: 52001–53000#270, asteroid, and a building complex at the Indian university Jamia Millia Islamia. Actor Viggo Mortensen and avant-garde guitarist Buckethead dedicated their 2003 album ''Pandemoniumfromamerica'' to Chomsky.


Selected bibliography

Linguistics * '' Syntactic Structures'' (1957) * ''Current Issues in Linguistic Theory'' (1964) * ''
Aspects of the Theory of Syntax ''Aspects of the Theory of Syntax'' (known in linguistic circles simply as ''Aspects'') is a book on linguistics written by American linguist Noam Chomsky, first published in 1965. In ''Aspects'', Chomsky presented a deeper, more extensive reformu ...
'' (1965) * ''Cartesian Linguistics'' (1965) * '' Language and Mind'' (1968) * ''The Sound Pattern of English'' with
Morris Halle Morris Halle, Pinkowitz (; July 23, 1923 – April 2, 2018), was a Latvian-born American linguist who was an Institute Professor, and later professor emeritus, of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The father of "modern ...
(1968) * '' Reflections on Language'' (1975) * ''Lectures on Government and Binding'' (1981) * ''The Minimalist Program'' (1995) Politics * ''
American Power and the New Mandarins ''American Power and the New Mandarins'' is a book by American academic Noam Chomsky. Largely written in 1968 and published in 1969, it was his first text focused on politics and sets out in detail his opposition to U.S. involvement in the Vietna ...
'' (1969) * ''
For Reasons of State For or FOR may refer to: English language *For, a preposition *For, a complementizer *For, a grammatical conjunction Science and technology * Fornax, a constellation * for loop, a programming language statement * Frame of reference In phy ...
'' (1973) * '' Counter-Revolutionary Violence: Bloodbaths in Fact & Propaganda'' with Edward S. Herman (1973) * ''
The Political Economy of Human Rights ''The Political Economy of Human Rights'' is a 1979 two-volume work by Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman. The authors offer a critique of United States foreign policy, particularly in Indochina. Summary Chomsky and Herman discuss United Sta ...
'' (1979) * ''Towards a New Cold War'' (1982) * ''
The Fateful Triangle ''The Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel and the Palestinians'' is a 1983 book by Noam Chomsky about the relationship between the US, Israel and Palestine. Chomsky examines the origins of this relationship and its meaningful consequences ...
'' (1983) * ''Pirates and Emperors'' (1986) * ''
Manufacturing Consent ''Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media'' is a 1988 book by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky. It argues that the mass communication media of the U.S. "are effective and powerful ideological institutions that carry out ...
'' (1988) * ''Necessary Illusions'' (1989) * ''Deterring Democracy'' (1991) * ''Letters from Lexington'' (1993) * ''The Prosperous Few and the Restless Many'' (1993) * ''World Orders Old and New'' (1994) * ''Objectivity and Liberal Scholarship'' (1997) * ''Profit over People'' (1999) * ''9-11 (Noam Chomsky), 9-11'' (2001) * ''Understanding Power'' (2002) * ''Middle East Illusions'' (2003) * ''
Hegemony or Survival ''Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance'' is a book about the United States and its foreign policy written by American political activist and linguist Noam Chomsky. It was first published in the United States in November 20 ...
'' (2003) * ''Getting Haiti Right This Time'' (2004) * ''Imperial Ambitions'' (2005) * ''Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy'' (2006) * ''Interventions (Chomsky book), Interventions'' (2007) * ''Gaza in Crisis'' (2010) * ''Making the Future'' (2012) * ''Occupy (book), Occupy'' (2012) * '' Requiem for the American Dream'' (2017) * ''The Withdrawal'' (2022)


See also

* Anarchism in the United States * American philosophy * List of linguists#C, List of linguists * List of peace activists * List of pioneers in computer science * Theory of language


Notes


References


Sources

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * also available, in part, o
chomsky.info
. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *


Further reading

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * a review of *


External links

*
Noam Chomsky personal archives
at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT * iarchive:noamchomskyaudioconservatory, Noam Chomsky Audio Conservatory at Internet Archive
Faculty page
at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT
Faculty page
at
University of Arizona The University of Arizona (Arizona, U of A, UArizona, or UA) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Tucson, Arizona, United States. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, it ...
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