Who is Noam Chomsky

Avram Noam Chomsky (; born December 7, 1928) is an American linguist, philosopher,"Noam Chomsky", by Zoltán Gendler Szabó, in Dictionary of Modern American Philosophers, 1860-1960, ed. Ernest Lepore (2004). "Chomsky's intellectual life had been divided between his work in linguistics and his political activism, philosophy coming as a distant third. Nonetheless, his influence among analytic philosophers has been enormous because of three factors. First, Chomsky contributed substantially to a major methodological shift in the human sciences, turning away from the prevailing empiricism of the middle of the twentieth century: behaviorism in psychology, structuralism in linguistics and positivism in philosophy. Second, his groundbreaking books on syntax (Chomsky (1957, 1965)) laid a conceptual foundation for a new, cognitivist approach to linguistics and provided philosophers with a new framework for thinking about human language and the mind. And finally, he has persistently defended his views against all takers, engaging in important debates with many of the major figures in analytic philosophy...""Noam Chomsky", in Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy (1998), Norbert Hornstein.The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy (1999), "Chomsky, Noam," Cambridge University Press, pg. 138. "Chomsky, Noam (born 1928), preeminent American linguist, philosopher, and political activist...Many of Chomsky's most significant contributions to philosophy, such as his influential rejection of behaviorism...stem from his elaborations and defenses of the above consequences..." cognitive scientist, political activist, author, and lecturer. He is an Institute Professor and professor emeritus of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.MIT Faculty website Chomsky is well known in the academic and scientific community as one of the fathers of modern linguistics.Thomas Tymoczko, Jim Henle, James M. Henle, Sweet Reason: A Field Guide to Modern Logic, Birkhäuser, 2000, p. 101. Since the 1960s, he has become known more widely as a political dissident, an anarchist,Noam Chomsky, Chomsky on Anarchism (2005), AK Press, pg. 5 and a libertarian socialist intellectual.

In the 1950s, Chomsky began developing his theory of generative grammar, which has undergone numerous revisions and has had a profound influence on linguistics. His approach to the study of language emphasizes "an innate set of linguistic principles shared by all humans" known as universal grammar, "the initial state of the language learner," and discovering an "account for linguistic variation via the most general possible mechanisms."The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy (1999), "Chomsky, Noam," Cambridge University Press, pg. 138 He also established the Chomsky hierarchy, a classification of formal languages in terms of their generative power. In 1959, Chomsky published a widely influential review of B. F. Skinner's theoretical book Verbal Behavior, which was the first attempt by a behaviorist to provide a functional, operant analysis of language. Chomsky used this review to broadly and aggressively challenge the behaviorist approaches to studies of behavior dominant at the time, and contributed to the cognitive revolution in psychology. His naturalisticLanguage & Communication: the problem of naturalizing semantics, Language & Communication, April 2000 approach to the study of language has influenced the philosophy of language and mind.

Beginning with his opposition to the Vietnam War, Chomsky established himself as a prominent critic of US foreign and domestic policy. He is a self-declared adherent of libertarian socialism which he regards as "the proper and natural extension of classical liberalism into the era of advanced industrial society."

According to the Arts and Humanities Citation Index in 1992, Chomsky was cited as a source more often than any other living scholar during the 1980?92 period, and was the eighth most-cited source.

He is also considered a prominent cultural figure.Matt Dellinger, "Sounds and Sites: Noam Chomsky," The New Yorker, Link, 3-31-03, accessed 1-26-09 At the same time, his status as a leading critic of US foreign policy has made him controversial."The Accidental Bestseller, Publishers Weekly, 5-5-03, accessed 10-11-08. "Chomsky's controversial political works...became mainstream bestsellers."