Noam Chomsky applies a rational, scientific approach to disciplines as diverse as linguistics, ethics, and politics. His best-known innovations involve a groundbreaking theory of generative grammar, the revolution it initiated in cognitive science, and a radical encounter with political theory and practice.
In Chomsky Notebook, Cedric Boeckx and Norbert Hornstein tackle the evolution of Chomsky’s linguistic theory. Akeel Bilgrami revisits Chomsky’s work on freedom and truth, and Pierre Jacob analyzes his naturalism. Chomsky’s own contributions include an interview with Jean Bricmont and an essay each on Edward Said and the natural world. Altogether, these works reveal the penetrating insight of a remarkable intellectual whose thought extends into a number of fields within and outside of academia. For the uninitiated reader and longtime fan, this anthology attests to the power of Chomsky’s rationalism and the dexterity of his critical investigations.
Table of Content
Part I. Chomsky
1. The Mysteries of Nature: How Deeply Hidden?, by Noam Chomsky
2. The Great Soul of Power: Said Memorial Lecture, by Noam Chomsky
Part II. Introductions
3. Chomsky, France, Reason, Power, by Jean Bricmont and Julie Franck
4. An Interview with Noam Chomsky, by Jean Bricmont
Part III. Linguistic Theory and Language Processes
5. The Varying Aims of Linguistic Theory, by Cédric Boeckx and Norbert Hornstein
6. Language, Thought, and Reality After Chomsky, by Gennaro Chierchia
7. Generative Syntax in the Brain, by Yosef Grodzinsky
Part IV. Cognitive Science and the Philosophy of Mind
8. Learning Organs, by Charles R. Gallistel
9. Innateness, Choice, and Language, by Elizabeth Spelke
10. The Scope and Limits of Chomsky’s Naturalism, by Pierre Jacob
Part V. Chomsky and the Intelligentsia
11. Conspiracy: When Journalists (and Their Favorites) Misrepresent the Critical Analysis of the Media, by Serge Halimi and Arnaud Rindel
12. Noam Chomsky and the University, by Pierre Guerlain
13. The Practice of Intellectual Self-Defense in the University, by Normand Baillargeon
14. Chomsky, Faurisson, and Vidal-Naquet, by Jean Bricmont
15. Chomsky and Bourdieu: A Missed Encounter, by Frédéric Delorca
Part VI. Politics: Theory and Practice
16. Chomsky in France: The Resistance to Pragmatic Anti-Authoritarianism, by Larry Portis
17. Testimony, by Susan George
18. Truth, Balance, and Freedom, by Akeel Bilgrami
List of Contributors
About the author
Jean Bricmont is a theoretical physicist and professor at the Catholic University of Louvain. He has helped to make the political writings of Noam Chomsky known in France after years of blackout. He is the coauthor, with Alan Sokal, of
Fashionable Nonsense: Postmodern Intellectuals’ Abuse of Science.Julie Franck is assistant professor at the Laboratory of Experimental Psycholinguistics, University of Geneva. Her research concerns syntax in adults and children.
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