Talk:Noam Chomsky

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

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)

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; "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)

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)

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)

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)

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)