Chomsky Notebook

Chomsky Notebook
Author: Noam Chomsky
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 361
Release: 2010
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 023114475X

Noam Chomsky is as controversial as he is prolific, applying a rational, scientific approach to disciplines as diverse as linguistics, ethics, religion, and the strategy of war. Chomsky's best-known innovations involve a groundbreaking theory of generative and universal grammar, major advances in the classification of languages, and a radical reformulation of political theory and practice. In Chomsky Notebook, Norbert Hornstein (University of Maryland) and Cedric Boeckx (Harvard University) tackle Chomsky's linguistic theories; Akeel Bilgrami (Columbia University) revisits Chomsky's work on freedom and truth; and Pierre Jacob (Institut Jean Nicod) analyzes his naturalism. Chomsky's contributions include an interview and essays on Edward Said and the natural world. Altogether, these works reveal the penetration of Chomsky's thought into a number of fields within and outside of academia. It is an anthology that proves the power of his rationalism.

The Minimalist Program

The Minimalist Program
Author: Fahad Rashed Al-Mutairi
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2014-10-16
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1107041341

This evaluation of Chomsky's work from the perspectives of linguistics, evolution of language, history of physics, and philosophy of mind is interdisciplinary. It encourages linguists to reflect on the foundations of their discipline, and invites non-linguists to appreciate the complexity of human language and its place in the world.

Formal Grammar

Formal Grammar
Author: Terje Lohndal
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 420
Release: 2017-10-12
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1351971905

This volume draws together fourteen previously published papers which explore the nature of mental grammar through a formal, generative approach. The book begins by outlining the development of formal grammar in the last fifty years, with a particular focus on the work of Noam Chomsky, and moves into an examination of a diverse set of phenomena in various languages that shed light on theory and model construction. Many of the papers focus on comparisons between English and Norwegian, highlighting the importance of comparative approaches to the study of language. With a comprehensive collection of papers that demonstrate the richness of formal approaches, this volume is key reading for students and scholars interested in the study of grammar.

Representation of Language

Representation of Language
Author: Georges Rey
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 477
Release: 2020-09-30
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0192597744

This book is a defense of a Chomskyan conception of language against philosophical objectionsthat have been raised against it. It also provides, however, a critical examination of some of the glosses on the theory: the assimilation of it to traditional Rationalism; a supposed conflict between being innate and learned; an unclear ontology and the need of a "representational pretense" with regard to it; and, most crucially, a rejection of Chomsky's eliminativism about the role of intentionality not only in his own theories, but in any serious science at all. This last is a fundamentally important issue for linguistics, psychology, and philosophy that an examination of a theory as rich and promising as a Chomskyan linguistics should help illuminate. The book ends with a discussion of some further issues that Chomsky misleadingly associates with his theory: an anti-realism about ordinary thought and talk, and a dismissal of the mind/body problem(s), towards the solution of some of which his theory in fact makes an important contribution.

A Companion to Chomsky

A Companion to Chomsky
Author: Nicholas Allott
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 644
Release: 2021-04-27
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1119598702

A COMPANION TO CHOMSKY Widely considered to be one of the most important public intellectuals of our time, Noam Chomsky has revolutionized modern linguistics. His thought has had a profound impact upon the philosophy of language, mind, and science, as well as the interdisciplinary field of cognitive science which his work helped to establish. Now, in this new Companion dedicated to his substantial body of work and the range of its influence, an international assembly of prominent linguists, philosophers, and cognitive scientists reflect upon the interdisciplinary reach of Chomsky's intellectual contributions. Balancing theoretical rigor with accessibility to the non-specialist, the Companion is organized into eight sections—including the historical development of Chomsky's theories and the current state of the art, comparison with rival usage-based approaches, and the relation of his generative approach to work on linguistic processing, acquisition, semantics, pragmatics, and philosophy of language. Later chapters address Chomsky's rationalist critique of behaviorism and related empiricist approaches to psychology, as well as his insistence upon a "Galilean" methodology in cognitive science. Following a brief discussion of the relation of his work in linguistics to his work on political issues, the book concludes with an essay written by Chomsky himself, reflecting on the history and character of his work in his own words. A significant contribution to the study of Chomsky's thought, A Companion to Chomsky is an indispensable resource for philosophers, linguists, psychologists, advanced undergraduate and graduate students, and general readers with interest in Noam Chomsky's intellectual legacy as one of the great thinkers of the twentieth century.

Representation

Representation
Author: Franklin Rudolf Ankersmit
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 475
Release: 2024-06-04
Genre: History
ISBN: 0231561032

What makes historical writing distinctive? In Representation, Franklin Rudolf Ankersmit—the preeminent figure in the philosophy of history today—offers a deeply original way of understanding the practice of historical writing and a powerful vindication of history as an empirical discipline. Based on a new reading of the philosophy of G. W. Leibniz, Ankersmit constructs a rigorous framework for understanding the nature of historical argument. Representation argues that while previous states of affairs have left evidence that can be used to formulate true statements, the past itself is irretrievably lost. A condition of historical writing is that the past as such does not exist. Historical texts are best understood as complex signs that mutually criticize one another to compose a historical reality fundamentally distinct from common-sense notions of the past. Representation casts an entirely new light on fundamental concepts such as historical truth, historical debate, and historical rationality. Cogent, forceful, and provocative, this book is the most ambitious work in the philosophy of history in many years.

Symmetry, Shared Labels and Movement in Syntax

Symmetry, Shared Labels and Movement in Syntax
Author: Andreas Blümel
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 180
Release: 2017-03-20
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 3110522519

Die Reihe publiziert Originalarbeiten zur Beschreibung und theoretischen Analyse der Struktur natürlicher Sprachen. Schwerpunkt sind die Prinzipien und Regeln der grammatischen und lexikalischen Kenntnis sowohl unter einzelsprachlichen wie unter sprachvergleichenden Gesichtspunkten. Abgedeckt werden alle systematischen Bereiche der Sprachwissenschaft, insbesondere Phonologie, Morphologie, Syntax, Semantik und Pragmatik, unter Einbeziehung von Aspekten des Spracherwerbs, des Sprachwandels, der Sprachverwendung und der phonetischen und neuronalen Realisierung.

Language and Responsibility

Language and Responsibility
Author: Noam Chomsky
Publisher: Pantheon
Total Pages: 228
Release: 1979
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN:

The distinguished linguist and controversial political critic combines both aspects of his life and work in this wide-ranging and informative discussion that presents his political, moral, and linguistic views on current issues.

Beyond Liberalism

Beyond Liberalism
Author: Prabhat Patnaik
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 227
Release: 2024-09-10
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0231561229

Liberalism holds that individual freedom can be realized under capitalism. “Classical liberalism” tends to focus on excessive state interference as the primary threat to freedom. More recent theorists, however, recognize that capitalism, left to itself, would be characterized by mass social ills and argue that state intervention is necessary to guarantee individual freedom. This book is a Marxist critique of liberalism. Prabhat Patnaik demonstrates that liberalism and Marxism provide vastly differing accounts of individual freedom and the forces that restrict it. In the Marxist view, people, contrary to appearances, lack real agency under capitalism. Competition coerces individuals to act according to the impersonal logic of capitalism, making them mere instruments of the system. In this way, capitalism creates universal alienation, and true individual freedom is possible only through overcoming it. Patnaik argues that socialism can secure individual agency in both economic and political spheres, though actually existing socialism has failed in this respect. He also considers what a socialist society should look like: not a planned economy but a highly decentralized system in which citizens are directly involved in taking decisions affecting their lives and enjoy fundamental economic rights as well as political ones. Readable yet rigorous, Beyond Liberalism brings together political philosophy and political economy to offer a renewed vision of socialism.