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{{redirect|Chomsky|other persons of the same name|Chomsky (surname)}}
{{Infobox Philosopher<!-- Philosopher category -->
|region           = [[Western Philosophy]]
|era              = [[20th-century philosophy|20th]] / [[21st-century philosophy]]
|color            = #B0C4DE
|name             = Noam Chomsky
|image_name       = Noam__chomsky_cropped.jpg‎
|image_size       = 187x217
|birth            = {{birth date and age|df=yes|1928|12|7}}<br>[[Philadelphia]], [[Pennsylvania]]
|death            =
|alma_mater       = [[University of Pennsylvania]] (BA 1949, MA 1951, Ph.D 1955)
|school_tradition = [[Linguistics]], [[analytic philosophy|Analytic]]
|main_interests   = [[Linguistics]]{{·}} [[Psychology]]<br>[[Philosophy of language]]<br>[[Philosophy of mind]]<br> [[Politics]]{{·}} [[Ethics]]
|notable_ideas    = [[Generative grammar]], [[universal grammar]], [[transformational grammar]], [[government and binding]], [[X-bar theory]], [[Chomsky hierarchy]], [[context-free grammar]], [[principles and parameters]], [[linguistic minimalism|the minimalist program]], [[language acquisition device]], [[poverty of the stimulus]], [[Chomsky Normal Form]], [[propaganda model]]<ref name=""Letters" to the Editor in ''Journal of Palestine Studies''">Kanan Makiya, Fouad Moughrabi, Adel Safty, Rex Brynen, [http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0377-919X(199422)23%3A4%3C196%3AL%3E2.0.CO%3B2-3 "Letters to the Editor" in ''Journal of Palestine Studies,''] ''Journal of Palestine Studies'' via [[JSTOR]] (Vol. 23, No. 4, Summer, 1994, pp. 196-200), accessed December 4, 2007. Relevant quotation: "On page 146 of my book, I clearly adopt ''the propaganda model developed by Noam Chomsky'' and Edward Herman..."</ref>
|influences       = [[Pāṇini]], [[Bertrand Russell]], [[John Dewey]], [[Mikhail Bakunin]], [[Karl Marx]], [[Wilhelm von Humboldt]], [[Adam Smith]], [[Rudolf Rocker]], [[Zellig Harris]], [[Immanuel Kant]], [[René Descartes]], [[George Orwell]], [[C. West Churchman]], [[W.V.O. Quine]], [[Alan Turing]].
|influenced       = [[Colin McGinn]], [[Edward Said]], [[Steven Pinker]], [[Tanya Reinhart]], [[Daniel Everett]], [[Morris Halle]], [[Gilbert Harman]], [[Jerry Fodor]], [[Brian Eno]], [[Howard Lasnik]], [[Robert Fisk]], [[Neil Smith (linguist)|Neil Smith]], [[Ray Jackendoff]], [[Norbert Hornstein]], [[Jean Bricmont]], [[Marc Hauser]], [[Norman Finkelstein]], [[Robert Lees (linguist)|Robert Lees]], [[Mark Baker (linguist)|Mark Baker]], [[Julian Boyd]], [[Bill Hicks]], [[Ray C. Dougherty]], [[Derek Bickerton]], [[Thom Yorke]], [[Amy Goodman]], [[Michael Albert]].
}}⏎
⏎
   On no, Tony, it seems I got my foreskin stuck in the potato peeler when I was jerking off in front of the wall poster of Comrade Stalin, while listening to the Internationale!

   ---  Roland Rance, Pol Pot's Squeeze Toy⏎
⏎

'''Avram Noam Chomsky''' ({{pronEng|noʊm ˈtʃɑmski}}; born December 7, 1928) is an [[United States|American]] [[linguistics|linguist]], [[philosopher]],<ref>[http://chomsky.info/bios/2004----.htm "Noam Chomsky"], by Zoltán Gendler Szabó, in ''Dictionary of Modern American Philosophers, 1860-1960'', ed. Ernest Lepore (2004). "Chomsky's intellectual life had been divided between his work in linguistics and his political activism, phil(contracted; show full)s with many of the major figures in analytic philosophy..."</ref><ref>[http://chomsky.info/bios/1998----.htm "Noam Chomsky"], in ''Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' (1998), [[Norbert Hornstein]].</ref><ref>''[[The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy]]'' (1999), "Chomsky, Noam," [[Cambridge University Press]], pg. 138. "Chomsky, Noam (born 1928), preeminent American linguist, philosopher, and political activist
, noted anti-semite...Many of Chomsky's most significant contributions to philosophy, such as his influential rejection of behaviorism...stem from his elaborations and defenses of the above consequences..."</ref> [[cognitive science|cognitive scientist]], [[political activist]], [[author]], and [[lecturer]]. He is an [[Institute Professor]] [[emeritus]] and professor emeritus of [[linguistics]] at the [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology]].<ref>[http://web.mit.edu/linguistics/people/faculty/chomsky/in(contracted; show full)
 |last=Hughes
 |first=Samuel
 |title=Speech!
 |publisher=''[[The Pennsylvania Gazette]]''
 |date=July/August 2001
 |url=http://www.chomsky.info/onchomsky/200107--.htm
 |accessdate=2007-09-03
 |quote=According to a recent survey by the Institute for Scientific Information, only Marx, Lenin, Shakespeare, Aristotle, the Bible, Plato, and Freud are cited more often in academic journals than Chomsky, who edges out Hegel and Cicero.}}</ref><ref name="
"robinson">
{{cite" news
 |last=Robinson
 |first=Paul
 |title=The Chomsky Problem
 |publisher=''[[The New York Times]]''
 |date=1979-02-25
 |quote=Judged in terms of the power, range, novelty and influence of his thought, Noam Chomsky is arguably the most important intellectual alive today. He is also a disturbingly divided intellectual.}}</ref> At the same time, his status as a leading critic of [[US foreign policy]] has made him a controversial figure.<ref>[http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA296856.html "The Accidental Bestseller], ''[[Publishers Weekly]]'', 5-5-03, accessed 10-11-08. "Chomsky's controversial political works...became mainstream bestsellers."</ref>
 
==Biography==

Chomsky was born to [[Jewish]] parents in the [[East Oak Lane, Philadelphia|East Oak Lane]] neighborhood of [[Philadelphia, Pennsylvania|Philadelphia]], [[Pennsylvania]], the son of [[Hebrew language|Hebrew]] scholar and [[Industrial Workers of the World|IWW]] member [[William Chomsky]] (1896–1977), a native of [[Ukraine]]. His mother, Elsie Chomsky (née Simonofsky), native of what is present day [[Belarus]], grew up in the United States and spoke "ordinary [[New York dialect|New York English]]", unlike her husband. Their first language was [[Yiddish language|Yiddish]],<ref name="Goodman>{{cite" web |url=http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/20041126.htm |title=The Life and Times of Noam Chomsky, Noam Chomsky interviewed by Amy Goodman|publisher=www.chomsky.info |accessdate=2008-12-21|last=|first=}}</ref> but Chomsky said it was "taboo" in his family to speak it.<ref name="Goodman/>" He describes his family as living in a sort of "Jewish [[ghetto]]", split into a "Yiddish side" and "Hebrew side", with his family aligning with the latter and bringing him up "immersed in Hebrew culture and literature". Chomsky also describes tensions he personally experienced with [[Irish Catholics]] and [[anti-semitism]] in the mid-1930s. In a discussion of the irony of his staying in the 1980s in a Jesuit House in Central America, Chomsky explained that during hi(contracted; show full)
</ref> he is frequently sought out for his views by publications and news outlets worldwide.

Chomsky has received death threats because of his criticisms of US foreign policy.<ref name="
"Stroumboulopoulos">{{cite" web
|last=Stroumboulopoulos
|first=George
|title=Noam Chomsky on ''The Hour''
|publisher=[[Canadian Broadcasting Corporation|CBC]]
|date=2006-03-13
|url=http://www.cbc.ca/thehour/video.php?id=991
|accessdate=2007-09-04}}</ref> He was also on a list of planned targets created by [[Theodore Kaczynski]], better known as the [[Unabomber]]; during the period that Kaczynski was at large, Chomsky had all of his mail checked for explosives.<ref name=""Stroumboulopoulos"/>" He states that he often receives undercover police protection, in particular while on the MIT campus, although he does not agree with the police protection.<ref name=""Stroumboulopoulos"/>

Chomsky" resides in [[Lexington, MA|Lexington]], [[Massachusetts]] and travels often, giving lectures on politics.

==Contributions to linguistics==
[[Image:Chomsky bioling.png|thumb|200px|right|Professor Chomsky lecturing on [[biolinguistics]] at the [[University of California, Berkeley]] in 2003.]]
(contracted; show full)

===Generative grammar===
The Chomskyan approach towards [[syntax]], often termed [[generative grammar]], studies grammar as a body of knowledge possessed by language users. Since the 1960s, Chomsky has maintained that much of this knowledge is innate, implying that children need only learn certain parochial features of their native languages.<ref name="
"aspects">{{cite" book|title=Aspects of the Theory of Syntax|publisher=MIT Press|author=Chomsky, Noam|year=1965}}</ref> The innate body of linguistic knowledge is often termed [[Universal Grammar]]. From Chomsky's perspective, the strongest evidence for the existence of Universal Grammar is simply the fact that children successfully acquire their native languages in so little time. Furthermore, he argues that there is an enormous gap between the linguistic stimuli to which children are exposed and the rich lingui(contracted; show full)

* He has opposed the U.S. global "[[war on drugs]]", claiming its language to be misleading, and referring to it as "the war on certain drugs." He favors education and prevention rather than military or police action as a means of reducing drug use.<ref name="
"certain">{{cite" web
 |last=Chomsky
 |first=Noam
 |title=What Uncle Sam Really Wants
 |publisher=[[Z Communications|ZMag]]
 |year=1993
 |url=http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/sam/sam-3-2.html
 |accessdate=2007-07-27 }}</ref> In an interview in 1999, Chomsky argued that, whereas crops such as tobacco receive no mention in governmental exposition, other non-profitable crops, such as marijuana, are specifically targeted due to the effect achieved by persecuting the [[Poverty|poor]]:<ref name=""poor">{{cite" video
 | people = Noam Chomsky et al.
 |title=[http://www.freespeech.org/videodb/index.php?action=detail&video_id=9529&browse=0 Noam Chomsky on Drugs]
 | medium = TV
 |publisher=ROX
 |year=1999}}</ref>
:"''US domestic drug policy does not carry out its stated goals, and policymakers are well aware of that. If it isn't about reducing substance abuse, what is it about? It is reasonably clear, both from current actions and the historical record, that substances tend to be criminalized when they are associated with the so-called dangerous classes, that the criminalization of certain substances is a technique of social control.''"<ref name="control>{{cite" web
 |last=Chomsky
 |first=Noam
 |title=DRCNet Interview: Noam Chomsky
 |publisher=[http://stopthedrugwar.org/home DRCNet]
 |date=2002-02-08
 |url=http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle-old/223/noamchomsky.shtml
 |accessdate=2007-07-27 }}</ref>
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