Talk:Noam Chomsky/Archive 14

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Genocide denial claims by Marko Attila Hoare

Has anyone seen Marko Attila Hoare's claims that Chomsky is a denier of the Srebrenica genocide committed by the Serbian military/paramilitary? Here's the blog post: http://srebrenica-genocide.blogspot.com/2005/12/chomskys-genocidal-denial.html I'll have to say, though, that I'm highly skeptical of Hoare's claims, as he slanderously called Omadeon, an anti-nationalist Greek blogger, an... "extreme nationalist" merely because of his skepticism towards Hoare's pro-Gruevsky postings. Elp gr (talk) 15:25, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Pointless to dispute it if not more sources are used. One example - the blog tries to connect Chomsky to David Irving, who was arrested in Austria (and I happen to live in Austria, and I got "first hand information" more than I guess quite many other people in the i.e. US press. It is really stupid to try to connect Irving with Chomsky, that doesn't compare AT ALL. Irving is one of those guys who constantly tries to deny certain issues like mass murder committed under the Nazi dictatorship - these guys will try EVERY way around a specific law which prohibits them from praising the Nazi dictatorship. Chomsky never denied this. It is really shameful for that blog to try to put both on the same scale. Irving can be compared to guys more reaily like John Gudenus http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Gudenus - to try to put him into perspective of Chomsky is really just stupid of that blogger. The blog even tries to put words into Chomsky's words like "[...]hundreds of thousands of Bosnian citizens in the 1990s, whose rights Chomsky has never got round to championing.". I am sorry but this blogspot article is just bullshit, and I dont think such a frantic personal attack should not be analyzed further at all. 80.108.103.172 (talk) 11:43, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Analysis on East Timor and Indonesean Invasion

Why does the article not cover anything of what Noam said (or his books etc..) during the invasion of Indonesia? There are multiple sources for that. The article mentions Noam's critical analysis of/during Vietnam, but not the compared example of East Timor vs. Cambodia (and the role of the US press) 80.108.103.172 (talk) 11:46, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

It might be helpful of you to add something along those lines - though it should necessarily be succinct because there are so many ideas to cover here. I think his struggle on behalf of oppressed East Timorese in the face of widespread deceit and ignorance is one of the highlights of his activist legacy. His views on East Timor are covered in more depth in Politics of Noam Chomsky. BernardL (talk) 01:26, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Interest in Power

Doesn't anyone thing that it is strange for an academic "linguist" to lose interest in his subject and to talk about nothing but matters of political and military power? Shouldn't it be noted that Chomsky's concerns are totally unrelated to his supposed field of competence? It seems that he has judged "linguistics" to be irrelevant and not worthy of further consideration. (I place linguistics in quotes because it may not be generally considered to be an objective, scientific area of research.) Lestrade (talk) 13:26, 5 September 2009 (UTC)Lestrade

Given that he's produced extremely important articles in the field as recently as 2006, and that he retired from MIT in 2002 (but continues to teach), I don't think that's an accurate statement. Grunge6910 (talk) 15:18, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

The link to "extremely important articles" doesn't work. Lestrade (talk) 18:04, 5 September 2009 (UTC)Lestrade

Hm, sorry about that. Go to his MIT faculty page and download the PDF Linguistics Articles for full citations. The article I was referring to (I can access it from my college campus) is is from Cognition in 2005 (could have sworn it was 2006). It's called "The Evolution of the Language Faculty: Clarifications and Implications," co-authored with Marc Hauser and W. Tecumseh Fitch. Another recent import article is from 2002, same three writers, called "The faculty of language: what is it, who has it, and how did it evolve?" in Science; this was the famous hypothesis that only recursion distinguishes human language. Both caused quite a splash in the linguistics community. He's remained quite active in linguistics. Grunge6910 (talk) 18:17, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm reminded a bit of Nietzsche's turn from research on linguistic philology to assertions regarding will to power.Lestrade (talk) 19:56, 5 September 2009 (UTC)Lestrade

Except Nietzsche abandoned philology. Chomsky hasn't abandoned linguistics; he's still its most important figure. Grunge6910 (talk) 21:06, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Here are some further considerations. Even when he was young (7) he was writing about political issues, this interest continued in his years as a university student. Then after the US invaded South Vietnam he entered the public sphere with the characteristic social/political analysis and activism that has not relented to this day. For several decades even as he was teaching and producing some of his major works in linguistics he was at the same time very active in politics. He has said that he would actually prefer to just stick to academic science but his conscience concerning social injustice obliges him to participate in politics, otherwise he could not look himself in the mirror each day. (He is far more similar to Bertrand Russell, by the way.)70.55.81.22 (talk) 22:20, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

"Doesn't anyone think that it is strange for an academic "linguist" to lose interest in his subject..?" - Why in the world should anyone have just one interest in life? There are estimates that people entering the workforce now will have 8-10 jobs by the time they are 40, so with 2 career fields, Chomskeys a bit behind.-- The Red Pen of Doom 23:02, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Plagiarism?

We have received an email at OTRS (OTRS:3637056) from someone who suggests that the sixth paragraph of the biography section has been taken from or used by David Horowitz's book "The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America", at p.84 of the hardback version. The person is not connected with the book or the article, but it may be worth investigating. He has given his permission for me to place this notification here. Stifle (talk) 13:11, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Horowitz's book was published in 2006. The paragraph in question was edited to its present form on 9 July 2005, though the relevant facts were there much earlier. It would be difficult for a Wikipedia editor to plagiarise a book that had not yet been published, so I suspect that Wikipedia, not Horowitz, is the original source of this formulation. RolandR 14:58, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

A 2004 biography uses very similar phraseology in its second paragraph. See http://www.chomsky.info/bios/2004----.htm William Avery (talk) 15:44, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Muscle fibers

I pulled out the following bit:

In 1999, research done at the Grabscheid Clinical and Research Center for Voice Disorders at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City showed that slow tonic muscle fibers in the muscles of human vocal cords do not exist in other mammals, creating support and a possible explanation for Chomsky's theories.

The reason is that there is no way this factoid creates 'support and a possible explanation' for Chomsky's theories specifically. All that such a finding would seem to support is a specific anatomic adaption in humans for speaking language — which is something Chomsky has tended to downplay rather than highlight, due to his focus on language as a 'generative' system.

Hauser, Marc D., Noam Chomsky, and W. Tecumseh Fitch. 2002. The Faculty of Language: What Is It, Who Has It, and How Did It Evolve. Science 298: 1569-1579. Jackendoff, Ray, and Steven Pinker. 2005. The nature of the language faculty and its implications for evolution of language (Reply to Fitch, Hauser, and Chomsky). Cognition 97, no. 2: 211-225.

— mark ✎ 17:28, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

What is this paragraph doing in the intro?

{{editsemiprotected}} I see the article is locked (no surprise there). I can't understand why it was locked down with this bizarre interpolation: Randy Harris, author of The Linguistics Wars (1995), has described him as "a hero of Homeric proportions, belonging solidly in the pantheon of our country's finest minds, with all the powers and qualities thereof. First, foremost, and initially he is staggeringly smart. The speed, scope, and synthetic abilities of his intellect are legendary. He is, too, a born leader, able to marshal support, fierce and uncompromising support, for positions he develops or adopts. Often, it seems, he shapes linguistics by sheer force of will."[12] Reasons should be obvious as to why that doesn't belong there. (And note to whoever felt an unconquerable impulse to throw a section of hyperbolic praise into the intro: why not choose something written well instead of that drivel? I mean, First, foremost, and initially...  ? Was Randy Harris getting paid by the word?) An otherwise well-done intro is wrecked by that irrelevant, pov and unnecessary bit of hagiographic excess. I hope an administrator will simply remove it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.229.55.73 (talk) 01:41, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree completely, so I removed it. I'm not an admin; to edit a semi-prot article, you just need to be 'autoconfirmed', which means a registered user who has been around for 4 days and made 10 contributions. If you sign up for an account, you'll be able to edit such things yourself. Cheers,  Chzz  ►  03:41, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

 Done

Political activist

I added a segment about Chomsky being named as a top political activist in Pennsylvania.--Blargh29 (talk) 04:14, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Chomsky on Education

"...Education is a system of imposed ignorance." -http://www.cdi.org/adm/Transcripts/923/

"The whole educational and professional training system is a very elaborate filter, which just weeds out people who are too independent, and who think for themselves, and who don't know how to be submissive, and so on -- because they're dysfunctional to the institutions." — Noam Chomsky http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/2476.Noam_Chomsky

"The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum." — Noam Chomsky http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/2476.Noam_Chomsky —Preceding unsigned comment added by Urecreation (talk • contribs) 20:37, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

And ? ... DocteurCosmos (talk) 13:17, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

and it should be included somewhere in the article! 212.200.205.163 (talk) 15:36, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Views on 9/11

Closing this per WP:NOTFORUM and WP:SOAP
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Chomsky has engaged in disinformation and diversion tactics regarding 9/11, and has used the most ludicrous forms of logic to back up his claims. He purports that he knows little about 9/11 and the evidence for a government conspiracy, but then he says that he WON'T look at the evidence, saying that the evidence is "not plausible." Contradictions? This should be included. This is a paraphrase from Towers of Deception by Barrie Zwicker. Essentially, he is a Left Gatekeeper. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.255.173.155 (talk) 19:41, 28 October 2009 (UTC) I'm not really sure that this is notable. Chomsky is one of the most cited authors of all time, and one author's claims regarding his views on a potential 9/11 conspiracy doesn't really strike me as especially significant. I also don't quite understand your reading. You state that "he purports to know little" and thus other assertions that he "won't look at" the evidence are contradictory. I don't follow you. I know little about particle physics, and if I refuse/won't look at a book on particle physics, that doesn't make for a contradiction, if anything, it backs up my assertion that I "know little of it." It's quite possible that he knows little of it, but what he does know of it strikes him as unnecessary of further review, thus simultaneously allowing him to know "little" but also find what he does know to be not plausible. Hope this helps. Best, Cocytus [»talk«] 20:06, 28 October 2009 (UTC) Furthermore, any coverage of this topic, if worthy of inclusion in Wikipedia at all, should be added to 9/11 conspiracy theories (under the rubric of Chomsky's criticism of such) and not to the biography of Chomsky, since it's not a topic that he has pursued. Pinkville (talk) 20:44, 28 October 2009 (UTC) "The most cited author of all time" is a ridiculous use of logic and rationalsm. Being popular and well known or famous does not automatically make you "correct" in everthing. This is following the bandwagon argument. Check out the book. Get it. Read it. And check out Chomsky's faulty logical arguments, if they are arguments at all. I read it, and my conclusion is he is a Left Gatekeeper. He uses so much nonsense and word magic that it is incredible he even has such a mass followng. Being popular does not make you rigt. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.255.173.155 (talk) 05:55, 29 October 2009 (UTC) Please re-read my comments. I never said he was "right because he was popular." I never said whether he was right or wrong at all. I said he was one of the most cited authors of all time, and thus, one particular author's beef with him was not significant enough in of itself to merit mentioning in an article whose topic is specifically Chomsky. Plenty of people have had issues with Chomsky through the years, but not all of it is notable enough to merit inclusion in the article. You're free to have your own opinions, but Wikipedia policy is that articles must be written in a neutral point of view. Statements such as "my conclusion is he is a Left Gatekeeper" are an opinion, and thus not acceptable for the article. Perhaps, if neutrally worded, this could put somewhere else, such as 9/11 conspiracy theories, as Pinkville has suggested. But (as you mention) Chomsky doesn't put much stock into alternate 9/11 accounts and is unconvinced by the evidence, so it's not something that he views as relevant, and as a result I would state that it is not relevant to his article. Please also keep the following policy in mind: WP:FRINGE. Best, Cocytus [»talk«] 10:52, 29 October 2009 (UTC) Either way, get the book. The author concluded that Chomsky is a Left Gatekeper, like Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.255.173.155 (talk) 00:44, 31 October 2009 (UTC) By all means, you're entitled to that opinion. It is, nevertheless, unsuitable for the article. Please remember that Wikipedia is not a forum. Best, Cocytus [»talk«] 00:52, 31 October 2009 (UTC) Suppose I told you that the author in particular has been a renowed media critic for 25 years, and graduated from Universiy of Toronto with PhDs? Would you then take into account what I have said about Barrie Zwicker's study of Chomsky and his "gatekeeping" duties for Wall Street and its gang of criminal warlords? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.255.173.155 (talk) 01:56, 1 November 2009 (UTC) I am familiar with Barrie Zwicker. I don't know if you're asking me whether a.) his credentials merit inclusion in the article (I would argue no, per my previous statements, namely that Chomsky does not pursue alternative 9/11 explanations and that lots of people take issue with him on a variety of topics) or b.) if I think his credentials merit me going out and reading the book (this is irrelevant because the purpose of this page is to discuss the Wikipedia article on Chomsky, not to hold a forum on personal opinions). If you really want to discuss this personal angle further, you can email me if you so choose. Cocytus [»talk«] 02:44, 1 November 2009 (UTC) Please read our Wikipedia policy. Talk pages on articles are not political forums (see WP:NOT#Forum). Any further comments not relating directly to content on this article will be removed.--Jersey Devil (talk) 05:59, 1 November 2009 (UTC) Who made you the boss? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.255.173.155 (talk) 03:02, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Name

Is his name "Avram Noam Chomsky," or 'Noam Avram Chomsky." This article would suggest the first one, although most sources say the other one. Could someone please provide a source for "Avram Noam Chomsky?" Much appreciated. 69.204.109.18 (talk) 02:13, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Sure. Those sources are incorrect. Sources: here, here, and here. Grunge6910 (talk) 02:45, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

As far as I am aware, it is "Avram Noam Chomsky." I'm not sure I've ever seen it the other way. Going by one's middle name is not uncommon. Best, Vincent Valentine 02:48, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Pronunciation of "Chomsky"

In this edit, User:DenisRS converts "/ˈtʃɒmski/" to "/ˈxɒmski/; incorrect, but popular: /ˈtʃɒmski/" (I've adjusted markup somewhat), with the edit summary "pronunciation corrected; popular, but incorrect variant, of course, kept".

I'd like DenisRS to explain what "incorrect" means here. -- Hoary (talk) 02:37, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

DenisRS hasn't responded.

If I say that I have often heard linguists who are at least moderately eminent -- who've had books published by Blackwell, Cambridge UP and so on -- referring to /ˈtʃɒmski/ and that I've never heard any of them referring to /ˈxɒmski/ then I suppose that would be worthless as it would just be my word. However I do have in front of me Laurie Bauer, The Linguistics Student's Handbook (Edinburgh UP, 2007); this has a chapter on "Linguists' Names" with a list that helps with such names as Chierchia, Culicover and Ladefoged (all on p.148) but that is silent on Chomsky. Absence from the list might mean something, particularly as Bauer devotes another chapter of the same book to "Chomsky's Influence" (a chapter in which he is silent on the pronunciation of the man's name).

I'm about to revert the edit. -- Hoary (talk) 08:15, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

The correct spelling is /'xɒmski/ because that name one of standard second names (not the most popular, though) in the aria his ancestors came and sounds exactly that in (and according to) Urkainian language, Belarusian language and Polish language. Chomsky himself does care much about the pronunciation, though, but for the sake of accuracy it should be pointed. DenisRS (talk) 16:42, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

The second name Chomsky means "son of Khoma". Khoma, or Foma, is Slavic variant of name Thomas (comes after one of Apostles). The letter "F" is not typical for Slavic languages and was initially absent there. Hence the name was transcribed as "Khoma", rather than "Foma", as later. DenisRS (talk) 17:10, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

The correct spelling used as standard in many Slavic regions, from where the second name comes. http://be.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9D%D0%BE%D0%B0%D0%BC_%D0%A5%D0%BE%D0%BC%D1%81%D0%BA%D1%96, http://cu.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%90%D0%B2%D1%80%D0%B0%CC%81%D0%BC%D1%8A_%D0%9D%D0%BE%CC%81%D0%B0%D0%BC%D1%8A_%D0%A5%D0%BE%CC%81%D0%BC%D1%8C%D1%81%D0%BA%EA%99%91%D0%B8, http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A5%D0%BE%D0%BC%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%B9,_%D0%90%D0%B2%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%BC_%D0%9D%D0%BE%D0%B0%D0%BC. DenisRS (talk) 17:31, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

This article is about Noam Chomsky, not the name Chomsky. The man's name is always pronounced /ˈtʃɒmski/ (following his career for the past 30 years, I have never heard otherwise), and other (possible, but unused) pronunciations are irrelevant. For similar reasons we don't provide the (presumably) original Cyrillic version of his name (anyone interested can click on the linked Belarusian, Russian, Ukrainian, et al. Wikipedia articles on Chomsky, if they feel the need...). Curiously, there's a case for providing an alternate pronunciation of Noam, with two syllables, an issue Chomsky himself once raised in a radio interview (No-am being closer to the 'correct' Hebrew pronunciation). Pinkville (talk) 19:27, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

By way of analogy... the pronunciation given for Brett Favre in his Wikipedia article is: /ˈfɑrv/. The 'correct' French would, of course, be /'fa:vʁ/, but this would be incorrect for Brett Favre. Pinkville (talk) 19:47, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Opponents to a cognitive universal grammar

{{editsemiprotected}}

Please change the following:

Original: "More radical critics[who?] have questioned whether it is necessary to posit Universal Grammar in order to explain child language acquisition, arguing that domain-general learning mechanisms are sufficient."

Revised: "Other critics (see language learning) have questioned whether it is necessary to posit Universal Grammar in order to explain child language acquisition, arguing that domain-general learning mechanisms are sufficient."

Done. -- Tom N (tcncv) talk/contrib 06:02, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

FYI, in case we want to be more specific, notable critics of Chomsky's UG idea include developmental psychologist Michael Tomasello (e.g. 1995, 2003) and linguist Adele Goldberg (e.g. 2004). Recent well-published attacks on the UG model are Christiansen & Chater (2008) and Evans & Levinson (2009).

• Christiansen, Morten H., and Nick Chater. 2008. Language as shaped by the brain. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 31, no. 05: 489-558. doi:10.1017/S0140525X08005086.
• Evans, Nicholas, and Stephen C. Levinson. 2009. The Myth of Language Universals: Language diversity and its importance for cognitive science. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 32: 429-492.
• Goldberg, Adele E. 2004. But do we need universal grammar? Comment on Lidz et al. 2003. Cognition 94, no. 1 (November): 77-84. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2004.03.003.
• Tomasello, Michael. 1995. Language is Not an Instinct. Cognitive Development 10, no. 1 (January): 131-156. doi:10.1016/0885-2014(95)90021-7.
• Tomasello, Michael. 2003. Constructing a Language: A Usage-Based Theory of Language Acquisition. Harvard University Press.

— mark ✎ 19:49, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Inclusion of Wittgenstein on List of Influences

Louise M. Antony (Editor), Norbert Hornstein (Editor) (2003). Chomsky and His Critics. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. ISBN: 978-0-631-20021-5.

On page 295, Chomsky writes: "Horwich notes 'a striking convergence of opinion between Chomsky and Wittgenstein regarding the dubious legitimacy of philosophical theories of meaning.' That's true, and of course no coincidence. When I began to think about these questions seriously as a student, I was much influenced by recently published work of the later Wittgenstein... Under these and related influences, I assumed from my earliest writings in the mid-1950s a kind of 'use theory of meaning,' not in Wittgenstein's terms but perhaps not inconsistent with them: the internalized language (I-language) generates syntactic objects, each of which 'provides a basis for a description of how, in fact, language is used and understood' (Chomsky 1995: 75; quite a substantial basis, is argued)." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.109.27.143 (talk) 02:01, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Irrelevant sentence

the sentence in the first paragraph: "Chomsky is often viewed as a notable figure in contemporary philosophy", is irrelevant and somewhat unprofessional. It is not a simple factual sentence since the words "notable" and "often" have no clear meaning in this context (and could not be validated). I also claim that it is not true that Chomsky is viewed as a having great influence on philosophy per se. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 147.231.88.75 (talk) 17:49, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

See this section and "Chomsky has been a direct participant in several key philosophical debates in the last half century, taking issue with interlocutors such as Quine, Donald Davidson, Hilary Putnam, Saul Kripke, and John Searl on the nature of language and mind" (Aloysius Martinich, David Sosa, A companion to analytic philosophy, Wiley-Blackwell, 2001, p. 419). DocteurCosmos (talk) 11:51, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

He is the head of the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy at MIT and has been for a long time. I think that qualifies as being an important philosophers. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.180.61.194 (talk) 23:57, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Lock this article

This is one which will definitely be attacked if it is not Locked. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.180.61.194 (talk) 03:24, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Libertarianism

The argument against Chomsky being included in the American libertarians category is his identification as a libertarian socialist. Chomsky also refers to himself specifically as a socialist. Should he therefore not be included in the American socialists category? Chomsky is a libertarian socialist. He is a libertarian and a socialist. He identifies categorically as a libertarian, in his highly important writings on the anarchist and socialist origins on its meaning: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8USOAkQWGVY Sir Richardson (talk) 14:58, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

But he talks about American Libertarianism as an "aberration." DocteurCosmos (talk) 13:51, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Indeed he does. As I've said, libertarianism isn't only defined by its American homogenization. Sir Richardson (talk) 14:29, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Chomsky has of course written at length on the subject. He is just as much of a libertarian as he is an anarchist. If someone is an American and defines themselves as a libertarian, then they should be included in the category. The opposition to him being included based upon that general aberration is completely irrelevant and unencylopedic. Sir Richardson (talk) 16:09, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Does this say anything?

Many of the more basic principles of this theory (though not necessarily the stronger claims made by the principles and parameters approach described above) are now generally accepted in some circles.

This is unsourced; but, more importantly, does it say anything? "Some basic parts of the theory are generally accepted by some people"; is there any theory more respectable than Time Cube of which this is not true? And if not, should we state the vacuousness? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:57, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Broken link

The link from reference 64, "An Epistemological Reading of the Debate between Quine and Chomsky", is broken. So if anyone knows of any other references, those could be worth adding. --N-k (talk) 01:44, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Possible additions and corrections Discussion please

Apparently he has assets worth 2 million dollars. I've heard people say that "he has 2 mill yet he has guts to call himself a socialist". That's from uncyclopedia, actually. Should this fact be researched and included? Because the article on Ralph Nader has such details. Am not trying to slander, just saying that a fact like this would play a role in forming an opinion of him.

He has said in an interview that "science simplifies everything and is totally inadequate for human affairs." Should the fact be included under " Opinion on cultural criticism of science"? http://www.chomsky.info/debates/20060301.htm)

I further think several other stuff in this article are, for the want of a better word, half-truths. I got the Chomsky bug last year, and read a coupla political works. I would feel obliged if somebody joined me in some discussion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Iceman87 (talk • contribs) 17:06, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

I think the net worth is irrelevant to the main article, as including it would treat him as a public figure in a way he is not. The criticism based on this claim is already here.

You can go ahead and add the view of science, although I have been debating with myself whether that section should be here at all.

As for the half truths… what are you referring to? Allformweek (talk) 04:57, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

I can't substantiate the half-truth comment, but i just "felt" somethings were not right. I'll point out in due time.

Why hasn't the controversy on his views about the srebrenica massacres not mentioned? Also his views on the recent supreme court ruling on campaign finance? Geez, this article needs an update. I'm going to reread chomsky.info and add some stuff in the following days. Any stuff on this guy needs a "Featured" quality. Iceman87 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 11:32, 15 March 2010 (UTC).

Rather than zeroing in on Srebenica, why not the whole Yugoslav war, particularly the NATO bombings (which is what he has most written about). On the other hand, I don't feel a great compulsion myself to add content based on every event he's comment on... Surely his policy analysis, since it's consistent and deep, is what's most significant, rather than any one of the examples on which he brings it to bear... Pinkville (talk) 11:55, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Yep, i changed my mind on Srebrenica too, that's why you don't see an edit. I hold that his views on the Supreme court are important; they are a commentary on judiciary, democratic processes, legalism etc. But one line is too thin. I'm trying to pull some more stuff he might have said on those topics.Iceman87 (talk) 18:05, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

So what can we do to improve the quality of this article? It currently has a b- right? Does the reader get a snapshot of what he wants to know about Chomsky's political opinions? What about the stuff on kibbutz, for example? Is that so relevant? Instead of having quotes in the middle of articles, we have articles amidst quotes. I propose to trim some. (Not an easy job, this guy never wastes words, yet manages to talk at length). Iceman87 (talk) 18:05, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

What's the difference between editing and vandalism? If I chop off a section, like the stuff on kibbutz, for example, how will it be viewed? Iceman87 (talk) 18:11, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Oops. I'm just repeating the stuff under Milestones. Sorry. Didn't check.Iceman87 (talk) 06:46, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

It seems odd to me that Israel's recent refusal to allow Chomsky entry is included; but no mention of when Israel had previously admitted him. I think it should include the phrase, "...although he has visited Israel in the past." 173.76.221.237 (talk) 11:52, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

In reference to the paragraph about Chomsky's experience on a kibbutz: What is "in which parents and children lived in rooms of separate houses together" supposed to mean exactly? Perhaps the families lived in a Cubist neighborhood.67.175.151.136 (talk) 07:59, 20 May 2010 (UTC)67.175.151.136 (talk) 07:58, 20 May 2010 (UTC)67.175.151.136 (talk) 07:57, 20 May 2010 (UTC)67.175.151.136 (talk) 07:56, 20 May 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.175.151.136 (talk) 03:29, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Naom Chomsky is an american, born in Philadelphia, USA to Eastern European jewish immigrants. So why is his name spelled in Hebrew in the article?? I think it should be deleted. --188.177.17.223 (talk) 23:59, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree, so I removed it - it seems irrelevant, non-standard (other such BLP names aren't so rendered), as well as unsourced. AV3000 (talk) 12:43, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Family

Does he have any children? Grandchildren? How come the article doesn't say anything about that? 70.116.76.173 (talk) 12:58, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

The article states clearly "The couple had two daughters, Aviva (b. 1957) and Diane (b. 1960), and a son, Harry (b. 1967).". If you want to add any more relevant and reliably sourced information, feel free to do so. RolandR (talk) 13:05, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Fixing the "view of science" section

I think this section either needs to be deleted or turned into a nice, neat summary of the Chomskian view of science. Allformweek (talk) 20:48, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

I think it should be s shortened, and conglomerated into a different section or deleted.

he makes grandiose statments about scientific philosphy that are not consistent with the goals, methods, and successes in the PHYSICAL sciences (which includes mathematics, engineering, and medicine among the other obvious disciplines).

He fails to make the necessary distinctions, which are obvious even from a non scientist's perspective (I am a chemist). This failure to recognizes such obvious and basic differences is pretty naive.

I wonder if those quotes were taken out of context (I know that discussions of science vs social science may sound like a fine distinction, but it is not) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.6.76.141 (talk) 22:39, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, the quotes are pretty much totally out of context. I am curious though what grandiose statements you think he makes and necessary distinctions you think he misses. Allformweek (talk) 22:49, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Me too. DocteurCosmos (talk) 08:21, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

you are welcome to check the references. that was a pretty complete interview. Iceman87 (talk) 08:01, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

I don't have any idea why this section even exists. Chomsky's views on science are essentially compatible with any thinking person (which includes myself) and his comments on it merely scratch the surface of the philosophy of science. I don't think its because he's shallow or doesn't have a deeply considered position on it, but rather than he just hasn't bothered to articulate much on the subject. When he is quoted on the issue he's usually doing so to correct some serious misconception of some questioner whose understanding of science (or Chomsky's position on it) is weak or incorrect. I mean because his comments have been relatively light on the issue, I think it is comparable to a section on the kinds of sweaters he wears. Qed (talk) 20:19, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

I do agree. DocteurCosmos (talk) 18:55, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

I think it's pretty poor. If this material was to stay, it'd need a lot of explication, material from his debate with Focault, etc. As it stands it's terrible, as poststructuralism isn't science, and largely, if not wholly, dedicated to the investigation of "complicated problems like human affairs" Ross.Brighton (talk) 09:03, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Religon

Noam chomsky stated repeatedly that he is a secular atheist [http://www.celebatheists.com/wiki/Noam_Chomsky —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.238.148.49 (talk) 23:05, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Find a citation and you're set. Allformweek (talk) 01:12, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

How's this? http://www.equaltimeforfreethought.org/2007/05/27/show-219-noam-chomsky-chomsky-on-humanism/ "... The problem with me (Chomsky) is that the only '..ism' that I believe in is truism" (so he doesn't subscribe to deism; and weak atheism, of course, is not an "ism") and regarding other people who have religion: "I don't have it, and I think in the long run it's destructive". Both quotes are in the first 10 minutes. Qed (talk) 17:36, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Linguistics: non-NPOV

The article is completely devoid of contradictory research from many of his colleagues in the last few years. I've just written the following to the editor, "John," who deleted my attempt to add a citation from a Stanford Univ professor, which summarizes these criticisms from herself and many of her colleagues -- important criticisms since they are empirically-based challenges to one of Dr. Chomsky's most crucial theories:

Why are you undoing an edit --that was approved of by Snowded, who has a barnstar for balancing POV's-- and your only reason given for undoing it was, "not how we do things"?

Sure, Noam Chomsky is a father of linguistics, but today, decades later, many linguists are finding fault in one of his primary theories (UnivGrammar). I'm not sure how "we" (who are you speaking for?) do "things" or what you meant by such a vague & pithy statement, but:

• Verifiable and reliable info from a prominent Stanford U professor, which also is relevant to the content of that paragraph, is what you are deleting (not modifying, but wholesale deleting). Deleting info from a section where it is relevant, when the info also meets WP:Core_content_policies, without moving the content to the Talk page, nor even using the "edit summary" to give _any_ reason(s) which are related to WP content policies as an explanation for _why_ you're deleting it, is that how "things" on Wikipedia should be done? As an admin, shouldn't you especially be expected to know that WP policies say that's not proper (e.g. "generally someone makes a change or addition to a page, then everyone who reads it has an opportunity to leave the page as it is or change it. When editors cannot reach agreement by editing, the process of finding a consensus is continued by discussion on the relevant talk pages"...i.e. I had already given a briefer summary of my reasoning, now you're supposed to explain your reasoning (if you have anything that's supported by the WP staff's core content guidelines, etc.), instead of bitingly snickering at me with a "reason" of only: "not how we do things". I would have expected to see "see talk page" (in the edit History page) when you undid my edit, because when I added that info, I gave perfectly good [and much briefer LOL] explanations, for why I made that edit; if you're editing in good faith, you'll finally maybe someday be kind enough to explain your own, contrary reasons, esp if you have any reasons in WP's content policies as support? ).
• Striking Prof. Boroditsky's info from the paragraph which summarizes Chomsky's UG theory appears to violate the neutral POV policy by not giving equal prominence to two equally-scholarly camps who disagree with each other; this is not some fringe group criticizing Chomsky's UG theory, many in the scientific community find fault with it. In study after study, scientists are reporting that they've found empirical evidence which disputes Chomsky's UG theory (I can cite even more studies by researchers who weren't noted by Prof. Boroditsky, but her article which I tried to cite in Wikipedia gives a good summary of her colleagues' studies, and describes the issue in plain English -- and plain English is what's most useful to most encyclopedia readers [i.e. non-linguists, laymen] who can click on the footnote if they want to look further into Prof. Boroditsky's synopsis of her colleagues' research).
• We also have: "A point of view fork is an attempt to evade the neutrality policy by creating a new article about a certain subject that is already treated in an article, often to avoid or highlight negative or positive viewpoints or facts." The criticisms section for Chomsky creates a "new article" and doesn't even mention that criticisms (of his theories in liguistics) even exist: "Main article: Criticism of Noam Chomsky. Much Chomsky criticism revolves around his political views. His status as an intellectual figure within the left wing of American politics has resulted in much criticism from the left and the right." Only politics, no linguistics. This is the epitome of a "POV fork"; see also [1].
• as a scientist, when I see a statement as strong as calling someone a "father" of any major field of research, and I have credible info showing that today's experts are pointing out that their "father's" research is not quite as widely accepted today as it was decades ago when he first published it, I realize that for encyclopedia readers --most of whom probably don't keep up with the latest scientific journals-- such a strong statement (which seems geared to give him god-like or fatherly status amongst linguists) can mislead laymen unless it is tempered and balanced by quoting today's expert linguists...especially because a major theory like UG is a big part of how he became a "father" of linguistics. This gives the reader 3 benefits which make the Noam Chomsky article more informative: (1) the "whole truth" about the status of UG theory amongst the research community rather than a one-sided argument, (2) a more balanced POV, (3) and a sense of how the scientific process works.

Readers of Wikipedia are being done a disservice if they're not told the full picture, i.e. the latest state of this major theory of linguistics which is also a major, major part of Chomsky's career! Many people might not read beyond the first few paragraphs and leave with an impression of, "Chomsky's work makes his UG theories so valid and great, they call him the 'father' of linguistics," so at least a brief snippet about the more recent studies that contradict Chomsky views on UG should be placed where such info is relevant: in the same or adjacent paragraph to where his UG theory & prominence in linguistics was initially discussed (and discussed glowingly in both those paragraphs, in a POV one-sided argument). This is copied to the Chomsky Talk page & John's Talk page; John, please reply to this on the Talk page if you still oppose my edit. 216.188.254.46 (talk) 17:20, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

There are a range of criticisms of Chomsky's theories of language. Deacon's Symbolic Species being one of the main ones. --Snowded ^TALK 17:26, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

The whole linguistics section of this article is woefully inadequate, not really summarizing his influence and arguments. Devoting better research and sourcing to criticisms rather than the actual substance of his work seems counterproductive to the aims of this article. Also I'm moving the claims about him being better known qua anarchist back to the lede where it belongs; it's out of place in the generative grammar section. Grunge6910 (talk) 18:10, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Agree its poorly written (and the anarchist bit should be in the lede). However including some of the criticism, which are starting to date his theory is not counter productive its a matter of balance. --Snowded ^TALK 18:20, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

That's true, but we risk losing balance in the opposite direction by emphasizing the criticisms without emphasizing the merits. Grunge6910 (talk) 19:07, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Agree and his contribution is major. However some of the criticisms are key - Deacon for example. Improve the merits is the answer surely --Snowded ^TALK 19:09, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

We have an extremely large article named Criticism of Noam Chomsky in case nobody had noticed. Critics of Noam Chomsky are handed more space than any other person on Wikipedia (even dead ones). There is less Criticism of Adolf Hitler than Chomsky. Wikispan (talk) 20:11, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes, the "criticisms" section is large; so are the sections where his theories are detailed. The sections which describe his theories in glowing & positive terms, in all their glorious detail, remain on this page (in addition, these sections link to lengthy articles, each of which is dedicated to each topic of his work), whereas the criticisms of his theories, in all their equally-glorious detail, were removed.

That's not usually a good style per [2]; see also Wikipedia:content forking (POV fork: "another version of the article (or another article on the same subject) is created to be developed according to a particular point of view. This second article is known as a "POV fork" of the first, and is inconsistent with Wikipedia policies. The generally accepted policy is that all facts and major points of view on a certain subject should be treated in one article."). So, perhaps to shorten this article, the large sub-section that this article links to should be, basically, a webpage dedicated to "Chomsky's Linguistics work -- in detail," and within this article itself, sections that describe his linguistics work should contain brief synopses which are more suitable for laymen or those looking for the simplest of descriptions (whilst also giving a briefer, layman's summary of the contradictory research & other criticisms that exist), and then place the longer descriptions of his theories (along with the longer descriptions of the criticisms of those theories) on the webpages which are dedicated specifically to the more in-depth look at each theory, since these more in-depth webpages already exist?

216.188.254.46 (talk) 22:47, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Honorary degrees

The article tells us that:

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

whereupon there's a long and unsourced list. Somebody wants to add Peking to the list. The romanization is somewhat suspect, but that aside the claim is hardly less credible than what's already there.

Suggestion: Pull the entire list. If people wish to add honorary degrees and have a reliable source for it, they're welcome to do so. -- Hoary (talk) 04:17, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Not complaining but - what about the Faurisson affair. It was one of the more idiotic sections in all of wikidom but there are those who loved it at least for the laughs. What happened - the real reason, lawsuit, threat of lawsuit, someone high up the food chain dropped the hammer, etc? How is it done - for future reference? 159.105.81.48 (talk) 19:18, 15 September 2010 (UTC)I couldn't find it at first - please link from this article to the good stuff, please

URL "chomsky.info : The Noam Chomsky Website"

The link "chomsky.info : The Noam Chomsky Website" points to an automatically generated website containing "Sponsored listings", that means automatically selected advertising. At the first page you see texts relevant to Chomsky, but when you click on them, you will get to "Free Downloadable Movies", "Hotel Reviews" et cetera. This is fake site, please remove it. (I could't, because the page is locked.) Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 158.195.87.88 (talk) 07:24, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Must be a local problem. Check your dns or your typography. chomsky.info is a well-designed site, a repository of Chomsky's works. It comes on top of google search. Check it with mcafee site advisor. It's cool with WOT too. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.197.184.170 (talk) 14:14, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

It wasn't a local problem. Last week I too found that the link went to a cyber-squatting spam site, so I removed it. The genuine Chomsky site has been restored to this url, so I have reinserted the link. RolandR (talk) 14:46, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

November interview in Tablet online magazine

Hopefully of interest.

Tablet - David Samuels - Q&A: Noam Chomsky, 12 November 2010: The world’s most important leftist intellectual talks about his Zionist childhood and his time with Hezbollah.

    ←   ZScarpia   01:12, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

What languages can Noam Chomsky speak?

It's probably a naive question, but speaking of Anglocentrism, what languages can Noam Chomsky himself speak? Or, more broadly, what languages does he 'know'? I've been told he learnt a bit of Hebrew as a boy, but apart from that, zilch. Is this true? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.185.138.31 (talk) 19:49, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

As far as I know, the only non-English language Chomsky understands is Hebrew, which he can read but no longer speak fluently. I also believe he has understanding of French, as evident from his filmed debate with Michel Foucault. Sir Richardson (talk) 19:53, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

What matters for a linguist is not how many languages he speaks fluently or approximatively but how many languages he knows scientifically to be able to make generalizations. 24.226.189.196 (talk) 18:15, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Military Funding For Linguistics Research

At the end of the Political Views section it is mentioned that Chomsky receives military funding for a significant portion of a part of his linguistics research. Besides the problem with the phrase 'significant portion of a part' being inexact and unclear, I was unable to find any mention of such funding in the attributed source (Ghoshroy, MIT The Tech). It is possible I missed it, but whatever mention is made must be brief. Is some interested double checker willing to provide the exact quote? Otherwise we should look for another source or consider removing the claim.

Thanks!

Oh, and my apologies if this has been discussed previously. I could find no mention via archive searches. --BBUCommander (talk) 03:58, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

This kind of stuff ("closet capitalist") is always sourced to his critics. Examine the following section. It's amazing it has survived this long. Wikispan (talk) 09:20, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

Its not very well sourced, though. I think it also confuses issues and I am not sure the funding related criticism is notable.·Maunus·ƛ· 11:42, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

Not sure what the norm is, but how about we wait a month to see if the original poster or anyone else can help find a source, and if no one does we remove the line? I have been trying to find a source in my spare time and have not come up with anything. None of the linguistics papers I have by Chomsky mention military funding, though non-disclosure is by no means uncommon in academic publications. --BBUCommander (talk) 00:21, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

I changed "...parts of his linguistic research have been substantially funded by the American military." to "...early research at the institution were he did his linguistic research had been substantially funded by the American military." That is what the source cited in footnote 103 actually says. As it is, the grants from the military to institutions like M.I.T. were institutional, not individual. Only with institutions that were not under contract with the military did the individual project director have to sign the project agreement based on a project proposal submitted to the military by the same person. This might seem tedious but that's how things worked before funding shifted to the NIH in the 70s, not because of our protests to our respective university administrations, but because the Pentagon simply had lost interest. 24.226.189.196 (talk) 17:57, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

broken links

Reference 106 is broken —Preceding unsigned comment added by 196.210.172.19 (talk) 10:57, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

 Fixed. Rivertorch (talk) 17:55, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Pronunciation of his name

Regarding the Russion origin, the correct pronunciation would have to be IPA χɔmski, which for normal US-pronounciation would require to change the name into "Khomsky", what he did not, perhaps hoping people would learn...HJJHolm (talk) 07:23, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

But he's not Russian, he's American, and he pronounces his name Chomsky. RolandR (talk) 07:38, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

His father William immigrated from the Ukraine. LamontCranston (talk) 02:17, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Does he pronounce his first name (/ˈnoʊm/ as indicated in the article, or more like the Hebrew original, as it is often pronounced in English, as (/ˈnoʊ.ɑːm/ ?

The Lead is too long

The lead is too long. It's supposed to be 4 reasonably sized paragraphs. Does anyone else what to take a stab at trimming it down? Or should I have a go? FurrySings (talk) 07:16, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

Go for it, FS! Scaleshombre (talk) 23:44, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

Sentence in Intro

Could we change this sentence in the intro: "However, one ought not to forget that one of Chomsky's most influential pieces was "The Algebraic Theory of Context-Free Languages", by N. Chomsky and Schützenberger."? Encyclopedias ought not be in the position of having to "remind" readers of facts.

How about the more direct "One of Chomsky's most influential pieces was 'The Algebraic Theory of Context-Free Languages', by N. Chomsky and Schützenberger.". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 38.111.39.254 (talk) 20:46, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

That seems reasonable. I left the "however", since it appeared to connect that sentence with the previous one, and just removed "one ought not to forget that". Rivertorch (talk) 08:19, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

'coca cola' intellectual

Serbian philosopher Ljubodrag_Simonović said that Chomsky is dishonest and pretends to object imperialistic U.S. foreign policies while in the same time advocating things that support such imperialistic policies (he gives specific example of Kosovo). [3] 89.216.196.129 (talk) 11:54, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

You Tube is not a reliable source, and a professional basketball player is not a philosopher. RolandR (talk) 13:06, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

he has Masters in Law, a PhD in Philosophy[4]. being successful in one thing (best basketball player in Europe at the time) doesn't preclude one from excelling in other things as well. 89.216.196.129 (talk) 13:35, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

his reply to Noam Chomsky was published in Politika 89.216.196.129 (talk) 13:37, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Where did Chomsky support intervening in Kosovo? LamontCranston (talk) 02:14, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

As far as I know, Chomsky never supported an intervention. To the contrary, he constantly condemned it (like he does with every justified intervention.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.23.70.102 (talk) 03:42, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Protected article

I find it odd that Noam Chomsky a person that has campaigned all his life to promote freedom of speech should have his article protected. If he found out about it he would properly disagree.78.146.28.151 (talk) 19:02, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

What does semi-protection have to do with freedom of speech? Rivertorch (talk) 22:29, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

I'm sure it would be a total battleground if opened, and probably ruthlessly spammed. Blant Bayneler (talk) 21:59, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Yea free speech is one thing, total chaos is another. --DanielCD (talk) 02:35, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

Missing Link

I was all set to click on footnote #66 to see the link to the discussion of Hilary Putnam on Semantic Externalism but found that there is nothing there. It is listed in the debate section of this article and I know Chomsky and Putnam have known eachother since high school and that they were both critics of US involvement in Vietnam. They used to have very similar philosophies though Putnam (along with Saul Kripke) seems to have leveled a lot of Chomsky's philosophy-cum-linguistics so I was very excited to see an example of debate and was disappointed when I didn't find one. What the deally-yo? They are both giants and rock so hard!! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.57.126.163 (talk) 15:50, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

New lead

I appreciate that the lead has been pared down, but I have some major concerns with it. It strangely emphasizes Chomsky's relevance to computer science, surely not one of the most significant aspects of his intellectual career. For one, he is not, contrary to the current lead, a practicing computer scientist nor has he ever been. Instead of emphasizing the aspects of Chomsky's approach to linguistics as the old lead did (though it perhaps lacked brevity), the new lead cherry-picks an appreciative and undescriptive quote from a computer scientist gushing about Chomsky's work. What we need is to get a good summary of Chomsky's linguistics, not this hodgepodge. Comments? Grunge6910 (talk) 01:57, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Agreed, and I'd also like to see more about his political criticism. It's probably what he's most known for outside the academic community. InverseHypercube 02:15, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Agreed, although I would definitely argue that his linguistic work is his main contribution to the world. He has had enormous impact on a number of scientific fields through this work. His political work has gotten him attention, but what kind of influence has it had on anyone? ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 03:46, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

I'd argue that he is the most influential American left-wing political commentator alive, excluding maybe Michael Moore. His book has been promoted by Chavez, he has been denied entrance into Israel, his books banned at Guantanamo Bay, and has met with many world leaders. I don't see how you can say he hasn't had an influence in politics. InverseHypercube 06:49, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Well, being a linguist I may be biased to focus on his contributions in that field - but I don't think that his political work will be remembered 15 years after his death his linguistic work will be remebered 100 years after. It doesn't matter much - the article obviously need to cover both.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 10:12, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Academic achievements, awards and honors

In the Academic achievements, awards and honors section, it would be useful to note that his name features as an "easter egg" in the Xbox 360 game Left 4 Dead 2, Gnome Chomsky is a toy gnome won on a funfair game at Dark Carnival and an achievement can be unlocked by carrying him to the end of the level.

It would be nice to see this change applied soon.

Craig Brown. — Preceding unsigned comment added by CraigBrown238 (talk • contribs) 16:20, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

This is both unsourced, and extremely trivial. I see no need to include this. RolandR (talk) 16:49, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. InverseHypercube 00:07, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Wow. To paraphrase Douglas Adams, "This is obviously some strange usage of the phrase 'it would be useful' that I hadn't previously been aware of." PacificBoy 09:18, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

MIT Stata Center image

Just wanted to question whether the Stata Center image has much business appearing in this article. Chomsky is closely associated with MIT, but not strongly identified with that particular building in the same way that a US President is with the White House or Roald Dahl is with the Gipsy House. Other than it being the location of his office, the only thing I've read in relation to Chomsky and the Stata Center is that he isn't fond if it and preferred the old building. The Little Teapot (talk) 01:08, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Lead sentence in opening paragraph

I recently removed a reference to the "common name" for Chomsky in the lead sentence, because it is already in the title. Since edit summaries have very little space for extended explanations, I can expand here. In the edit summary, I stated that "The article's title already says that [Noam Chomsky]. See WP:BEGINNING about "redundancy" in 1st sentence."

I need to mention another rule for the lead sentence in a biography -- Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(biographies)#Names -- where it specifically states, "While the article title should generally be the name by which the subject is most commonly known, the subject's full name should be given in the lead paragraph, if known. Many cultures have a tradition of not using the full name of a person in everyday reference, but the article should start with the complete version." (my bold marking)

In summary, we need to start the lead section with Chomsky's full name, while the title already is the "commonly known" name for him. --Skol fir (talk) 19:11, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

This is far from a unique case. See, for example, Gordon Brown, Scott Fitzgerald, Harold Wilson and many other notable figures who chose to be known ny their second name. There is no reason to treat Chomsky any differently fronm these, and the long-standing opening, as restored by Skol fir, is fine. RolandR (talk) 21:05, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

As a nod to editor User:Wolfdog, I concur that in the Infobox, we have no need for the full name. See Template:Infobox person, where it states that for a person, "name=Common name of person (defaults to article name if left blank; provide birth_name (below) if different from name)." That should help to alleviate Wolfdog's concerns. --Skol fir (talk) 22:11, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

formal power series

I wonder whether the paragraph on the Formal Power Series (in section Chomsky hierarchy) should be included in this article. I do not see any direct connection to Chomsky. Anša (talk) 16:51, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Religion

Here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewP5tNLBb2E&feature=related Chomsky states that he doesn't believe in anything without evidence. He says he tries not to have faith. But, and I wondered if anyone can help me out here by chiming in with their two cents on what Chomsky is saying in the clip: is he an atheist or an agnostic? For categorisation purposes of course. The bit of interest is at the beginning of the clip. Farrtj (talk) 10:00, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

In this interview from 2006, he begins by defending atheism as intellectually respectable, but then takes an Ignostic stance. I've pasted the relevant section below.

CHOMSKY: "You could be an intellectually respectable atheist in the 17th century, or in the fifth century. In fact, I don’t even know what an atheist is. When people ask me if I’m an atheist, I have to ask them what they mean. What is it that I’m supposed to not believe in? Until you can answer that question I can’t tell you whether I’m an atheist, and the question doesn’t arise.

I don’t see anything logical in being agnostic about the Greek gods. There’s no agnosticism about ectoplasm [in the non-biological sense]. I don’t see how one can be an agnostic when one doesn’t know what it is that one is supposed to believe in, or reject. There are plenty of things that are unknown, but are assumed reasonably to exist, even in the most basic sciences. Maybe 90 percent of the mass-energy in the universe is called “dark,” because nobody knows what it is." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.7.255.83 (talk) 06:56, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

I think Chomsky is saying that if atheism is defined as disbelief in something, he can't answer until that something is defined. Defining atheism as 'disbelief in God' may not be good enough for Noam since God is defined as everything from a celestial skyfather to physical law (like Einstein would do). It strikes me as a contrarian answer, but I'd call him an atheist all right. Exhibit A (from Znet forum archives):

'As for "our model of god," we can "revamp" it if we have one. Not having one, I can't revamp it, or suggest how others should. On religion in an anarchistic society, I would agree with the classic anarchist slogan "Ni Dieu, ni Maitre" (No god, no master). I don't see the justification for either, but individuals make their own choices, just as I make mine.'

He's not an agnostic, as his comments about ectoplasm make here. Diderooot (talk) 10:02, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Citations

Are there no more direct sources for the information about him being among the most cited scholars? For example, to the index itself? And do I understand correctly that his position in regard to other scholars is only for arts and humanities in 1980-1992 period? Litawor (talk) 22:14, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Criticism

There surely must be some mention of (the very apposite) criticism of Chomsky and UG in general from the integrational linguistics perspective and particularly the work of Roy Harris. 197.168.195.167 (talk) 11:45, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

The criticism section needs to be expanded. Now it's just these short 3 sentences:

"Chomsky has received criticism for both his political views and his work in linguistics. Although his linguistic theories are widely accepted, some, such as universal grammar, have attracted controversy. In the political arena, Chomsky's status as a key intellectual figure within the American left wing has also resulted in criticism and led to a number of notable controversies."

First thing is that it is stated that his linguistics work has been criticized and in the next sentence it is said that it is widely accepted after which it is again said that some aren't. It looks contradictory even if they don't exactly nullify each other and it's not necessary, nor helpful, to say the same thing twice. In short it's badly written.
Then a whole lot of questions: Who criticizes his linguistics? Which theories, besides universal grammar, have attracted controversy? Who criticizes his political views? Are those criticizers from the left or the right? (can be both of course). What are the controversies his political views have led to?
I think that's a good layout to start enlarging the criticism section.--Tomvasseur (talk) 11:28, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Chomsky is getting a free ride from Wiki. Why is that? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Artist97 (talk • contribs) 03:54, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

• In general, criticism sections are discouraged as unencyclopedic. Criticism should be worked into the text where it's appropriate. In Chomsky's case, though, it'd be particularly problematic to have a general criticism section, because he's high-profile in so many things -- lumping together reactions to his political views and his work in linguistics into one section makes no sense. --Aquillion (talk) 17:11, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

Years ago the article had a long and detailed criticism section, and I think this got moved to a separate "Criticism of" article at some point. My understanding is that this sort of section/article isn't considered appropriate for Wikipedia. Chomsky is not getting any more of a free ride than many other controversial figures. (To pick one at random, I notice that e.g. Murray Rothbard's article doesn't have a criticism section.) Cadr (talk) 13:10, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

The section on Problems with Chomsky's view on language is terribly written. Many of the points are valid, but they are not presented in a manner compatible with Wikipedia's standards. The interrogative "ever try to imitate a bird" is not only irrelevant with regard to language complexity (ever try to imitate a howler monkey? or the sound of a cicada? or watch a bird try to imitate a human?), but is unscientific, confrontational, and should be reserved for tenth-grade speeches, not discussions of language theory. In addition, the charge that Chomsky's description of human language as being of a different type, rather than simply a different magnitude from animal communication constitutes racism is absurd. Not only would Chomsky clearly deny this, but it has nothing to do with how he has differentiated language: Chomsky's differentiations are based on his belief that there is an internal system, analogous to the visual system, which causes humans to develop language, which by his definitions comprise certain characteristics (recursivity, infinite creative scope, a common generative grammar) which are either absent in animal communication systems, or of a different nature or scope. If it is the view of the contributor that this view derives from racism rather than from objective criteria, that should be reserved for a book or essay, which, if peer reviewed and approved, may be cited as criticism in the page; however, asserting in an article about Noam Chomsky that he is a racist because he believes animal languages lack certain scientifically identifiable features present in human languages is absurd, insulting and unscientific, and does not belong on a Wikipedia page. Perhaps this section can be rewritten with the (legitimate) criticisms intact, but stripped of the ad hominem argumentation. If there are specific criticisms, accepted in the linguistic academic community, they should be objectively discussed in the section: it is not a place for someone (clearly highly educated) to post a rant about how Chomsky has, by creating a definition of language which self-consciously restricts itself to those features common to human languages, shown himself to be a racist, or has shown contempt for the forms of communication used by birds. This should be a discussion about whether the concept language should refer exclusively to human languages, or should be extended to include animal communication of sufficient complexity, of which human language is only a subset. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.250.157.231 (talk) 17:46, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

It's good that the Criticism section has been removed. Wikipedia is no place for balanced discussion. There's a corps of editors working very hard to keep Wikipedia a place for liberal thought — as it has been from the beginning — and people should just go to Fox News or Conservapedia if they want the other side. The same thing goes for facts. Remember that Wikipedia is for VERIFIABLE, NOT FACTUAL information. 71.200.35.243 (talk) 23:18, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

A criticism section is indeed called for. I will be adding one in the coming days. InverseHypercube 02:45, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

It is a much better idea to integrate relevant criticism into the respective sections about political thought and linguistic contributions. Criticism sections are often loudly called for, but they rarely improve articles. ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 02:55, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

I disagree. I think there is significant enough information on criticism of Chomsky to warrant a section. InverseHypercube 05:55, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

There is a lot of criticism of Chomsky's ideas - and his ideas are treated in their separate sections. It makes zero sense to make a section that includes criticism of all of his different unrelated ideas.€ in linguistics, politics and philosophy.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 13:16, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

A standalone criticism section is a poor choice. Soon it will grow to incompatible length (again) be split-off (again) then deleted (again). Please examine our article on Christopher Hitchens. This is the quality we should be aiming for. — ThePowerofX 10:13, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm a UK left-wing anarchist, and Chomsky has been as near to being a hero as I allow myself since before most of you were born - but this article does not have the flavour of an objective encylopedia entry, more of a sympathetic biography. And I am taken aback by the comment, "There's a corps of editors working very hard to keep Wikipedia a place for liberal thought — as it has been from the beginning — and people should just go to Fox News or Conservapedia if they want the other side". If that's right, maybe it should be renamed Liberapedia, so that everyone knows where they stand. Chomsky has always fought for the right to express views however unorthodox or "non-liberal" they may be; it seems ironically unChomskyan that such views criticising Chomsky should not be properly covered in a Wikipedia article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Geoffw1948 (talk • contribs) 17:22, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Agreed regarding a "Criticism" section, but what of a "Controversy" section? This very Talk page identifies him as a controversial figure (possibly to the point that he has damaged the credibility of an entire field of scientific inquiry simply by being associated with it), and surely the very controversies he causes or is otherwise embroiled in bear elucidation and linkage to reliable sources. If nothing else, that'll give someone like the "VERIFIABLE, NOT FACTUAL" guy a place to get off some choice shots at Chomsky's detractors. 50.55.243.167 (talk) 00:57, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps because Chomsky is far from being a liberal, he has escaped a "Controversy" section :)

"Criticism" or "Controversy" sections are generally deprecated, which is not to say that there shouldn't be a balanced presentation in line with WP:BLP and WP:WEIGHT. The wording of the first entry under "Objectives" in the infobox at the top of the page says it pretty well:

"Keep the article neutral. (Do not include irrelevant material that reflects disparagingly on Chomsky simply for the reason that it does so. In the same respect, do not delete relevant information that is disparaging simply because it is disparaging)."

I don't think we need a section on this because I don't think there are reliable sources that discuss "controversy" in any balanced, reasonable way (though I could be wrong about this). In any case, we should not shy away from criticism of Chomsky in reliable sources. Sunray (talk) 20:10, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

I speak as a linguist--the field of linguistics is much broader than this article suggests, and the criticisms of Chomsky are neither marginal nor few nor poorly represented. In particular, I see two sources of criticism worth discussing: the non-generative theoretical critique, and the non-theoretical critique, both of which are similar in goal but not in practice. Non-generativists come in many forms, mainly constructionists in their many guises. Non-theoreticians encompass psychologists, neurologists, evolutionary biologists, and cognitive scientists who study language. The critiques center around, as far as I can tell, three tenets of the Chomskyan camp: that there is a competence-performance distinction (psychologists in particular take issue with this); that form itself constitutes the main body of knowledge of a language (non-generative theoreticians in particular take issue with this, but so do evolutionary biologists); and that language is to a large extent domain-specific and innate. ninestraycats

I don't think that an encyclopedia should be a place for political debate. However I'm passingly familiar with the Khmer Rouge regime and I think that it is an objective fact that there exists a controversy about Chomsky's views current and past. Surely mentioning the controversy with some links without taking issue would be justified (personally, I'm myself quite appalled about his actions and thought on this issue as much as I admire his later activism). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.193.87.189 (talk) 17:54, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

Critique of Chomsky's Cartesian Cognitivism

“Really” speaking, “ideal speaker and hearer” do not exist in the world of threat and violence or in the world of behavioral manipulation. From the perspective of continental philosophers, one may contradict Chomsky’s metanarrative of transcendental cogito. His purvapaksa (opponent’s view, i.e., Chomsky’s hypothesis of linguistic creativity) holds that there is a context free ideal creative speaking subject with zero History. However, this ahistorical ideal subject escapes "real" from the standpoint of psychoanalysis. What is about speaking subject’s real locus? Where does s/he stand? Does she/he stand in a vacuum? As sometimes in Classical Physics, we presume such vacuum (bodies fall in the “actual” atmosphere behave as if they are falling in a vacuum; falling bodies travels 32 feet per seconds everywhere in the third planet) to continue our agenda for model-theoretic approach. Chomsky’s hypothesis also does not able to avoid such scienticism — his speaking subject stands in a vacuum.Chomsky, who is like an old fashioned physicist, is not only constructing ideal, his interest falls only within the purview of, analogically speaking, VIBGYOR as he, instigated by his Cartesian inheritance, only analyzes so-called “normal”, “natural” sentences without being bothered about the infinite sets of color-shades as perceived by a painter. His theory mercilessly marginalizes ab-normalcy (though the author does not know the exact borderline between normal and abnormal). The author is only emphasizing on the correlation between linguistic organism and human malleability. That is, linguistic creativity may or may not be crippled by the outside sociality asmental/biological linguistic algorithm cannot stand-alone as it is also controlled by the social rules. Formally, author wants to call this interface (in between psyche and society) as “psi” or psychosocial property. This psi-Property reasserts that the being is always in the being-in-the-(social) world as well as being-for-others. The counter hypothesis is: Context-sensitive creative speaking corporeal with history. Thus the creative speaking/hearing subject’s body as it is found in Chomsky’s Psycholinguistics in relation to its social environment or social context is totally missing. There many deterministic relationship between Empty Linguistic Organism and human malleability, i.e., a “physical organ” (Chomsky, 1976: 18) for linguistic creativity or Language Acquisition Device (LAD) is crippled by the outside sociality (behavioral manipulation/threat/violence by the coercive institutions). This effort to correlate LAD and outside sociality would prove the Myth of “ideal speaker-Hearer.” In this way one could switch over to Orwell’s problem or Freud’s problem from Plato’s problem that is mainly concerned with the metanarrative of universal speaking subject. In solution to Orwell’s problem, “...we must discover institutional and other factors that block insight and understanding in crucial areas of our lives and ask why they are effective…” (Chomsky, 1987: xxvii) Now the ontological problem of speaking subjects begins: Problems of learning Theory (LT) for the organism O in the Cognitive domain (D) is LT (O, D) (Chomsky, 1976:18). This Theory can be regarded as function that has certain output (a cognitive structure of some sort). One may specifically reformulate LT (O, D) by considering O as Humans (H) and D as Language (L). Thus one may investigate LT (H, L) as L is strikingly different from non-humans. However, LT shows certain discrepancies as there is no place for outside sociality in LT and its Influence to the biological body of H. Therefore we need to reformulate LT by putting Social Constraints S within this theory. Thus, natural organism H is to be reinterpreted as SH, which is a natural H bound by social constraints. This reformulation, thus, is now represented as LT (SH, L). The output then is not infinite sentences, but finite sentences with repetitions, clichés, stereotypes and phatic communes. This hypothesis (crippling of linguistic creativity) was approved by Noam Chomsky himself (personal correspondence, 1994).

Photorealist portrait

I have painted his portrait Here http://contemporary-artist.info/artwork/r-paintings/noam-chomsky.jpg May I suggest linking to it. I have no copyright restrictions on my site. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Markalanrussell (talk • contribs) 09:44, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for linking, and great work on your paintings. I Have uploaded your Noam Chomsky painting to Wikimedia Commons, File:Noam Chomsky painting.jpg. It can now be used in any article. InverseHypercube 17:34, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

I have provided an updated URL in http://contemporary-artist.info/astute/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/noam-chomsky.jpg - Bigger pic too. If there's a need I can add full resolution image of portrait Markalanrussell (talk) 19:44, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, I uploaded the larger version. And yes, the bigger the better;

I have uploaded a bigger (2472x2750px.) version here - http://contemporary-artist.info/astute/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/noam-chomsky-full.jpg 06:19, 29 February 2012 (UTC)Markalanrussell (talk) 06:21, 29 February 2012 (UTC) "image quality and resolution should be as high as possible", so if you have a larger version that would be great. I also uploaded your Fast, beautiful, dangerous (which seems to not be on your website anymore).

By the way, what did Chomsky think of your painting? InverseHypercube 00:07, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Professor Chomsky was very appreciative of my having painted his portrait. He is far more 'warm and human' than the rather droll way he has of speaking at lectures. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Markalanrussell (talk • contribs) 00:45, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 25 December 2011

I believe there is one segment under this article in the subheading "Political Views"

It states, "He believes that society should be highly organized and based on democratic control of communities and work places." I'm an avid Chomsky fan and I have never heard him say that he believes society should be "highly organized," although he certainly does believe society should include democratic control of communities and work places. I request that someone check the source cited (#92) to verify if he made this statement, or otherwise delete the portion of that sentence including "highly organized and".

I wonder if someone used those words to try and paint him as a 'big government' advocate, a label which would self-contradicting to the well documented facts (cited in the article), which state his views are more anarchistic if anything.

Jonathan2012 (talk) 06:43, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm trying to look into this for you, but running into some roadblocks. I'm not sure why you see the statement as supportive of 'big government'. It says he believes "society should be highly organized" but that doesn't necessarily mean big government. That said, it would be nice to confirm that the statement is supported by the cite. Unfortunately, that's where I'm running into difficulty. The cite doesn't clearly identify the source, it simply says Chomsky (1996). My guess is that it refers to ISBN 089608535X. If it is that book, portions of it are viewable at Google books, but I was unable to read page 77. We'll have to track down someone that has the book. You might track down who added the sentence. Do you know how to do that? If not let me know at my talk page, and I'll do it for you.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 03:15, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

I think I guessed the wrong ISBN, I now think it is ISBN 1-55164-048-1

However, that source was present in the article, before the sentence "Specifically he believes in a highly organized society based on democratic control of communities and work places." was added 12 February 2007 by an IP. It is possible that the IP read the book, and added something from it, but it is also possible that the IP added something they believed to be true without verification.

Someone who owns the book, or has access at a library can check to see if page 77 supports the sentence. If it does not, I will be happy to remove it. Until then, I am closing this request.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 14:02, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Chomsky is fairly explicit using the term "highly organized" in his book Radical Priorities - chapter 21 - The Relevance of Anarcho-Syndicalism.

<QUOTE>"I should say to begin with that the term anarchism is used to cover quite a range of political ideas, but I would prefer to think of it as the libertarian left, and from that point of view anarchism can be conceived as a kind of voluntary socialism, that is, as libertarian socialist or anarcho-syndicalist or communist anarchist, in the tradition of, say, Bakunin and Kropotkin and others. They had in mind a highly organized form of society, but a society that was organized on the basis of organic units, organic communities. And generally, they meant by that the workplace and the neighborhood, and from those two basic units there could derive through federal arrangements a highly integrated kind of social organization which might be national or even international in scope." </QUOTE> http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/19760725.htm - I created much of the original paragraph way back when based upon summarisation of his views in "Perspectives on Power" and "Radical Priorities" but it changed alot over time and the traces to the original were effectively lost. BernardL (talk) 01:52, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Corporations

Chomsky has written extensively on the corporation, its legal status, fascist power structure, syndicalist alternatives, role in media etc etc. A separate section would be useful. Prosopon (talk) 23:27, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Chronology

Hello,

Some of the chronology in the biography section seems dubious. It relies on Noam Chomsky: A Life of Dissent, which doesn't give many dates. For example, "On visits to New York City, Chomsky frequented the office of the Yiddish-language anarchist journal Freie Arbeiter Stimme" is placed in the "University: 1945–1955" section without proof that it was indeed within this time span. Has someone looked into this?

Thank you. InverseHypercube (talk) 07:53, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Number of theorems

The article on Chomsky mentions the Chomsky-Schutzenberger theorem in the singular but the article on the theorem mentions two with the same name. See Chomsky-Schutzenberger theorem. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.154.233.18 (talk) 17:26, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

New External Link - Chomsky Reading List

I thought the following site would make a good resource for the external links section.

The Noam Chomsky Reading List is an unofficial site that uses references, taken from the notes in some of Chomsky's important works, to create reading lists. The site catalogs 629 books, from 1084 references in 8 works by Noam Chomsky.

http://www.chomskylist.com/

Perhaps with the text:

The Noam Chomsky Reading List, a list of the works referenced by Noam Chomsky. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.158.208.253 (talk) 09:59, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Hebrew

The original Hebrew pronunciation of "Noam" should be given. As it is, we only get the English spelling version. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.242.84.63 (talk) 10:00, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Why? We don't give the Hebrew pronunciation of David on David Cameron; why should we treat this article any differently?

Other

Typo on page for linguist: I have spent a lot of my life working on questions such as these, using the only methods I know of; those condemned here as "science", "rationality," "logic," and so on. Wcrlewis (talk) 02:58, 17 October 2012 (UTC)wcrlewis, 10/16/2012 10PM CDT

Possibly Lewis could speak more clearly. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 5.254.146.232 (talk) 09:58, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

The Universal Grammar Debate with Everett

There is no information about the Universal Grammar debate Chomsky had with Daniel Everett, though you find it in the article about Daniel Everett. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Spadarabdon (talk • contribs) 06:45, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 31 October 2012

Please remove his brief appearance in a student produced music video from the summary of his life. Thanks. 176.10.223.92 (talk) 13:38, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Done per request, as this content is not appropriate for the lead section of the article. If someone sees fit to add the statement to a lower section, I will not object. —KuyaBriBri^Talk 15:03, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Nick Cohen as a source of criticism

Nick Cohen is a respected, prominent British journalist and author with impeccable full spectrum lefty credentials - as well as being economically left, he's feminist, implacably anti-fascist and almost as anti-religion as Hitchens. Granted, in global terms he's not quite up there with the top tier political commentators. But then the big boys arent going to bother wasting time with someone like Chomsky - as a linguist he's of the first rank, as a political analyst he' not even tenth rate. Granted he gets plenty of popular attention, as ironically over the last 50 years he's been by a large margin the most effective ally of the very sort of folk you'd expect him to be against -the most selfish sorts of conservatives. Cohen covers this rather well, and I'll talk about just one example.

Though still a teenager too young to understand how the world works, as soon as he heard about the bomb being dropped on Japan - Chomsky came up with some half baked theory that it wasn't just a war crime, it was totally unnecessary as Japan was beaten and about to surrender and that the bomb was a ploy to scare Russia into yielding to US pressure. In reality, by the late stages of WWII, the US had chosen Russia as their preferred partner for post WWII global political reform. (Remember US had tried to push an anti-colonial, self determination agenda at Versailles after intervening in WWI, but was frustrated by the tactics of Britain and France.) It may seem hard to believe now, but during WWII the American media used to affectionately refer to Stalin as 'Uncle Joe'. By founding the UN with Russia as the principle partner, America was going to push for once again for self -determination and prosperity for all. As the plan was revealed to the American public in 43 & 44 with speeches, articles & books like One world, it was massively popular. As fighting draw to a close, against the strong advice of Churchill, the US made tactical decisions in the EMEA theatre that helped Russia occupy more territory. Once Japan surrendered, the US exerted next to no pressure against Russia, not taking advantage of their nuclear supremacy at all. Communists were even allowed to keep control to places where they had very little claim (for example, North Korea, even though theyd only declared war on Japan and moved communist troops there a few days before Japan surrendered). It was only when Stalin started his hostile anti western rhetoric and later sanctioned the totally unprovoked invasion of S Korea that the US started to become seriously anti communist. Despite all these events, and despite evidence coming to light that Japan had the morale and resources to fight on for years if it hadnt been bombed, Chomsky refused to retract.

As Cohen records, Chomsky's done this again and again over the decades. Always banging on about some evil conspiracy by the West, not having the wit to realise he's actually helping the selfish elite, by effectively making good faith naive leftie distrust government so much they effectively team up with neoliberals. FeydHuxtable (talk) 11:32, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

??? 205.250.103.104 (talk) 09:43, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Agreed, Chomsky ought to have a criticism section. --121.217.16.162 (talk) 06:23, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Japan had, in fact, made moves to negotiate a surrender before the atomic bombs were dropped. What you say is incorrect; the war there would have ended without the dropping of the bombs and their dropping wasn't the decisive factor in the Japanese surrendering. If I remember correctly, their one condition was that the emperor should retain his position. The Americans demanded absolute surrender, as they had in Europe, but then retained the emperor anyway. What you refer to as Chomsky's half-baked theory is widely held.

What you say about Churchill wanting to prolong the war in Europe is incorrect. The insistence on German absolute surrender, which prolonged the war in Europe, was American and announced without consulting Churchill, who was forced to go along with it publicly despite thinking it wrong.

The significant turning point in ending the naive American policy towards Stalin and the Soviet Union was the death of Roosevelt, whose policy it was.

The US moved away from Wilson's 14-points policies when the Republicans won the 1920 presidential election.

    ←   ZScarpia   13:39, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Unconditional surrender? "I would say to the House, as I said to those who have joined this Government: 'I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat.' We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask, what is our policy? I will say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us: to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.

Speech in the House of Commons, after taking office as Prime Minister (13 May 1940) This has often been misquoted in the form: "I have nothing to offer but blood, sweat and tears ..."

The Official Report, House of Commons (5th Series), 13 May 1940, vol. 360, c. 1502. If this isn't unconditional surrender, what is? PS Nick Cohen is many things but respected isn't one of them.Keith-264 (talk) 01:25, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 10 November 2012

Add the following to the list of interviews with Chomsky:

Noam Chomsky on Where Artificial Intelligence Went Wrong. The Atlantic. Interviewed by Yarden Katz http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/11/noam-chomsky-on-where-artificial-intelligence-went-wrong/261637/?single_page=true

Interview concerning artificial intelligence and neurosciences. 18.4.1.76 (talk) 23:55, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Done Rivertorch (talk) 07:49, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Religious views

Chomsky states that he can't call himself an atheist because he doesn't know what he's being asked to deny. Such views are described by the term ignosticism, or igtheism, and are opposed to all the other -isms, so I think the term used on the page should be changed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.19.193.53 (talk) 19:48, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Has Chomsky ever used the term "ignosticism"? This term is rarely used in academic literature and I think that we should stick to more established concepts unless Chomsky self-identifies as an "ignosticist." --David Ludwig (talk) 18:43, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

"Father of modern linguistics"

This would only be true for North America (at least among anglophone countries), as he has had little influence in Europe or Australia. The lead greatly exaggerates his impact unless we're restricting ourselves to the US/Canada, which is not appropriate for WP. — kwami (talk) 02:22, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

Not quite true I think, even though functionalist linguistics is stronger outside of the US, but generativism has been the mirror against which functionalism has developed both in the US and outside of it since the 1960s. I also think it is factually incorrect to call him father of modern linguistics since this is obviously Saussure, but since some people have clearly called him that saying so is not exaggerating.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 02:28, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Kwamikagami. Polisher of Cobwebs (talk) 08:29, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

We'd also need a source to say his influence in linguistics is limited to the US.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 13:11, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

he has had little influence in Europe or Australia? Well well. Offhand I don't know about Australia, but try looking at a collection of linguistics books published by Cambridge UP, (British) Oxford University Press, Longman, Benjamins, Mouton De Gruyter, (pre-Wiley) Blackwell, etc. Or choose the linguistics departments of some European universities and look through their lists of profs. I don't think that you'll find "little influence". -- Hoary (talk) 13:50, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Total worth

Chomsky's total worth has been estimated at anything from $2,000,000 to $10,000,000. — Preceding unsigned comment added by BlackWhiteSea-snake (talk • contribs) 17:20, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Edit request on 17 February 2013

Hi Nick, this is a minor request but could you add Bill Hicks the comedian to people influenced by Noam Chomsky please? Bill stated many times how his comedy was basically 'Chomsky with knob gags'.

Thanks Matt.

91.125.222.185 (talk) 11:20, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

I am not Nick, but please provide a reliable source for the claim that Chomsky influenced Hicks. -- Hoary (talk) 13:41, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Misleading and POV Language on "Postmodernism"

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

" As such, he considers certain so-called post-structuralist or postmodern critiques of logic and reason to be nonsensical "

The second sentence does not logically follow from the first. "As such" seems to imply that postmodernism consists or claims to consist of "discoveries" about science itself as a general category. Nothing in the prior sentence indicates why postmodernism should be related to the natural sciences at all! Most postmodern texts are obviously about literature, history, the humanities and social sciences.

Furthermore, no documentation, logical argumentation, or empirical evidence taken any postmodern texts is provided to back up the claim that postmodernism is a "critique of logic and reason". In order to show this is objectively the case, evidence would have to be provided.

The sentence should indicate that the idea that "postmodernism" and is "opposed" to "logic" and "science" is a highly POV position. There are many scholars in science and analytic philosophy who do not agree (see, for example, Ian Hacking). The article, in order to be neutral and objective, should indicate that the opposition between "science" and "poststructuralism" is not in any way an established fact based on impartial and impersonal evaluation of "postmodern" texts and their relation to the exact science.

What Chomsky is saying is that the complexity and obscurity of postmodern texts AMOUNTS to a rejection or repudiation of scholarly standards of scientific inquiry, verifiability, communicability, clarity, etc.

This is POV.

Although some critiques of postmodernism along these lines (as being "anti-science") might have some validity (see, for example, the work of Bruno Latour, who later apologized for his highly relativist positions about science), the article uncritically and simplistically reproduces the cliché that post-modernism somehow "opposes" science. This is POV. There are many postmodern thinkers. Foucault, for example, totally accepts the rational foundation of the natural sciences, and he is considered one of the major figures of postmodernism.

From my POV, the work of Deleuze and Foucault is clearly compatible with modern views of science, and does not in any way "oppose" them (whatever that might mean). In the absence of any readings or citations or examples or arguments from postmodern texts, the wording here is clearly POV. The person who wrote this sentence was perhaps biased in favor of Chomsky's position, but 1001 references from scholars who oppose this position could be provided.

Thus, I propose that the sentence should read:

' Chomsky believes that "postmodernism" and "poststructuralism" are distinct groups or movements which oppose "science" "logic" and "reason" '

I also think that the sentence should indicate that--while Chomsky says he has tried to read some of these texts--he is not particularly knowledgeable about postmodernism, and his position is not based on scholarly evaluation of the relevant texts. At best, it is an opinion based on personal experience.

The problem is that, because many people are partial to this characterization of postmodernism as 'anti-truth' or 'anti-science', people tend to discuss postmodernism as if it is a kind of political movement or school. It is not. It is a general label meant to tie together a large group of thinkers. This becomes problematic, because people can make very general, sweeping, misleading statements about postmodernism that are often highly misleading and pejorative. To say that an academic 'opposes' logic is another way of saying that they are wrong, unreasonable, or a charlatan.

Given the influence of postmodernism on queer theory, feminism, critical race theory, gender studies, etc. (all of which are forms of political inquiry), it is not hard to see how people who oppose or are uncomfortable with these movements would try to deprive them of their theoretical support. Thus, people characterize these kinds of inquiry as saying that 'everything is subjective' and all knowledge is a 'social construction' reflective of a particular 'position' based on one's race, class, gender, etc. What people are saying here is that politicized inquiries into identity AMOUNT to a rejection of objectivity and logic, a highly POV claim that has never been proved.

I recognize some people editing this page, being partial to Chomsky's views, might believe that "postmodernism" is a "critique" of logic or reason, and would thus be inclined to keep this sentence intact. I have never been able to find a postmodern text that explicitly "opposes" logic or reason. If someone can provide a reference to any statement or sentence by, for example, Derrida that actually explicitly says that logic and reason are false or illusory, then I would be convinced. I have read a bunch of books by Derrida and have never found anything in them that says anything like this. The same goes for Foucault, Deleuze, and others. Although I have read books that claim this (like Sokal & Bricmont), their arguments are not accepted by the majority of scholars familiar with postmodernism. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gss289 (talk • contribs) 18:05, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Distortion of history and so called anti-semitism

The article states "Being Jewish, Chomsky faced anti-semitism as a child, particularly from the Irish and German communities living in Philadelphia; he recalls German "beer parties" celebrating the fall of Paris to the Nazis." I realize that most wikipedia writers knowledge of history is woefully inadequate and the propaganda of the 1940's is repeated constantly in the media to this day, but since wikipedia does claim to be an encyclopedia, effort should be made at reporting history truthfully.

In September 1939 Great Britain and France declared war on Germany. Germany had not declared war on either of these countries. Britain was sending troops across the English Channel in their preparations to attack Germany and Germany finally attacked France in May 1940, defeated France in 6 weeks and threw the British invaders into the sea. I think it was natural for Germans to celebrate their victory over the invaders (including Germans in the USA) and I see nothing anti-semitic about it. Furthermore, the fact that many Jews were pushing their governments to attack Germany (the evidence is indisputable), including in France, is evidence of anti-German hatred, not anti-semitism.Pgg804 (talk) 23:00, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

The statement is reliably sourced, and significant in the context of Chomsky's personal and political development. If you want to argue that what Chomsky, like most of the rest od f us, calls antisemitism, was nothing of the kind, but rather an understandable German response to Jewish hostility and agitation, then you should find a blog to do so, not Wikipedia. And even if you do, this would not be an acceptable source for such a POV and tendentious edit. RolandR (talk) 23:37, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

The statement is meaningless. Germans celebrating a victory over a country that attacked them does not constitute anti-semitism. Also, I don't think what you call "anti-semitism" can be prescribed to "most of the rest od f us." You're taking your opinion and claiming that most people share it. This is the place for such a discussion when its used as part of an article.

I think a good argument could be made that the statement is an example of anti-German hatred when you claim that a country defending itself and then celebrating its victory is somehow an example of anti-semitism. Of course after the Israelis brutally murdered 1,400 Palestinians in the 2007-2008 massacre at Gaza some people of your sort began talking about Arab anti-semitism so Jews could escape criticism.Pgg804 (talk) 13:13, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Who are "people of my sort"? And what do Israel's actions in Gaza have to do with any of this?RolandR (talk) 15:00, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Lunch with the FT

Lunch with the FT: Noam Chomsky

LudicrousTripe (talk) 01:49, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

EDIT REQUEST 13 December 2012

THERE IS A TYPO IN THE ARTCILE DO YOU PEOPLE EVEN READ THEM BEFORE YOU LOCK THEM?

WHERE HE BECAME FACULTY PRESIDENT

NOT

WHERE HE BEGAN FACULTY PRESIDENT — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.97.45.198 (talk) 12:35, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Done. Thanks for pointing it out. If you promise to type in sentence case, never post the same thing three times in a row, and check for typos in you own typing ("artcile"?), I'll thank you again ;) . Rivertorch (talk) 12:44, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

The timeline for his early years has major problems with some of his achievements occurring four years before his birth and becoming a teacher at age four. I don't know the correct info, but I do know this isn't it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.231.177.174 (talk) 20:36, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

Personal Life

I think that the whole "Personal Life" section needs to be (re)written or deleted for the sake of style. The reasons should be obvious. It reads thusly:

Personal life

Biographer Robert F. Barsky noted that Chomsky has a "deep sense of social and academic responsibility" and that he was a "highly productive worker".[151]

(That is indeed the whole section. I think it distracts from an otherwise excellent article.)

Wiki.correct.1 (talk) 00:39, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Update: I am deleting the whole section. It can be rewritten later, but shouldn't be there in its current form. Wiki.correct.1 (talk) 07:51, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Critical Commentary

Hello. I came to the Chomsky page because I had hoped to find some discussion or pointers to the many and increasing controversies over his ideas. I was disappointed to find a hagiographic entry, rather than the critical and analytic one I'd expected. Is it that none of Chomsky's critics have contributed to this entry, or is it that his fans purge the page of any negative comments? Whatever the answer, I believe this entry is incomplete to the point of being misleading. Regards. 180.200.187.31 (talk) 13:21, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

The Wikipedia standard for articles in general is WP:NPOV and for living persons in particular WP:BLP. To find criticism and analysis of Chomsky's ideas in Wikipedia there would have to be a criticism page about that specifically. It would not go in this biographical page in any case. JamesPaulWhite (talk) 10:31, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

Until 4th Sept 2005 there was a criticism section in the Noam Chomsky article: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Noam_Chomsky&oldid=22547937 This was then moved into a separate article (unsurprisingly enough called "Criticism of Noam Chomsky"). This page was seen as unproblematic for 6 years but despite this some people decided it was no longer appropriate on 23rd March 2011 and it was deleted. Wikipedia doesn't maintain histories for deleted pages but you can find it on the wayback machine http://web.archive.org/web/20100303193202/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Noam_Chomsky (unfortunately wayback's last copy of the page is from Mar 3rd 2010 and we've lost the edit history). For some reason none of this information has any place on Wikipedia any longer. Evidently criticism regarding a living saint is no longer acceptable --GeorgeHawkins69 (talk) 19:20, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

I agree with you that there should be a criticism page, but can you please point me to elements of the page that touch of the "hagiographic" and treat Chomsky as a "living saint"? I would like to make this page as accurate and unbiased as possible and appreciate your suggestions. Wiki.correct.1 (talk) 07:49, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

I was being perhaps overly sarcastic - it just seems odd to me that in an article devoted to a man who has spent most of his life railing against and criticising others there seems to be no mention of the substantial amount of criticism directed against him (if even only to rebut it). The old criticism page (which you can read through the wonders of the wayback machine) features many things that seem worthy of note - though others (see above) do not seem to feel criticism, even if justified, is appropriate in biographies of living people - presumably if Stalin, Hitler or Mao were alive today this would go for their biographies too (note I'm not comparing Chomsky with these individuals, just commenting on what it should be possible to include in a biography). Quite apart from specific criticism I'd be interested in analysis of Chomsky's approach to criticism - it often seems to me that Chomsky is about confirmation bias - he feeds the desire of his audience to hear what they already believe - and in dealing with criticism he does much the same - he often doesn't seem to address the actual criticism but rather puts forward his representation of the given criticism (which may only vaguely coincide with the original, is generally ridiculous and easy to rebut) and then rebuts that - feeding his audience's belief that his critics only come out with laughable nonsense and that their man always swiftly brushes it aside. That certainly doesn't imply that all or even most criticism of him is justified - he has deliberately set out to be a divisive figure and he is attacked by many stupid people, as well as by many smart people (who believe at least as strongly in their positions as he in his). Those are my opinions and I've expressed them in a very unencyclopaedic way (but this is the Talk page) GeorgeHawkins69 (talk) 18:02, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Opposition to state capitalism

The introduction of this article notes that Chomsky is well-known for his opposition to state capitalism. This is true, but I find the wording misleading: by singling out one version of capitalism, it makes it sound as though he is in favour of free-market capitalism, or at least considerably less opposed to it.

However, as far as I can tell, Noam Chomsky is strongly opposed to free-market capitalism too. After all, he is in favour of socially owned capital. In this recent lecture, he says (1:50), "The only societies that could authentically be called capitalism are the ones that had free markets rammed down their throat by imperial powers. They're what we now call the Third World, not least for that reason."

I understand that the writer was probably thinking that his critique of state capitalism -- so what exists in the US (according to Chomsky) -- is what he's known for criticising. Nevertheless, for the sake of clarity, I would simply say that he criticises "capitalism."

On a last note, unless something similar to the quote above has been inserted in this article since the last time I read it (which is very possible!), I think it's worth putting it in somewhere, if some benevolent registered user is so willing! 142.161.53.211 (talk) 02:15, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

Psychology

I do not think this section lives is up to par. It lacks footnotes throughout. The last paragraph, beginning with "there are three key ideas", I think is not consistent with the tone proper to an encyclopedia -- indeed, it seems out of place with the rest of wikipedia. The paragraph beginning with "Chomsky's 1959 review" is an even bigger problem to me. It does nothing but proclaim criticism of Chomsky's ideas. It elaborates nothing about the ideas. If this precedent were carried through, the section on politics would be double its length, because his political views have so many critics. The same goes for the rest of wikipedia: criticism, unless fundamental to the general perception of a person/idea/book/etc. - as in the case of generally acknowledged, outright fraud - does not belong intermingled with the rest of a section whose purpose is to educate. (I should say that I have written elsewhere on this page that I do think there should be criticisms listed on wikipedia -- just on a separate page or section.)

For now, I am going to remove the paragraph of criticism. After some allotted time for objections, I will rewrite the rest of the section. Wiki.correct.1 (talk) 04:51, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Restored material

Undid this removal of reliably-sourced content. As can be seen from the editor's comment, the removal was performed because

This characterization is biased, it is by a supporter of Chomsky, yet there is no mention of the fact that it is an ally of Chomsky on the Left. It leaves the reader assuming that it is an objective description of Chomsky's speaking skills.

I've no idea who NapoleonX is—perhaps this was a genuine error on their part, or perhaps the act of someone who disagrees strongly with much of what Chomsky says but who failed to exert self-control—but it is immaterial, because the source of the quote is not "a supporter of Chomsky", i.e. the book's author), but a source cited by the book's author. If you actually take the sixty seconds to trace back to the root source, you will see the quote is actually of... The Guardian! Hardly "a supporter of Chomsky", as you can see elsewhere in the article!

Anyway, the reason given for the removal was spurious, and so I have restored the material. LudicrousTripe (talk) 01:19, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Early Influences

The section that mentions Orwell and Rocker being early influences, I think must be removed. The citations mention Barsky's biography; but there is some error either in the citation or Barsky's work. I suspect it is the latter. See this page which contains an interview by Barsky himself:

http://framingbusiness.net/archives/1925

Chomsky says clearly that, while it may be considered common knowledge, early influences definitely did not include Orwell and only to a "partial" extent included Rocker. Wiki.correct.1 (talk) 20:16, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Opinion piece published in Frontpage magazine used as source for facts in a BLP

An editor has recently added and re-added material using an opinion piece published by frontpagemag as a source for factual statements in the Wikipedia voice.

The source has been discussed at WP:RSN several times e.g. [5][6] and it is fairly clear that it is not a suitable source for facts without attribution. The factual claim cited to this source should be removed ASAP per WP:BLP.

There is a secondary question of whether the piece is notable enough to be used as a source for attributed opinion of the author of the opinion piece in this article. Are the author's opinions as published in Frontpagemag notable to be included in an encyclopedic biography of Noam Chomsky? I would say no, the onus is on the editor wanting to include the new material to show that it is.Dlv999 (talk) 14:23, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

Marko Attila Hoare is a recognised authority on the Balkans. As User:SlimVirgin writes in the first example Dlv999 cites: "Material in FrontPage magazine is not generally regarded as an RS, so everything depends on the author's credentials, and to what extent he can be regarded as an expert on Bolshevism". She was writing about Steven Plaut here, so by this reasoning Hoare is clearly acceptable for citing in this article. The above editor has describes FrontPage magazine as a "fringe" source in his edit summary. Whatever else it might be, clearly a conservative magazine is not a fringe source in the American context. Chomsky has not dissociated himself from the Ordfront letter from 2003 , which is indeed positive about Johnstone. Philip Cross (talk) 14:50, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

I don't see that Hoare is "clearly acceptable as a reliable source" on Noam Chomsky. Additionally, Frontpage is a partisan rag, and is clearly not a reliable source here. FurrySings (talk) 15:50, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

At issue is not the totality of Chomsky's writings, only the material relating to the Balkans. Hoare is only one of many to have criticised Chomsky and Johnstone on this issue. Unlike many of these writers, Chomsky is only a generalist on Balkan related topics, while Johnstone is not considered credible at all in reliable sources. Philip Cross (talk) 16:07, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

Philip, it seems to me you have not fully reflected the sources that you have added to support your recent additions. From a quick scan of the sources the events are as follows:-

• Guardian publishes interview
• Chomsky complains
• Guardian's readers editor, Ian Mayes, investigates the complaint: "He found in Professor Chomsky's favour - and against The Guardian's own writer, Emma Brockes - on three counts. The headline had been contentious, suggesting Mr Chomsky had said something he had not; it had been wrong of Ms Brockes to place the word "massacre" in quotation marks, implying that Professor Chomsky did not believe that such an event had taken place at Srebenica; and, contrary to what Ms Brockes had written, Mr Chomsky's support of Diana Johnstone was purely on the grounds of her right to free speech." [7]
• Guardian issues an apologetic correction and withdraws the article from its website. ("At the time the correction was published, the author of the interview, Emma Brockes, her immediate editor, Ian Katz, and Noam Chomsky, the complainant, all expressed their acceptance of the way in which the matter had been dealt with and resolved."[8]
• 3 non-guardian journalists (Messrs Aaronovitch, Kamm and Wheen) complain to the Guardian about the correction. MAH writes an opinion piece for frontpage mag complaining about the correction.
• The matter is referred to the Guardians external ombudsman, John Willis, who investigates and releases a report: "The original adjudication by the ombudsman in favour of Professor Chomsky, and against its own journalist, was upheld."[9]

Now, perhaps all these details are unnecessary, but your representation of the sources is misleading for several reasons. Firstly your claim that "At issue was Chomsky and journalist Diana Johnstone's attitude to the Srebrenica massacre in 1995" is not an accurate description of what the original complaint and correction was about. Secondly you point out that some weren't happy with the original correction but you fail to note that the guardian's outside ombudsman investigated the original findings and upheld them. Dlv999 (talk) 17:23, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

I have added a cite to the Willis adjudication from May 2006, although it is not legally binding, and does not affect what can be written about the incident. Since the the letter from Aaronovitch, et al is not mentioned in the main text, I do not see any reason to include the May 2006 adjudication there. The dispute has not really gone away. The passage you query now reads: "At issue was Chomsky attitude to the writings of journalist Diana Johnstone on the subject". As the reprint on Chomsky's site opens with his comment on the original headline of the Brockes article (and this point is also made in the cited material on the Guardian's website), I hope you consider this fair. Philip Cross (talk) 18:21, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

Whether the Willis adjudication is legally binding or not is not the deciding factor in whether we include it in the article. Can you not see the neutrality issue with including two sentences documenting an opinion piece from a fringe publication, but not including at all the findings of an external ombudsman of a mainstream newsmedia organization? You claim Aaronovich et al are not mentioned, but then who are the "others" referred to in the text if not them? The passage I quiried is still unrepresentative of the sources and should be changed. It reflects Haore's agenda in the episode (per his op-ed in frontpage mag) it does not fully reflect what was at issue according to the mainstream sources: which was the Guardian's misreporting and subsequent apology, correction, and withdrawal of the article. Dlv999 (talk) 20:09, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

"Others" also includes Nick Cohen and Stephen Glover as is clear from the citation. For the purposes of Wikipedia, the Willis adjudication is merely another opinion, and Mayes and Willis are not authorities on the Balkans, unlike Hoare. Chomsky's expressed positions on the Balkans and Srebrenica in particular over the last twenty years are not closed issues for Guardian/Observer writers either, as later articles by Cohen and George Monbiot suggest. These gentleman are not Balkan specialists either, but you will recall Monbiot's appeal last year to academics who are, including Hoare, who found Edward Herman & Peterson's book, for which Chomsky wrote the foreword, somewhat unsatisfactory. See here Herman and David Peterson are among the same group of denialists as Johnstone, as can be easily confirmed. So why consider it to be closed and resolved here by via the supposedly conclusive Willis adjudication? Philip Cross (talk) 21:28, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

ADL spying on Chomsky

http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/asa-winstanley/secret-files-reveal-anti-defamation-league-spied-noam-chomsky

LudicrousTripe (talk) 22:55, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Never mind, I've added myself. LudicrousTripe (talk) 23:06, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

The EI website article is the only source so far regarding a just breaking story. Tendentious as it stood though because "spied" is not a verb usually applied to observing public events [or at least those open to students and faculty.] I have modified the passage to meet NPOV. Philip Cross (talk) 23:32, 17 May 2013 (UTC) [added for clarity just after the post below.]

OK, buddy. I think personal sympathies prevented me from exercising due caution when making the addition. Your rejigging is a definite improvement. LudicrousTripe (talk) 23:34, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

hundreds of languages

This wiki article has string: "hundreds of different languages have now received at least some attention within Chomskyan linguistic analyses ". Fine, but there is no info which languages Chomsky understand. Should here be a paragraph to list languages he analysed and understand or speak ? 99.90.197.87 (talk) 06:51, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

Edit request on 23 July 2013

In the University section, this article has Chomsky being awarded his MA in 1959, and his PhD in 1955. More likely his MA was 1949, not 1959?

"Chomsky's BA honor's thesis was titled "Morphophonemics of Modern Hebrew", and he proceeded to revise it for his MA thesis, which he attained at Penn in 1959; it would subsequently be published as a book.[45] In 1951 he was named to the Society of Fellows at Harvard University, being tenured there to 1955.[46] Being highly critical of the established behaviourist currents in linguistics, in 1954 he presented his ideas at lectures given at the University of Chicago and Yale University.[47] In 1955 he was awarded his PhD from the University of Pennsylvania for a thesis setting out his ideas on transformational grammar;"

Jbmcc99 (talk) 03:43, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

According to the ref I've added, he actually was awarded his MA in 1951, but completed his BA in 1949.  Fixed, thanks. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 13:19, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Edit request on 28 July 2013

I am reporting a typographical error. In the section covering Chomsky's childhood, his father is referred to as a "school principle":

"His father was the Ukrainian-born William "Zev" Chomsky, an Ashkenazi Jew who had fled to the United States in 1913. Having studied at John Hopkins University, he went on to become school principle of the Mikveh Israel religious school,"

This should, of course, be "school principal".

76.191.221.191 (talk) 06:35, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

 Fixed Thanks for the spot. LudicrousTripe (talk) 08:00, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

Chomsky as logician and historian

The introduction states that Chomsky is a logician and a historian. Can anybody cite substantial contributions to either field?

I suspect the `logician' claim is due to his (minor) contributions to formal language theory (FLT). While it is true that the syntax of axiomatic systems is (implicitly) defined as a formal language, logicians are generally not interested in this fact, and don't really contribute to FLT (if you want to know what they work on, check the wikipedia entry on mathematical logic). Formal notation is also used in chemistry or physics for example, but who would claim that Chomsky made any contributions there? Furthermore, the wikipedia page on Formal language (correctly) situates it on the intersection of mathematics, computer science and linguistics.

I propose that this claim be rewritten as something along the lines of "..some of his early work helped spark interest in mathematical linguistics". I should note here that he has been ignoring developments in this (still very active) field from the early '70s on, and actually seems hostile to it (dismissive remarks in interviews). Also, the section on the Chomsky hierarchy really should be rewritten, but I'll comment on that some other time.

As for the `historian' claim, I am at a loss. Does this refer to the honorary fellowship from the Literary and Historical Society? Or perhaps this refers to his involvement in debates about, for example, Zionism etc? The latter implies knowledge of the history of the state of Israel, but that does not make one a historian.

Real historians, i.e. people that hold an actual degree in the subject, and that do original research, spend most of their time in dusty archives, interview eyewitnesses, talk to archaeologists, and may visit the odd site or inspect artefacts. But, most of all, they read other historian's work and comment on it, producing a major work every 10 years or so. To the best of my knowledge, Chomsky has never done any of these things, and does not hold any relevant degree.

I propose that this claim be removed. Pedanticor (talk) 19:39, 22 June 2013 (UTC)

Good points. As far as I am concerned, you can remove "historian" and "logician". I would see if you whittle down the claims in the infobox as well. Philip Cross (talk) 19:46, 22 June 2013 (UTC)

Chomsky isn't professionally qualified in any field—"Actually, I'm not professionally qualified in any field. My own colleagues could tell you that"—so do you advocate removing the word linguist as well?

"interview eyewitnesses"—Most historians don't do this. I mean, how does one converse with dead people?

"talk to archaeologists"—Hilberg never spoke to an archaeologist, so he's not a historian?

"spend most of their time in dusty archives"—Chomsky's done tonnes of work on US government documents—"I've spent quite a lot of time studying declassified internal documents and written a lot about them"—and poured his research into book after book. I remember one of his efforts had so many citations they didn't put them in the book, but instead put them on a website.

"But, most of all, they read other historian's [sic] work and comment on it"—I'm at a loss to explain these words, which betray your essential ignorance. Gabriel Jackson? John Lewis Gaddis? LudicrousTripe (talk) 22:35, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

You made some very good points here. I've removed "Historian" from this article. However, I decided to leave the word, "logician" (in the article) based on sources given next to it. Ninmacer20 (talk) 19:59, 22 June 2013 (UTC)

Edit request on 13th August 2013

"Chomsky was widely condemned for defending the Holocaust Deniar, and he was tained by his association with the Frenchman"

Please fix the spelling and grammar mistakes thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.28.21.7 (talk) 19:53, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

•  Fixed Cleaned up that sentence. Thanks! NawlinWiki (talk) 20:07, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

Edit block

Why is there a partial edit block on this talk page please? SmokeyTheCat 13:38, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

• Why was my recent comment in the Atheist section removed? Is this a talk page, or a censor page? I need that to be replaced, or have a good explanation, or we go upstairs and sort this out... Billyshiverstick (talk) 06:08, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Your "Young Frankenstein" reference was inappropriate. I shouldn't have reverted your actual comment, but they were intertwined. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 06:38, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

Sartorial?

In the section "Increased political activism: 1990–present", it is stated "Chomsky compares the ADL's reports to FBI files, and is sartorial on perceived defamation by the group". I doubt Chomsky made a special effort to dress nicely when speaking on that particular topic and I'm struggling to guess what was meant. Is the original author available to clarify their intent? Gobbag (talk) 14:06, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

Good call, that phrase doesn't make much sense at all, so I've gone ahead and removed it. -- Irn (talk) 16:26, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

Appears

Noam Chomsky appears on the site www.masada2000.org — Preceding unsigned comment added by Greenmamba123123 (talk • contribs) 13:49, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

So do several thousand others (myself included), described by the Kahanists behind the list as Self Hating Israeli Threatening Jews. So what? RolandR (talk) 15:01, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Chomsky and [Artificial Intelligence]

Abstract

This is an imagined dialogic paper on the problems of perceiving creative speaking/hearing subjects’ corporeal as machine. The author alleged that the one of the basic tenets in Chomsky’s discourse, due to its Cartesian inheritance was to consider human body as a machine, thus Chomskian syntactic enterprise had become a part of the anatomo-bio-political project a la Foucault. It was a case of minimization, approximation, optimization, appropriation of human body, when Chomsky and his fellowmen (like Lasnik, Berwick) deployed technocratic metaphors (e.g., the terms like “Computation", “array” “interface”, “parser" etc. on the other hand, operations like “COMMAND”, “SATISFY”, “SPELL OUT”. All these operations reflect the metonymic transformation of creative speaking subject as all these functions in uppercase letter made the author remember Schank’s [1975] language-free representations [PROPEL, MOVE, INGEST or CONTROL, PART etc.], which combine primitive conceptual roles and categories.) for explaining a part of cognitive domain, that is a “physical organ”: LAD. These were not metaphors or case of displacement only, but was a case of metonymic condensation of human body as these technical metaphors condense the scope of human (linguistic) potentiality.

Does human body follow binary mechanical algorithm only at the moment of speaking? Do we not have extra-/non-algorithmic cognitive ability? (The author’s point is that Cognitive Domain is not algorithmic only.) The discourse that Chomskians are using is fully algocentric (a discourse that is motivated by meta-mathematical formalism or computational algorithmic simulation guided by the technical rationality, ignoring the non-algorithmic constitutive rules) in its nature. According to author’s perception, Chomsky wanted to build up a Turing Machine for solving each linguistic problem without solving the halting problem of the machine. Chomsky’s parametric approach was “computer-friendly” as language was now perceived as a network of interlocking principles and parsing as linear steps. A parser would supply, in the same manner of Searle’s Chinese Room Puzzle, “yes/no answers” to the question: “Is this sentence grammatical?”. One can switch over from one parameter to another to manage a specific language like a machine (it seemed to the author that this was a Leibnizian Turn in Chomskian Theory; he was switching over from Cartesian Cogito to Monad - Universal of all universals - Monad of all monads - Principle of parameters) In fact, the language is not only governed by either procedural or parametric principles, but there are constitutive non-formal principles.
This paper also discussed the problems of Computational Linguistics in connection with Indian plurilingual milieu.

COLOPHON: The author is thankful to Prof. N. Chomsky as he answered all these questions with patience and promised to drop the term “computation” from the technical vocabulary of syntax as he wrote, “On the use of computers as a metaphor, I actually rare do, and I’ve been pretty explicit in warning that the metaphor isn’t to be taken too seriously. Like any metaphor, if it helps clarify thought and stimulates imagination, fine; if it leads to error, as this one constantly has, then drop it.” (personal correspondence, 13/2/1995).On Computational and Chomskyan Linguistic Theory by Debaprasad Bandyopadhyay, July 11, 1997; Indian Journal of Applied Linguistics, Vol. XXIII, No. 2, pp. 29-42, 1997

I don't know why this is here, but since it was, I wanted it to give the author's name, and include the complete abstract.--FeralOink (talk) 19:52, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

Classical liberalism

In the article is few times mentioned the term "classical liberalism" with a link to this article. But I don't really thing that Chomsky is supporter of "...belief in laissez-faire economic policy...". Change it to the liberalism article? --Xkomczax (talk) 22:59, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

The problem is that Chomsky himself specifically refers to "classical liberalism". The discrepancy you point out is probably due to Chomsky's view of "classical liberalism" differing significantly from that of other sources. For instance in Understanding Power (pp 216) he is quoted as saying: "contrary to the contemporary version of it, classical liberalism (which remember was pre-capitalist, and in fact, anti-capitalist) focused on the right of people to control their own work, and the need for free creative work under your own control-for human freedom and creativity. So to a classical liberal, wage labor under capitalism would have been considered totally immoral, because it frustrates the fundamental need of people to control their own work: you're a slave to someone else."

About halfway down pp 221 he details the differences between his own understanding of classical liberalism Vs other scholars which he basically accuses of fraudulently misrepresenting or not even bothering to read classical liberal thinkers like Adam Smith and Wilhelm von Humboldt. Dlv999 (talk) 19:23, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Yes! Thank you, Dlv999! I believe that you're correct. I had been puzzled, just as Xkomczax was, by the apparent contradiction between how Chomsky described his views, i.e. "classically liberal", and how everyone else now defines a "classical liberal". Maybe Chomsky was being casual: a "classic" liberal, rather than "classical liberal"? I doubt that, as Chomsky likes language and taxonomy of political ideology, I suspect ;o) Also, from what I recall of my math undergrad studies at Swarthmore, the hardcore communists, e.g. Trotskyites, were every bit as derisive of Liberals (for being wishy-washy, petite, or perhaps petty bourgoisie) as the right-wing students, whose parents had recently fled the worst excesses of USSR or other communist regimes, were (they too said Liberal democrats were wishy-washy, coddled). So Chomsky, as a socialist-communist sort, wouldn't be likely to self-describe his political ideology as similar to former presidents Clinton, Carter, Kennedy or even FDR <giggle> Thanks, to both of you!--FeralOink (talk) 20:43, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

Atheism

The references claiming Chomsky is an Atheist hold no solid proof or definitive statement from Chomsky, of Chomsky's "atheism" and are only speculative. Chomsky has a deeply Jewish background and upbringing, and would better "fit" as an agnostic, secular Humanist. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Xan81 (talk • contribs) 23:06, 13 August 2013

This has been discussed repeatedly already. Please read the discussions from January 2007, April 2007, August 2007 and July 2009. The consensus has been that Chomsky is, and should be described as, an atheist. If you have any reliable sources which say something different, feel free to bring them here for discussion, and a possible change of consensus. RolandR (talk) 23:59, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

Let's not cut that off so abruptly. Look at the last discussion (2009):

• Mohsen: agnostic
• Lestrade: inconclusive, argues that Chmsky's own statements are designed to be disingenuous
• Jemoore: ignostic (a sort of uber-agnostic)
• Florida is Hell: atheist
• anonymous: no belief (agnostic? ignostic?)

No consensus was reached, explicitly or by implication of "votes." The same applies to the earlier discussions. It would seem that if there was a consensus, it leaned away from atheist toward some form of agnosticism. Getting further behind the issue, it can't be in a bios without a strong source. We have two listed, period. Source number 1 in the infobox is the strongest claim, but he plays word games to make it clear that he shrugs off the label. Source #2 is completely irrelevant to the fact it claims to support, it does not show any correlation between Chmosky and atheism. So this discussion should be about whether nay of the slippery sources can be grasped long enough to say "yup, he's an atheist," or whether they elude our grasp in stating a fact. So, do we say he's playing, errrm, linguistic games around a clear atheism, or do we say that he has no clearly defined position?

To claim that "no religion" is the same as "atheism" (which, in itself is a religion) is tantamount to saying newborns are "atheist" - which is not only incorrect but grossly prejudiced.

Remove the "atheist" part and just leave, "Religion: None" -- at least until the STILL LIVING Chomsky clarifies. Xan81 (talk) 18:28, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

To label Chomsky as 'atheist' (a label he himself rejects) is too subjective, and reduces the credibility of this article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Fishes dish (talk • contribs) 02:39, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

On the contrary, to apply the label atheist to Chomsky is to apply it objectively, not subjectively. Chomsky's position as articulated in a few places is that unless what "god" means is properly defined, he is not prepared to comment further (or to adopt the atheist label), which is precisely the position that many people who have been happy to accept the label "atheist" have adopted. Chomsky says somewhere in answer to a question about belief in god that he "can't answer the question". That is not (necessarily) an agnostic position. Elsewhere he has been described as "atheist" and not demurred. Read the Wikipedia entry on atheism for assistance. --Dannyno (talk) 20:02, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

Dannyno et al - we are not here to apply labels, we are here to quote sources - Noam Chomsky is a living person, let him speak for himself, not be pigeon-holed by random wiki editors.

Personal opinions have no place on wiki pages, and "atheist" is your personal opinion. It is also irrelevant. Billyshiverstick (talk) 02:26, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Billy. Leave the field out of the Infobox completely. It's not important. HiLo48 (talk) 06:53, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Where can we insert in the article that Chomsky is Jewish? "Chomsky" is actually a Jewish name, Chomsky had a bar mitzvah when he was 13, he is fluent in Hebrew, lived as a citizen in Israel. He has never claimed to be an atheist and is not a denoted heretic. Teetotaler 1 March, 2014 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.62.129.34 (talk) 23:43, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

The article mentions in several places that Chomsky is Jewish. But it does not state, and should not state, that heis religion is Jewish; he has made it clear many times that he has no religious belief, but is reluctant to state whether he is an atheist or an agnostic. He does speak Hebrew (though I do not think he is "fluent"), but has never been a citizen of Israel. RolandR (talk) 00:22, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

I do not see any reference in the article to Chomsky making it 'clear many times that he has no religious belief'. Rather, in your pretending that he is either an atheist or is agnostic you are making an error in logic known as the Fallacy of Affirming the Consequent. Probably you are thinking Judaism is like our Christian religion which is maintained by a psychological Justification by Faith. But, I guess I am wasting my time because as we both agree, the article already states that Chomsky's religion is Judaism. Teetotaler 1 March, 2014— Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.62.129.34 (talk) 03:39, 2 March 2014

No, the article does not state that Chomsky's religion is Judaism; and, if it did, that should be removed immediately. It states that he is Jewish, which is not at all the same thing. Chomsky is absolutely clear that he has no religious belief: "I am a child of the Enlightenment. I think irrational belief is a dangerous phenomenon, and I try to consciously avoid irrational belief"[10]; "At the age of 10 I came to the conclusion that the God I learned about in school didn’t exist... Religion is based on the idea that God is an imbecile. He can’t figure these things out. If that’s what it is, I don’t want anything to do with it"[11] He is, however, reluctant to define himself as an atheist, arguing that the term is without meaning: "When people ask me if I’m an atheist, I have to ask them what they mean. What is it that I’m supposed to not believe in? Until you can answer that question I can’t tell you whether I’m an atheist, and the question doesn’t arise."[12] In this situation, we should most certainly not ascribe any religious belief to him. RolandR (talk) 18:50, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

Isn't that the very definition of ignosticism or theological non-cognitivism? Maybe not a religion in itself, but certainly a stance on religious issues and probably information which people will try to get from Wikipedia. 131.111.185.1 (talk) 16:36, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

Okay, interesting research and references. However, they do not provide the proofs that we would need to show that Chomsky is not Jewish. In the statement you offer, Chomsky briefly criticizes "religion". I, for example, am an American. I also criticize America, but that doesn't make me not an American. But I think you are trying to draw attention to the second sentence. "If that's what it is [it being the kind of religion that represents god as an imbecile], I don't want anything to do with it." This statement is not a proof of Chomsky's not being religious but is a kind of Conditional sentence known as a Counterfactual conditional. Counterfactuals are conditional "if-then" statements and do not have truth conditions, but only assertability conditions. This is where logic is sometimes confused with metaphysics. (If a spaceship landed on the sun, then...etc, etc, etc...) Thus, as Chomsky has never said he gave up on his religion of Judaism, encyclopediacly (sp.) his religion is the same today as it was during his bar mitzvah: Judaism. I am sure there is more material that could be offered as evidence as there are so many books, articles, and interviews so I dare anyone to find the proofs, if they exist. But I do appreciate the excellent and meaningful research, and of course the concession and proof that Chomsky is not an atheist. Teetotaler 3 March, 2014 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.62.129.34 (talk) 00:06, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

I haven't argued that Chomsky is "not Jewish". I have just stated, repeatedly, that we cannot write that his religion is Jewish. It is quite clear that he has no religious belief, and your attempts to ascribe one to him, on the basis of original research and synthesis, cefrtainly do not justify including this. Nor, incidentally, do I "concede" that Chomsky is not an atheist; I simply notred his comment that the term is, for him, essentially meaningless. RolandR (talk) 08:51, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

Children

Isn't it true that Noam Chomsky has 3 children - Aviva Chomsky, Harry Chomsky, Diane Chomsky, not one? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Threelegduck (talk • contribs) 05:23, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

Chomsky & Dictators

the list of honorary doctorates should be made more complete. Fo example, recently NC received this honor from the Hamas-governed University of Gaza

---

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.225.170.9 (talk) 04:55, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

I wrote: "Chomsky has been condemned as an apologist for Marxist dictators." The sources I linked to are excellent and they support my statement.

http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/blog/michael-j-totten/noam-chomsky-last-totalitarian

Quote: MJT: For a while he denied Pol Pot’s genocide in Cambodia ever happened. Then when he could no longer deny it had really occurred, he blamed it on the United States instead of the perpetrators. What do you think was initially going on in his head? Was he lying? Was he in denial? How do you explain it?

Benjamin Kerstein: It would take a team of psychiatrists a hundred years to figure all of that out. I can only give you my personal speculations on the subject. I think that, in the beginning, he may have believed that it was all a frame-up by the New York Times and the US-Nazi alliance or whoever else he made up to blame it on. No doubt a great deal of wishful thinking on his part was involved, but it’s possible he was sincere in his conspiracy theories.

Then, as the facts became more difficult to deny and he started looking worse as a result, things got more complicated. At some point, he must have realized that he was saying things that in all likelihood were false. My guess is that he justified it in two ways: First, by relativizing it. Something along the lines of “whatever the Khmer Rouge may have done, it can't be as bad as what America did in Vietnam, or Chile, or Indonesia, etc. Therefore, I am justified in continuing to defend the regime.” Second, by demonizing his opponents, by saying “whatever the Khmer Rouge may have done, it's more important not to allow my opponents to win, because they are evil, and it is morally wrong to allow evil to win.”

Then, when the really horrendous scope of the genocide became clear, he was faced with having to admit he'd been wrong and owning up to it publicly. That is something Chomsky has never done and will never do. Perhaps he has a very fragile ego under all the bluster.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/chomsky-peace-award-blasted/story-fn59niix-1226068256064

Quote: "It is a serious joke to give Chomsky any kind of human rights award because of his long-term track record against human rights and in favour of revolutionary killings of opponents," said Australian academic, critic and author Keith Windschuttle.

"Chomsky has a five-decade history of justifying violence in the name of revolution by communist and terrorist organisations," Professor Windschuttle said. "In 1975, Chomsky was the most prestigious and persistent Western apologist for the Pol Pot regime."

So what's the problem? What wording would you prefer? How about: Chomsky has been condemned for defending Communist violence.Jimjilin (talk) 01:20, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

Vanamonde93 if you disagree please tell me why my addition is inappropriate. Please give a reason why you object to my sources.Jimjilin (talk) 05:50, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

Yes, Chomsky has made statements that are controversial, and lots of people love to hate him (some because they don't understand what Chomsky has written, and some because they have only read a cherry-picked attack on Chomsky's work). However, articles do not feature attacks from light-weight media reports, and certainly not from blogs. Johnuniq (talk) 06:03, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

Along the same lines, the blog source is WP:SPS. Read that first. The other article does not itself state that Chomsky has been condemned by several people, etc; all it does is quote one man, which means it fails the notability guideline. Finally, go read WP:BLP. Vanamonde93 (talk) 06:17, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

Criticism comes from sources familiar with Chomsky's actual record.

Wikipedia says: "Self-published blogs" in this context refers to personal and group blogs. Some news organizations host online columns that they call blogs, and these may be acceptable as sources so long as the writers are professionals and the blog is subject to the newspaper's full editorial control.

So I think the World Affairs source is okay.

If you prefer, instead of the World Affairs source I'll use: http://csua.berkeley.edu/~sophal/canon.pdf

Any other objections?Jimjilin (talk) 15:42, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

The World affairs source is not okay, because it is not subject to editorial review. The other source is not saying anything new; see the statement from Nussbaum in the article. Also, you have clearly not read BLP if you are still insisting on using the language you did. Vanamonde93 (talk) 16:35, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

Additionally, as I pointed out when you previously attempted to add this smear to the article, not one of the sources you cite "condemns" Chomsky as an "apologist for Marxist dictators". In fact, so far as I can see, none of them even uses the term "Marxist dictator", which appears to be your own interpretation, and therefore impermissible original research. RolandR (talk) 17:39, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

Link: http://csua.berkeley.edu/~sophal/canon.pdf

Quote: So argued the celebrated political activist Noam Chomsky and his sidekick Edward S. Herman in After the Cataclysm, one of the most supportive books of the Khmer revolution (especially since it was written after the end of the Pol Pot-Ieng Sary regime),

How about: "Chomsky has been accused of serving as an apologist for the Pol Pot regime."

That statement mirrors the 2 sources:

http://csua.berkeley.edu/~sophal/canon.pdf

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/chomsky-peace-award-blasted/story-fn59niix-1226068256064

Do you have a suggestion as to wording?Jimjilin (talk) 20:45, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

Which source accuses Chomsky of "serving as an apologist for the Pol Pot regime"? RolandR (talk) 22:00, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

Here:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/chomsky-peace-award-blasted/story-fn59niix-1226068256064

Quote: "It is a serious joke to give Chomsky any kind of human rights award because of his long-term track record against human rights and in favour of revolutionary killings of opponents," said Australian academic, critic and author Keith Windschuttle.

"Chomsky has a five-decade history of justifying violence in the name of revolution by communist and terrorist organisations," Professor Windschuttle said. "In 1975, Chomsky was the most prestigious and persistent Western apologist for the Pol Pot regime."Jimjilin (talk) 19:29, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

"Keith Windschuttle caught in Quadrant hoax". We do not need to repeat anything said by Windschuttle. Binksternet (talk) 20:12, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

(ec):So the best you can come up with is one quote from a right-wing historian whose views were cited several times by Anders Behring Breivik in justification of his murders[13], who was himself allegedly a former supporter of Pol Pot[14][15], and who makes unfounded smears against others while accusing his own critics of "character assassination".[16][17] Sorry, you'll have to do better than that to justify including that smear in the article. RolandR (talk) 20:20, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

I enjoyed the feeble attempts to smear Windschuttle, employing guilt by association.

If you don't approve of Windschuttle how about:

http://www.standpointmag.co.uk/print/735

Quote: He derided refugee accounts of horrors after the fall of Cambodia, pointedly referring to "alleged Khmer Rouge atrocities"

or http://www.paulbogdanor.com/chomsky/rothbard.pdf

http://www.paulbogdanor.com/chomsky/manne.pdf

or http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=7686

Quote: While Pol Pot was carrying out his genocide, numerous American leftists functioned as his apologists. Notable among these was the American-hating MIT professor Noam Chomsky, who viewed Pol Pot as a revolutionary hero. When news of the "killing fields" became increasingly publicized, Chomsky’s faith in Pol Pot could not be shaken. He initially tried to minimize the magnitude of Pol Pot’s atrocities (saying that he had killed only "a few thousand people at most").[64] He suggested that the forced expulsion of the population from Phnom Penh was most likely necessitated by the failure of the 1976 rice crop. Wrote Chomsky, "the evacuation of Phnom Penh, widely denounced at the time and since for its undoubted brutality, may actually have saved many lives."[65] In a 1977 article in The Nation, Chomsky attacked those witnesses and writers who were shedding ever-brighter rays of light on Pol Pot’s holocaust; he accused them of trying to spread anti-communist propaganda. In 1980, when it was indisputable that a huge proportion of Cambodia’s population had died at the hands of the Khmer Rouge, Chomsky again blamed an unfortunate failure of the rice crop rather than systematic genocide. Jimjilin (talk) 16:28, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=1232

Quote: Chomsky was one of the chief deniers of the Cambodian genocide of the 1970s, which took place in the wake of the Communist victory and American withdrawal from Indochina. He directed vitriolic attacks towards the reporters and witnesses who testified to the human catastrophe that was taking place there. Initially, Chomsky tried to minimize the deaths (a “few thousand”) and compared those killed by Pol Pot and his followers to the collaborators who had been executed by resistance movements in Europe at the end of World War II. By 1980, however, it was no longer possible to deny that some 2 million of Cambodia's 7.8 million people had perished at the hands of the Communists. But Professor Chomsky continued to deny the genocide, proposing that the underlying problem may have been a failure of the rice crop.Jimjilin (talk) 22:02, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

Ridiculously right-wing POV sources, not even worth looking at seriously. One of them also runs a page called "Jihad watch," for god's sake. What part of WP:RS are you having trouble understanding? Vanamonde93 (talk) 23:06, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

Apparently for you ridiculously right-wing source = any source that criticizes Chomsky. lol The article at present is heavily biased and in violation of Wikipedia standards.

Instead of simply dismissing sources you don't approve of tell me specifically why these sources should be silenced:

http://www.standpointmag.co.uk/print/735

http://csua.berkeley.edu/~sophal/canon.pdf

http://www.mekong.net/cambodia/chomsky.htm#chx

Quote: Rather than expressing concerns about the fate of the Khmer people, Chomsky and Herman seem primarily concerned with the "abuse" directed at the Khmer Rouge regime

Quote: Chomsky and Herman echo the arguments advanced by Hildebrand and Porter, suggesting that, because of unsanitary conditions and food shortages in the city, the evacuation "may actually have saved lives."

How about "Chomsky has been accused of diminishing the crimes of the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia." I'll use the three sources just mentioned.

I think you would be well served by reading WP:RS, like we have asked you to several times. You're being remarkably obtuse in not doing so. Find an academic source supporting that statement in particular. Also, have you not read the statement from Nussbaum already in the article? You're not adding anything new here. Vanamonde93 (talk) 17:49, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

Please offer specifics why these three sources violate WP:RS OK? Try real hard and I bet you'll understand my request.Jimjilin (talk) 19:30, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

Any objections to this source: http://www.dissentmagazine.org/wp-content/files_mf/1389826305d16Ezra.pdf

Quote: Malcolm Caldwell was not the only one who whitewashed the crimes of the Khmer Rouge. As Sophal Ear commented, along with Caldwell, there was Laura Summers, Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky, George C. Hildebrand and Gareth Porter,

Quote: Chomsky and others who defended Pol Pot ‘diverted attention and refocused discussion from “how should Khmer Rouge bloodlust best be exposed and protested” to “whether or not the refugee accounts were exaggerated and were the accounts of largely politically motivated propaganda.”’Jimjilin (talk) 20:08, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

I can't believe you are offering us Michael Ezra as a reliable source. Wikipedia's rules regarding original research, biographies of living people and other areas preclude me from writing all that I know about this person, who I have had the misfortune to meet more than once. Suffice to say that he is a professional propagandist and polemicist, and a defamer who has spread lies about me and about many others. The man has no expertise, no professional standing, and less than no credibility. It would be extremely unwise, as well as in breach of all of Wikipedia's rules, to cite his views on any living person. RolandR (talk) 22:37, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

You have now added a sentence claiming that Sophal Ear described Chomsky's After the Cataclysm as "one of the most supportive books of the Khmer revolution", backing this with a citation to an essay by Ear.[18] That sentence and that claim do not appear in the essay, nor can I find anything remotely resembling this. I have therefore removed this unsourced contentious assertion; please do not restore it with such a misleading citation. RolandR (talk) 02:37, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

It can't be the sole source for a BLP, but pg. 42 of Ear's thesis says "So argued the celebrated political activist Noam Chomsky and his sidekick Edward S. Herman in After the Cataclysm, one of the most supportive books of the Khmer revolution (especially since it was written after the end of the Pol Pot-Ieng Sary regime)..."--nothing misleading about that.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 02:55, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

RolandR, your fit of pique regarding Michael Ezra is of course irrelevant. And the quote comes from page 42.Jimjilin (talk) 04:59, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

Sorry; the pdf does not seem to have opened properly last night. But, as noted above, this still cannot be the sole source in a BLP. And I repeat, Ezra is definitely not a reliable or acceptable source for anything anywhere. RolandR (talk) 08:26, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

• Seems to be a collection of sources almost entirely composed of fringe opinion/blogging material from non-notable, non-mainstream sources. Would not reach the standard of "significant published viewpoint" suitable for inclusion per WP:NPOV certainly not in a WP:BLP where we set the bar especially high: "If you cannot find multiple reliable third-party sources documenting the allegation or incident, leave it out." Dlv999 (talk) 12:19, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

Whether or not this merits inclusion per BLP I leave to your discretion, but I was able to find a solid source for this information: Brinkley, Joel (2011). Cambodia's Curse: The Modern History of a Troubled Land. PublicAffairs. p. 49. A few weeks earlier Noam Chomsky, an author and academic, offered an article in the Nation that conflated the American bombing and the Khmer Rouge horrors and made the same broad argument as the other apologists. He cited "highly qualified specialists" whom he did not name, but "who have studied the full range of evidence available, and who have concluded that executions numbered at most in the thousands."TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 18:12, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

Suggested Edit: Chomskybot link

Suggested edit: The chomskybot page has been removed but is still linked in the suggested links section of this page and should be removed. Madare (talk) 20:18, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Comment about great apes

"Though Chomsky generated the universal grammar theory with the belief that language is uniquely human, a series of studies from various laboratories have shown the existence of acquired language in several great ape species, including common chimpanzees,[123][124][125][126][127][128][129] bonobos,[129][130] gorillas,[131] and orangutans.[132] Thus, great apes at least partially possess whatever mental functions might underlie the LAD, and are therefore important species of study for exploring the neural basis of language."

While those studies are pretty awesome, they only seem to indicate that great apes are capable of learning some words (or signs) and <maybe> attach them to ideas (depending on what you read, they are said to have learned anything from "all of ASL" to "only simple mimicry"). This is not language by Chomsky's (and others') definition, as the apes in these studies show no indication of picking up any kind of grammar or syntax whatsoever. This comment detracts from the section on Chomsky's life's work, indicating that he is wrong in believing that language is uniquely human, when no study listed has showed as such. I recommend removing it, but could accept an argument for changing the tone to something like "other studies from various laboratories have made strides in teaching several great ape species some aspects of language, such as vocabulary" or something similar. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.190.254.108 (talk • contribs) 15:20, 25 July 2014

That's at Noam Chomsky#Linguistic theory. If anyone had time, they might check the history of the article to see when that was added, and what else was added along with it. At first glance, it appears to be original research that sometimes is added to an article like this as a commentary. I agree that it should be sourced to a recognized scholar or removed. Johnuniq (talk) 00:28, 26 July 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 8 August 2014

In the Early career: 1955–1966 section, the 4th sentence " In 1957 MIT promoted him to the position of assistant professor," assistant professor should probably read associate professor, since he was hired as an assistant professor and the next promotion is to associate professor. Gerald Mileski (talk) 16:15, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

I can confirm this. Page 3 of his biography (by Barsky) says he became associate professor at MIT at the age of 29 and full professor at the age 32. -- Bittenfig ☆ | ✉ 19:13, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

 Done, in case there was any doubt. Vanamonde93 (talk) 05:22, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, I'm new. :P -- Bittenfig ☆ | ✉ 01:32, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 22 August 2014

Please add following text to end of Personal life section of Noam Chomsky: On March 27th, 2014 Chomsky married his current wife, Valeria in Concord, Massachusetts. VERIFICATION: <redacted> Ptbates1 (talk) 14:08, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

 Not done Please provide reliable sources supporting your change. Without those, it isn't possible to verify the information; per Wikipedia policies, an email address is not sufficient. If you can find sources satisfying the sourcing policy, then you are welcome to post here again. Regards, Vanamonde93 (talk) 14:25, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 22 August 2014

In my last request, make sure the VERIFICATION email of Valeria is not included in the edit. Ptbates1 (talk) 14:17, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

 Not done Please see request immediately preceding this one. Vanamonde93 (talk) 14:26, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

Excellent quote about 9/11 book

In a short review of Chomsky and Gore Vidal's books on 9/11 (Foreign Affairs Jounral, September/October 2002 Issue: "9-11; Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace: How We Got to Be So Hated"[19]) the author states: "If those who believe that American activism is necessary and beneficial for the world want a more sympathetic international hearing, they must argue as forcefully as Chomsky -- and write as well as Vidal."

Would this have any place in this article? Thewhitebox (talk) 12:51, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

I'd be inclined to say no. Chomsky is internationally famous, more so now than he has probably been at any point in the past, and thus is regularly cited in all manner of publications, often (rightly or wrongly) as an example of the stereotypical anti-imperialist, leftist intellectual. Given that he is quoted and refererred to so often, we need to be very selective about what we actually choose to include in this article, so unless the author of the aforementioned quote is particularly significant themselves, then I am not sure that its inclusion is warranted. Midnightblueowl (talk) 22:21, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 3 September 2014

Please add in Personal Life "Noam Chomsky married Luisa Valéria Galvão-Chomsky in Concord, Massachusetts, on March 27, 2014.

Also add that Chomsky published his latest book Master's of Mankind with Haymarket Books in September of 2014. http://www.haymarketbooks.org/pb/Masters-of-Mankind Haymarket will also be reprinting twelve of Chomsky's back list titles to include On Power and Ideology and Fateful Triangle. http://www.haymarketbooks.org/bio/noam-chomsky Suasponte3 (talk) 16:00, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

Not done for now: need a reliable source for the bit about him getting married, and as for the publication, from Noam Chomsky bibliography it seems that he has written a very large number of books, I would want to see what makes this book significant enough to write into his personal article vs just adding to his bibliography article. Cannolis (talk) 02:31, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

Seconded. Vanamonde93 (talk) 02:34, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

An RfC about Chomsky's views on Cambodian genocide

At Talk:Cambodian_genocide_denial#RfC:_Is_the_section_on_Chomsky_neutral.3F there is an RfC about how best to represent Chomskys views and statements in relaiton to the Cambodian genocide.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 21:14, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

Other Primates

I removed a pararagraph from the linguistic sections that was using synthesis of primary sources to argue that primates have innate UG. These sources were unrelated to Chomsky and in fact would tend to contradict his general view which is that UG and language is unique to humans. It also gave undue weight to the view that non-human primates have language which is not the general consensus either among linguists or primatologists. But the main reason for the removal was that it was simply irrelevant to a description of Chomskys liunguistic work.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 21:46, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

Normal and 'Ab'-Normal Sentences

Linguists, who were problematizing the boundary between “normal” well-formed language (Chomskian position) and 'abnormal' speaking/writing following Foucauldian path may question, 'How do we know the differences between 'norm'-al way of speaking and 'ab'-normal way of speaking?' Cartesian Linguistics analyzed the algorithm of so-called 'normal' 'well-formed' sentences only. This very construction of 'natural/normal language' (e.g., the well-constructed written sentences) mercilessly marginalizes the language of so-called non-'natural' madness or folly. How do linguist tribe distinguish between error (khyati) and non-error (akhyati), when they are talking about 'normal' and 'natural' language? Well-formed syntagms are used as examples in the Chomskian syntactic analysis. There was no scope for discursive paradigmatic recurrences.

References