Noam Chomsky Quotes on Mind
Noam Chomsky's revolution in linguistics rested on a claim about the mind, and the quotes gathered here set out that claim. Against the behaviourism dominant in mid-century, Chomsky argued that the capacity for language is innate, organised around structures common to all languages that reflect certain fundamental properties of the mind. Language for him is a process of free creation governed by fixed principles, capable of producing endlessly novel sentences, even grammatical nonsense such as his famous colorless green ideas sleep furiously. Tracing the idea back to Descartes in his book Cartesian Linguistics, Chomsky treats the deep structure underlying every language as a reflection of the forms of human thought itself. The page also includes remarks in which his political voice and his linguistics meet.
Quotes
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Attributed to Noam Chomsky:
“Language is a process of free creation; its laws and principles are fixed, but the manner in which the principles of generation are used is free and infinitely varied.”
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Attributed to Noam Chomsky:
“Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.”
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“Annexing of the land in Crimea, I think, was a criminal act. But it has a history.”
2016 | Noam Chomsky, Al Jazeera ‘UpFront’ interview with host Mehdi Hasan on ISIL, Turkey and Ukraine, (Jan 23, 2016) -
“The deep structure that expresses the meaning is common to all languages, so it is claimed, being a simple reflection of the forms of thought.”
Cartesian Linguistics(1966) | "Deep and surface structure" -
“The central doctrine of Cartesian linguistics is that the general features of grammatical structure are common to all languages and reflect certain fundamental properties of the mind.”
Cartesian Linguistics(1966) | "Acquisition and use of language" -
“I think we can be reasonably confident that if the American population had the slightest idea of what is being done in their name, they would be utterly appalled.”
2001 | Interview by Svetlana Vukovic & Svetlana Lukic on Radio B92, Belgrade , Serbia, September 19, 2001 [52] . -
“I choose to live in what I think is the greatest country in the world, which is committing horrendous terrorist acts and should stop.”
2002 | Debate with Bill Bennett on CNN , May 30, 2002 [65] -
“There's a good reason why nobody studies history. It just teaches you too much.”
2003 | KGNU benefit at the University of Colorado at Boulder , April 5, 2003 (context: João Goulart ) [71] -
“I’m not an absolute pacifist. I think there are times when the use of military force is defensible […] Defending the Kurds against the ISIL attacks—yes, that’s legitimate.”
2016 | Noam Chomsky, Al Jazeera ‘UpFront’ interview with host Mehdi Hasan on ISIL, Turkey and Ukraine, (Jan 23, 2016) -
“We take for granted that the organism does not learn to grow arms or to reach puberty... When we turn to the mind and its products, the situation is not qualitatively different from what we find in the case of the body.”
Rules and Representations(1980) | p. 2-3 as cited in: Jerry Fodor (1983) Modularity of Mind: An Essay on Faculty Psychology. p. 4. -
“Interview by Burton Levine in Shmate: A Journal of Progressive Jewish Thought (May 1988) [3] .”
1980s -
“Strikingly, no concern was voiced over the glaringly obvious fact that no official reason was ever offered for going to war — no reason, that is, that could not be instantly refuted by a literate teenager.”
1990–1994 | Z Magazine (May 1991) [8] . -
“From "US Approach to Ukraine and Russia Has 'Left the Domain of Rational Discourse'" Truthout (February 4, 2022)”
2022