Noam Chomsky

Noam Chomsky: The new Galileo?

Part of marxist anthropologist Chris Knight's long-running examination of Noam Chomsky. "Language is peculiar. No other species has anything remotely like it. If language is part of nature – a kind of organ or instinct, like stereoscopic vision – it’s puzzling. It’s unusual for a complex biological adaptation to be wholly confined to just one species."

Chomsky treats language as cognition, not communication. He says it enables us to think in unusually clear and powerful ways, planning ahead, comparing and evaluating our ideas and so on. But if so, wouldn’t we have expected other large-brained animals – elephants, whales, dolphins, chimpanzees – to have benefited from some such feature? Why just humans?

Noam Chomsky on courses of intellectual self-defence

Short video clip in which Chomsky discusses the role of grassroots organisers in relation to the 'big names' of history and the need to develop "courses of intellectual self defence". Taken from the 1992 documentary "Manufacturing Consent - Noam Chomsky and the Media".

Noam Chomsky on anarchism - interview by Barry Pateman

Video of an interview by Barry Pateman with Noam Chomsky about anarchism.

The relevance of anarcho-syndicalism: Noam Chomsky interviewed by Peter Jay

Noam Chomsky in his younger days.

A 1976 interview with Noam Chomsky in which he discusses anarchism, anarcho-syndicalism and council communism as well as the possibility of a free society.

The Jay Interview, July 25, 1976

America in decline - Noam Chomsky

Noam Chomsky analyses the whithering of the American super-power and its causes.

"It is a common theme" that the United States, which "only a few years ago was hailed to stride the world as a colossus with unparalleled power and unmatched appeal is in decline, ominously facing the prospect of its final decay," Giacomo Chiozza writes in the current Political Science Quarterly.

Chomsky on Psychology

Noam Chomsky interviewed in 1977 by David Cohen on the topic of psychology

QUESTION: Do your views about Man hint at some kind of sympathy with a man like [R. D.] Laing who sees many mystical elements in Man, that are maybe too random to be encompassed by a finite science?

Chomsky on the Psychology of Language & Thought

Robert Rieber interviews Noam Chomsky Noam Chomsky on the Psychology of Language & Thought

QUESTION: What role does cognition play in the acquisition and development of language? Do linguistic factors influence general cognitive development?

Language, Language Development and Reading

A discussion of the relevance of findings in linguistics for learning in schools, in particular, literacy development.

Noam Chomsky interviewed by Lillian R. Putnam in Reading Instruction Journal, Fall 1987 via chomsky.info

Chomsky on Cognitive Science, and Anarchism

Noam Chomsky interviewed by blog posters.

Noam Chomsky interviewed by Reddit Blog, March 12, 2010

Science in the Dock: Discussion with Noam Chomsky, Lawrence Krauss & Sean M. Carroll

Noam Chomsky, Lawrence Krauss and Sean Carroll (physicist, not his biologist namesake) comment on the role intellectuals, science and religion.

Science & Theology News asked three leading scientists – Noam Chomsky, Lawrence Krauss and Sean M. Carroll -- to comment on topics in science-and-religion as well as in popular culture. What follows are their answers. (Source: now-defunct Science & Theology News, March 1, 2006. and Chomsky.info)

ON WESTERN INTELLECTUALS