Noam Chomsky States Are Not

Noam Chomsky

States are not moral agents, people are, and can impose moral standards on powerful institutions. (Wisdom Quotes: Noam Chomsky)

Noam Chomsky's contribution to linguistics and philosophy, as well as contemporary theoretical and political thought, is extensive. He received numerous awards and accolades, specifically for his work in linguistics. Chomsky was born in Philadelphia in 1928. As the son of Russian immigrants he was influenced by their belief in pacifism. His early education took place at a progressive school as well as at Philadelphia Central High school. He later attended the University of Pennsylvania where he studied mathematics, philosophy and linguistics. He completed his PhD in Linguistics in 1955 and was appointed Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1976.

In his doctoral thesis he began to develop some of his linguistic ideas. These ideas were elaborated in the book Syntactic Structure, published in 1957. This was one of his best known works in linguistics. Not only is he regarded by any as the founder of modern linguistics, but he is also acknowledged as the main proponent of the field of transformational-generative grammar. This area is strongly related to logic and philosophy. Chomsky has also become well-known as a social critic and theorist and for his many controversial views on power structures, democracy and the analyses of hegemony, particularly in the United States. "... his pioneering linguistic works include Topics in the Theory of Generative Grammar (1966) and Knowledge of Language: its nature, origins and use (1986), while political books range from American Power and the New Mandarins (1969) to Terrorizing the Neighbourhood: American Foreign Policy in the post-cold war era (1991)." (Cowley, J.)

An essential aspect that characterizes his early work, which also sheds light on his inquiring and rigorous intellect, was his opposition to behaviourist theory. "His works in generative linguistics contributed significantly to the decline of behaviorism and led to the advancement of the cognitive sciences." (Wikipedia: Noam Chompsky.)

As can be seen from the above brief overview his contribution to the intellectual world and to linguistics is extensive and complex. However, there are a number of central threads and themes that run through all of his work. One of these themes is scientific realism and an uncompromising attitude to creative and incisive thinking. Another important aspect which reflects on the ethical dimension is the emphasis he places throughout his work on the primacy and meaning of human nature.

2. Influences

His early years as an undergraduate student shed light on his later thinking and the trajectory of his linguistics and philosophy. Chomsky can be termed a creative realist; and as an undergraduate has was disappointed by the prevalence of institutional structures at university. This need for intellectual and personal freedom from restriction led him to even consider leaving the University and embarking on a more practical a life of social involvement.

Chomsky soon began to reflect on the possibility of dropping out of college, "to go to Palestine, perhaps to a kibbutz, to try to become involved in efforts at Arab-Jewish cooperation within a socialist framework'" (Chomsky Reader 7). The decision was a crucial one at this stage in his life, and it also has a retrospective significance, given the lifelong difficulties he has had with the Zionist movement. (Barsky R) Noam Chompsky: A life of Disssent)

These leanings towards social and political involvement were indicative of his sometimes controversial views on social issues that would manifest themselves later in his life. In his regard he showed an early inclination to "sympathize with cooperative libertarian impulses rather than Stalinist or Trotskyite visions which were popular among contemporary Zionist youth groups..." (ibid)

Another important influence was the personality and work of Zellig Harris. Chomsky met Harris in 1947. Harris was "a charismatic professor who shared many of his interests and who would have a profound influence upon his life." (ibid) Largely as a result of this meeting Chompsky decided to remain at University.

As Chompsky himself states, Harris was a central influence in his decision to study linguistics.

A when Zellig Harris gave me the proofs of his Methods in Structural Linguistics to read I found it very intriguing and, after some stimulating discussions with Harris, decided to major in linguistics as an undergraduate at the University of Pennsylvania. (ibid)

But it was not only Harris' linguistics that first attracted Chomsky: he was tantalized by his professor's politics and lively intellectual attitude and discourse. These two aspects of his early life - his social and scientific awareness - combined with his realism and objectivity in linguistics were two important traits that were to characterize all his work and philosophy.

3. Linguistics

One of his main contributions to linguistics was his Syntactic Structures which is considered by many to be one of the major intellectual achievements of the 20th century. This central insight of the work was based on the assumption that human children have an innate facility to master both the grammar and the deep structure of language.

His insight was based on the observation that children learn grammar at a rate far greater than can be explained by their extrapolating from examples given to them. They must therefore have an innate capacity not only to learn language but also to understand how it works. Because language acquisition is universal, all languages must share the same fundamental structure or "depth grammar." (Cowley, J.)

Throughout Chomsky's work there is an underlying integrative factor which informs both his philosophy and social views. This can be referred to as his understanding of human nature as the foundation of his insights. It is a common denominator that harkens back to his upbringing as a Jew and his experiences as a student.

Noam Chomsky's work stretches across a range of disciplines embracing linguistics, philosophy, and the social sciences. A unifying theme that connects his work in linguistics with his social and political thought is that of human nature. (Wilkin, Peter)

It is also important to note that Chomsky developed his view of reality and society in conjunction with his discoveries in the field of linguistics. In this regard his early confrontation and disagreement with behaviorist theory is extremely significant. This was essentially a disagreement with the rational and strict empirical views of linguistics.

A he began his linguistic career working within the orthodox empiricist framework that he was later to overturn. It was the limitations and inadequacies of the empiricist-inductivist approach to explaining the acquisition of language that forced Chomsky to consider the possibility of a strong and underlying innate component to the acquisition of language that he saw as a central feature of human nature. (ibid)

This was a very important aspect of his work. The realization that he made earlier in his career was that it was impossible to account for the rapid acquisition of language in ratio-empiricist terms.

In practice, Chomsky addressed what he has subsequently come to call "Plato's Problem": How is it that we are able to acquire the complex and rich forms of language that we do from such an early age and with such apparent ease given the partial and fragmented information that we receive? No one teaches us the roles of grammar of a particular language, but we acquire them with both speed and (barring pathology) comparative ease. As Chomsky's work in linguistics has illustrated, it is impossible to make sense of this knowledge acquisition on the basis of any inductive-empiricist model. (ibid)

His response to the behaviourist model of language was to develop "a modular account of what he calls the mind-brain that posits an underlying structure that provides us with a rich biological basis from which we are able to acquire knowledge of language." (ibid) This "... enables us to make sense of and order our experiences into workable theories and practices concerning both the natural and social world."(ibid)

The view that Chomsky presented of language acquisition went against the tenets of behaviorist theory. It opposed the view that... only directly observable behaviours could provide a valid basis for scientific study, and that any speculation about the cognitive processes behind those behaviours was insupportable and therefore to be avoided." (Richardson, Alan)

4. Ethics and society

As has been touched on in the above discussion, the idea of ethics and social analyses is never far from the heart of Chomsky's thought. His views have often attacked sensitive areas such as the actual workings of democracy. He has also written and lectured extensively on U.S. foreign policy, particularly on the Vietnam War and U.S. support for brutal dictatorships in Latin America. His argument -- shocking to readers who encounter his writings for the first time -- is that U.S. foreign policy during the Cold War, supposedly based on opposing the Soviet Union and promoting democracy, has in reality been aimed primarily at serving the economic interests of the American elite. (Wvong, R.)