Noam Chomsky

Noam Chomsky

Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is an Institute Professor of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and creator of the Chomsky hierarchy, a classification of formal languages. His works in generative linguistics contributed significantly to the decline of behaviorism and led to the advancement of the cognitive sciences. Outside of his linguistic work, Chomsky is also widely known for his radical left-wing political views and his criticism of the foreign policy of U.S. government. Chomsky describes himself as a libertarian socialist and a supporter of anarcho-syndicalism.

Contents [showhide]

1 Biography 2 Contributions to linguistics 2.1 Generative grammar 2.2 Chomsky hierarchy 2.3 Criticisms of Chomsky's linguistics 3 Contributions to psychology 4 Criticism of science culture 5 Political views 5.1 Chomsky on terrorism 5.2 Criticism of the United States government 5.3 Views on socialism 5.4 Mass media analysis 5.5 Chomsky and the Middle East 5.6 Criticism 6 Chomsky's influence in other fields 7 Bibliography 7.1 Linguistics 7.2 Political works 8 About Chomsky 9 See also 10 External links 10.1 Select speeches and interviews 10.2 Select articles 10.3 Criticism of Chomsky

Biography

Chomsky was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of Hebrew scholar William Chomsky. Starting in 1945, he studied philosophy and linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania, learning from Zellig Harris, a professor of linguistics whose political views he identified with.

Receiving his Ph.D. in linguistics from the University of Pennsylvania in 1955, Chomsky had conducted most of his research the previous four years at Harvard University as a Harvard Junior Fellow. In his doctoral thesis, he began to develop some of his linguistic ideas, elaborating on them in his 1957 book Syntactic Structures, perhaps his best-known work in the field of linguistics.

After receiving his doctorate, Chomsky taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for 19 years, receiving the first award from the Ferrari P. Ward Chair of Modern Languages and linguistics. It was during this time that Chomsky became more publicly engaged in politics, arguing against American involvement in the Vietnam War from around 1964. In 1969, Chomsky published American Power and the New Mandarins, a book of essays also on the Vietnam War. Since that time, Chomsky has become well known for his political views, speaking on politics all over the world, and writing several other books on the subject. His beliefs, broadly classified as libertarian socialism, have earned him both a large following among the left, as well as many detractors on all sides of the political spectrum. He has continued to write and teach on linguistics, as well.

Contributions to linguistics

Syntactic Structures was a distillation of his book Logical Structure of Linguistic Theory (1955,75) in which he introduces transformational grammars. The theory takes utterances (words, phrases, and sentences) to correspond to abstract "surface structures," which in turn correspond to more abstract "deep structures." (The hard and fast distinction between surface and deep structure is absent in current versions of the theory.) Transformational rules, along with phrase structure rules and other structural principles, govern both the creation and interpretation of utterances. With a limited set of grammar rules and a finite set of terms, man is able to produce an infinite number of sentences, including sentences nobody has ever said before. The capability to structure our utterances in this way is innate, a part of the genetic endowment of human beings, and is called universal grammar. We are largely unconscious of these structural principles, as we are of most other biological and cognitive properties.

Recent theories of Chomsky's (such as his Minimalist Program) make strong claims regarding universal grammar — that the grammatical principles underlying languages are completely fixed and innate, and the differences among the world's languages can be characterized in terms of parameter settings in the brain (such as the pro-drop parameter, which indicates whether an explicit subject is always required, as in English, or can be optionally dropped, as in Spanish), which are often likened to switches. (Hence the term principles and parameters, often given to this approach.) In this view, a child learning a language need only acquire the necessary lexical items (words) and morphemes, and determine the appropriate parameter settings, which can be done based on a few key examples.

This approach is motivated by the astonishing pace at which children learn languages, the similar steps followed by children all across the world when learning languages, and the fact that children make certain characteristic errors as they learn their first language, whereas other seemingly logical kinds of errors never occur (and, according to Chomsky, should be attested if a purely general, rather than language-specific, learning mechanism is being employed).

Chomsky's ideas have had a strong influence on researchers investigating the acquisition of language in children, but most researchers who work in this area do not support Chomsky's theories, often preferring emergentist or connectionist theories based around general processing mechanisms in the brain. However, virtually all linguistic theories are controversial, and there is ongoing work on language acquisition from a Chomskyan perspective.

Generative grammar

The Chomskyan approach towards syntax, often termed generative grammar, though quite popular, has been challenged by many, especially those working outside the United States. Chomskyan syntactic analyses are often highly abstract, and are based heavily on careful investigation of the border between grammatical and ungrammatical constructs in a language. (Compare this to the so-called pathological cases that play a similarly important role in mathematics.) Such grammaticality judgments can only be made accurately by a native speaker, however, and thus for pragmatic reasons such linguists usually (but by no means exclusively) focus on their own native languages or languages in which they are fluent, usually English, French, German, Dutch, Italian, Japanese or one of the Chinese languages. Sometimes generative grammar analyses break down when applied to languages which have not previously been studied, and many changes in generative grammar have occurred due to an increase in the number of languages analysed. However, the claims made about linguistic universals have become stronger rather than weaker over time; for example Kayne's suggestion in the 1990s that all languages have an underlying Subject-Verb-Object word order would have seemed implausible in the 1960s. One of the prime motivations behind an alternative approach, the functional-typological approach or linguistic typology (often associated with Joseph H. Greenberg), is to base hypotheses of linguistic universals on the study of as wide a variety of the world's languages as possible, to classify the variation seen, and to form theories based on the results of this classification. The Chomskyan approach is too in-depth and reliant on native speaker knowledge to follow this method, though it has over time been applied to a broad range of languages.

Chomsky hierarchy

Chomsky is famous for investigating various kinds of formal languages and whether or not they might be capable of capturing key properties of human language. His Chomsky hierarchy partitions formal grammars into classes with increasing expressive power, i.e., each successive class can generate a broader set of formal languages than the one before. Interestingly, Chomsky argues that modelling some aspects of human language requires a more complex formal grammar (as measured by the Chomsky hierarchy) than modeling others. For example, while a regular language is powerful enough to model English morphology, it is not powerful enough to model English syntax. In addition to being relevant in linguistics, the Chomsky hierarchy has also become important in computer science (especially in compiler construction and automata theory).

His seminal work in phonology was The sound pattern of English. He published it together with Morris Halle. This work is considered outdated (though it has recently been reprinted), and he does not publish on phonology anymore.

Criticisms of Chomsky's linguistics

Although Chomsky's is the best known position in linguistics his views have been criticised. Perhaps the best known alternative to Chomsky's position is that proposed by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson. Their cognitive linguistics developed out of Chomskyan linguistics but differs from it in significant ways. Specifically, they argue against the neo-Cartesian aspects of Chomsky's theories, and state that Chomsky fails to take account of the extent to which cognition is embodied. As noted above, connectionist views of learning are not compatible with Chomsky's. Also, newer movements in psychology, such as, for example, situated cognition and discursive psychology are not compatible with Chomsky's views.

In a much more radical way, philosophers in the tradition of Wittgenstein (such as Saul Kripke) argue that Chomskyans are fundamentally wrong about the role of rule following in human cognition. In a similar way philosophers in the phenomenological/existential/hermeneutic traditions oppose the abstract neo-rationalist aspects of Chomsky's thought. The contemporary philosopher who best represents this view is, perhaps, Hubert Dreyfus, also famous (or notorious) for his attacks on artificial intelligence.

Contributions to psychology

Chomsky's work in linguistics has had major implications for psychology and its fundamental direction in the 20th century. His theory of a universal grammar was a direct challenge to the established behaviorist theories of the time and had major consequences for understanding how language is learned by children and what, exactly, is the ability to interpret language. The more basic principles of this theory (though not necessarily the stronger claims made by the principles and parameters approach described above) are now generally accepted.

In 1959, Chomsky published a long-circulated critique of B.F. Skinner's Verbal Behavior, a book in which the leader of the behaviorist psychologists that had dominated psychology in the first half of the 20th century argued that language was merely a "behavior." Skinner argued that language, like any other behavior — from a dog's salivation in anticipation of dinner, to a master pianist's performance — could be attributed to "training by reward and penalty over time." Language, according to Skinner, was completely learned by cues and conditioning from the world around the language-learner.

Chomsky's critique of Skinner's methodology and basic assumptions paved the way for a revolution against the behaviorist doctrine that had governed psychology. In his 1966 Cartesian Linguistics and subsequent works, Chomsky laid out an explanation of human language faculties that has become the model for investigation in other areas of psychology. Much of the present conception of how the mind works draws directly from ideas that found their first persuasive author of modern times in Chomsky.

There are three key ideas. First is that the mind is "cognitive", or that the mind actually contains mental states, beliefs, doubts, and so on. The former view had denied even this, arguing that there were only "stimulus-response" relationships like "If you ask me if I want X, I will say yes". By contrast, Chomsky showed that the common way of understanding the mind, as having things like beliefs and even unconscious mental states, had to be right. Second, he argued that large parts of what the adult mind can do are "innate". While no child is born automatically able to speak a language, all are born with a powerful language-learning ability which allows them to soak up several languages very quickly in their early years. Subsequent psychologists have extended this thesis far beyond language; the mind is no longer considered a "blank slate" at birth.

Finally, Chomsky made the concept of "modularity" a critical feature of the mind's cognitive architecture. The mind is composed of an array of interacting, specialized subsystems with limited flows of inter-communication. This model contrasts sharply with the old idea that any piece of information in the mind could be accessed by any other cognitive process (optical illusions, for example, cannot be "turned off" even when they are known to be illusions).

Criticism of science culture

Chomsky has written strong refutations of deconstructionist and postmodern criticisms of science:

"I have spent a lot of my life working on questions such as these, using the only methods I know of; those condemned here as 'science,' 'rationality,' 'logic,' and so on. I therefore read the papers with some hope that they would help me 'transcend' these limitations, or perhaps suggest an entirely different course. I'm afraid I was disappointed. Admittedly, that may be my own limitation. Quite regularly, 'my eyes glaze over' when I read polysyllabic discourse on the themes of poststructuralism and postmodernism; what I understand is largely truism or error, but that is only a fraction of the total word count. True, there are lots of other things I don't understand: the articles in the current issues of math and physics journals, for example. But there is a difference. In the latter case, I know how to get to understand them, and have done so, in cases of particular interest to me; and I also know that people in these fields can explain the contents to me at my level, so that I can gain what (partial) understanding I may want. In contrast, no one seems to be able to explain to me why the latest post-this-and-that is (for the most part) other than truism, error, or gibberish, and I do not know how to proceed."

Chomsky notes that critiques of "white male science" are much like the anti-Semitic and politically motivated attacks against "Jewish physics" used by the Nazis to denigrate research done by Jewish scientists during the Deutsche Physik movement:

"In fact, the entire idea of 'white male science' reminds me, I'm afraid, of 'Jewish physics.' Perhaps it is another inadequacy of mine, but when I read a scientific paper, I can't tell whether the author is white or is male. The same is true of discussion of work in class, the office, or somewhere else. I rather doubt that the non-white, non-male students, friends, and colleagues with whom I work would be much impressed with the doctrine that their thinking and understanding differ from 'white male science' because of their 'culture or gender and race.' I suspect that 'surprise' would not be quite the proper word for their reaction." [1] (http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/articles/95-science.html)

Political views

Noam Chomsky at World Social Forum 2003.

Chomsky is one of the most well-known figures of left-wing American politics. He defines himself in the tradition of anarchism, a political philosophy he summarizes as challenging all forms of hierarchy and attempting to eliminate them if they are unjustified. He especially identifies with the labor-oriented anarcho-syndicalist current of anarchism. Unlike many anarchists, Chomsky does not always object to electoral politics; he has even endorsed candidates for office. He has described himself as a "fellow traveller" to the anarchist tradition as opposed to a pure anarchist to explain why he is sometimes willing to engage with the state.

Chomsky has also stated that he considers himself to be a conservative (Chomsky's Politics, pp. 188) presumably of the classical liberal variety. He has further defined himself as a Zionist; although, he notes that his definition of Zionism is considered by most to be anti-Zionism these days, the result of what he perceives to have been a shift (since the 1940s) in the meaning of Zionism (Chomsky Reader). In a C-Span Book TV interview, he stated:

"I have always supported a Jewish ethnic homeland in Palestine. That is different from a Jewish state. There's a strong case to be made for an ethnic homeland, but as to whether there should be a Jewish state, or a Muslim state, or a Christian state, or a white state — that's entirely another matter."

Overall, Chomsky is not fond of traditional political titles and categories and prefers to let his views speak for themselves. His main modes of actions include writing magazine articles and books and making speaking engagements. He has a large following of supporters worldwide, leading him to schedule speaking engagements sometimes up to two years in advance. He was one of the main speakers at the 2002 World Social Forum.

Chomsky on terrorism

Chomsky differs from conventional views in that he sees state terrorism, as opposed to terrorism by fringe political movements, as the predominating form. He clearly distinguishes between the targeting of civilians and the targeting of military personnel or installations, thereby demonstrating that in his view causes, reasons or goals do not justify acts of terrorism. For Chomsky, terrorism is objective, not relative. He states in his book 9-11:

"Wanton killing of innocent civilians is terrorism, not a war against terrorism." (pp. 76)

On the efficiency of terrorism:

"One is the fact that terrorism works. It doesn't fail. It works. Violence usually works. That's world history. Secondly, it's a very serious analytic error to say, as is commonly done, that terrorism is the weapon of the weak. Like other means of violence, it's primarily a weapon of the strong, overwhelmingly, in fact. It is held to be a weapon of the weak because the strong also control the doctrinal systems and their terror doesn't count as terror. Now that's close to universal. I can't think of a historical exception, even the worst mass murderers view the world that way. So take the Nazis. They weren't carrying out terror in occupied Europe. They were protecting the local population from the terrorisms of the partisans. And like other resistance movements, there was terrorism. The Nazis were carrying out counter terror."

Criticism of the United States government

He has been a consistent and outspoken critic of the United States government. In his book 9-11, a series of interviews about the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, he claims, as he has done before, that the United States government is the leading terrorist state in modern times.

Chomsky has criticized the government for its involvement in the Vietnam War and the larger Indochina conflict, as well as its interference in Central and South American countries and its military support of Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey. Chomsky focuses his most intense criticism on official friends of the United States government while criticizing official enemies like the former Soviet Union and North Vietnam only in passing. He explains this by the following principle: it is more important to evaluate actions which you have more possibility of affecting. His criticism of the former Soviet Union and China must have had some effect in those countries; both countries banned his work from publication.

Chomsky has repeatedly emphasized his theory that much of the United States' foreign policy is based on the "threat of a good example" (which he says is another name for the domino theory). The "threat of a good example" is that a country could successfully develop independently from capitalism and the United States' influences, thus presenting a model for other countries, including countries in which the United States has strong economic interests. This, Chomsky says, has prompted the United States to repeatedly intervene to quell "socialist" or other "independence" movements in regions of the world where it has no significant economic or safety interests. In one of his most famous works, What Uncle Sam Really Wants, Chomsky uses this particular theory as an explanation for the United States' interventions in Guatemala, Laos, Nicaragua, and Grenada.

Chomsky believes the US government's Cold War policies were not entirely shaped by anti-Soviet paranoia, but rather toward preserving the United States' ideological and economic dominance in the world. As he wrote in Uncle Sam: "...What the US wants is 'stability,' meaning security for the "upper classes and large foreign enterprises."

Views on socialism

Chomsky is deeply opposed to what he calls "corporate state capitalism" practiced by the United States and its allies. He supports Mikhail Bakunin's anarchist (or "libertarian socialist") ideas, requiring economic freedom in addition to the "control of production by the workers themselves, not owners and managers who rule them and control all decisions." He refers to this as "real socialism," and describes Soviet-style socialism as similar in terms of "totalitarian controls" to U.S.-style capitalism, saying that each is a system based in types and levels of control, rather than in organization or efficiency. In defense of this thesis, Chomsky sometimes points out that Frederick Winslow Taylor's philosophy of scientific management was the organizational basis for the Soviet Union's massive industrialization movement as well as the American corporate model.

Chomsky has illuminated Bakunin's comments on the totalitarian state as predictions for the brutal Soviet police state that would come. He echoes Bakunin's statement "...after a year" [..] "the revolutionary will become worse than the czar himself," which expands upon the idea that the tyrannical Soviet state was simply a natural growth from the Bolshevik ideology of state control. He has also termed Soviet communism as "fake socialism," and said that contrary to what many in America claim, the collapse of the Soviet Union should be regarded "a small victory for socialism," not capitalism.

In For Reasons of State Chomsky advocates that instead of a capitalist system in which people are "wage slaves" or an authoritarian system in which decisions are made by a centralized committee, a society could function with no paid labor. He argues that a nation's populace should be free to pursue jobs of their choosing. People will be free to do as they like, and the work they voluntarily choose will be both "rewarding in itself" and "socially useful." Society would be run under a system of peaceful anarchism, with no state or government institutions.

Mass media analysis

Another focus of Chomsky's political work has been an analysis of mainstream mass media (especially in the United States), its structures and constraints, and its role in supporting big business and government interests. Unlike totalitarian systems, where physical force can readily be used to coerce the general population, democratic societies like the US can only make use of non-violent means of control (despite minor instances of state violence). In an often-quoted remark, Chomsky states that "propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state." (Media Control) His book Manufacturing Consent — The Political Economy of the Mass Media, co-authored with Edward S. Herman, explores this topic in depth, and presents the theory behind the analysis incorporated in subsequent works.

The "Propaganda model" developed by Chomsky and Herman in Manufacturing Consent explains systemic bias of the mass media in terms of structural economic causes rather than conspiracy. The private media are profit-oriented businesses selling a product - readers and audiences rather than news - to other businesses (advertisers). This view is based on the observation that for example newspapers derive most of their revenue from advertisement rather than sales, and that elite audiences are a far more lucrative "product" to sell. In addition, the news media are dependent on government institutions and major businesses for information sources. This constellation causes information to pass through several "filters" that influence the choice of news stories and the way in which they are reported. The individuals and organisations involved in the "filtering" act independently and usually in good faith but they tend to share common elite views and similar interests. The model describes a decentralised and non-conspiratorial but powerful propaganda system that is able to mobilize an elite consensus, frame public debate within elite perspectives and at the same time give the appearance of democratic consent.

Since the Propaganda model would predict that reporting in the private media is biased towards elite interests, allowing Chomsky and Herman to test their model empirically. They picked pairs of events that were similar but on which elite interests differed and showed that news coverage was highly biased. In addition they say that their model was confirmed in cases that are usually held up as the best examples of a free and independent press, such as the Vietnam War, Watergate, and the Iran-Contra Affair.

Chomsky and the Middle East

Chomsky "grew up...in the Jewish-Zionist cultural tradition" (Peck, p. 11). His father was one of the foremost scholars of the Hebrew language and taught at a religious school. Chomsky has also had a long fascination with and involvement in left-wing Zionist politics. As he described:

"I was deeply interested in...Zionist affairs and activities — or what was then called 'Zionist,' though the same ideas and concerns are now called 'anti-Zionist.' I was interested in socialist, binationalist options for Palestine, and in the kibbutzim and the whole cooperative labor system that had developed in the Jewish settlement there (the Yishuv)...The vague ideas I had at the time [1947] were to go to Palestine, perhaps to a kibbutz, to try to become involved in efforts at Arab-Jewish cooperation within a socialist framework, opposed to the deeply antidemocratic concept of a jewish state (a position that was considered well within the mainstream of Zionism)." (Peck, p. 7)

He is highly critical of the policies of Israel towards the Palestinians and its Arab neighbours. Among many articles and books, his book The Fateful Triangle is considered one of the premier texts among those who oppose Israeli treatment of Palestinians and American support for Israeli government policies. He has also condemned Israel's role in "guiding state terrorism" for selling weapons to apartheid South Africa and Latin American countries that he characterizes as U.S. puppet states, e.g. Guatemala in the 1970s, as well as US-backed right-wing paramilitaries (or, according to Chomsky, terrorists) such as the Nicaraguan Contras — see Iran-Contra Scandal. (What Uncle Sam Really Wants, Chapter 2.4) In addition, he has consistently condemned the United States for its unconditional military, financial and diplomatic support of successive Israeli governments. Chomsky characterises Israel as a "mercenary state" within the US system of hegemony. He has also fiercely criticised sectors of the American Jewish community for their role in obtaining unconditional US support, stating that "they should more properly be called 'supporters of the moral degeneration and ultimate destruction of Israel'" (Fateful Triangle, p.4).He says of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL):

"The leading official monitor of anti-Semitism, the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, interprets anti-Semitism as unwillingness to conform to its requirements with regard to support for Israeli authorities.... The logic is straightforward: Anti-Semitism is opposition to the interests of Israel (as the ADL sees them).

"The ADL has virtually abandoned its earlier role as a civil rights organization, becoming 'one of the main pillars' of Israeli propaganda in the U.S., as the Israeli press casually describes it, engaged in surveillance, blacklisting, compilation of FBI-style files circulated to adherents for the purpose of defamation, angry public responses to criticism of Israeli actions, and so on. These efforts, buttressed by insinuations of anti-Semitism or direct accusations, are intended to deflect or undermine opposition to Israeli policies, including Israel's refusal, with U.S. support, to move towards a general political settlement." Necessary Illusions (http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/ni/ni-c10-s20.html)

Middle East Politics, speech Columbia University 1999 (http://sources.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_East_Policy_(Chomsky))

Criticism

Over the years, Chomsky has been involved in many public disagreements over policy and scholarship, both on ideological and academic grounds. His foreign policy writings remain very controversial, and Chomsky has both conservative and left wing critics, who dispute his writings and political interpretations of world events. Some of his more prominent critics include Alan Dershowitz and Christopher Hitchens.

Critics of Chomsky's political and historical writings sometimes accuse him of using out of context quotations and facts to support his arguments, or citing sources of dubious legitimacy. As well, many critics accuse him of overlooking, sympathizing, or minimizing the actions of states and groups hostile to the United States, thus making his work excessively US-centric and one-sided. However, Chomsky's books rigorously and extensively cite their sources; Chomsky also explains his focus on the US by the responsibility to hold one's own government to account and the increased likelihood that such criticism will affect the government's actions.

In After the Cataclysm: Postwar Indochina and the Reconstruction of Imperial Ideology, Chomsky and Herman, claimed that the American media used unsubstantiated refugee testimonies and distorted sources with regard to the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge to serve US government propaganda purposes in the wake of the Vietnam War. Some critics, such as Anthony Lewis, accused Chomsky of being a Pol Pot apologist. Chomsky argued that he had acknowledged the attrocities (e.g. stating in After the Cataclysm that "there is no difficulty in documenting major atrocities and oppression, primarily from the testimony of refugees"). In Manufacturing Consent (also cowritten with Ed Herman), Chomsky responds:

As we also noted from the first paragraph of our earlier review of this material [i.e. After the Cataclysm]..."when the facts are in, it may turn out that the more extreme condemnations [of the Khmer Rouge] are in fact correct", although if so, "it will in no way alter the conclusions we have reached on the central questions addressed here: how the available facts were selected, modified, or sometimes invented to create a certain image offered to the general population. The answer to this question seems clear, and it is unaffected by whatever may yet be discovered about Cambodia in the future."...

This review of an impressive propaganda exercise aroused great outrage — not at all surprisingly: the response within Soviet domains is similar, as are the reasons, when dissidents expose propaganda fabrications with regard to the United States, Israel and other official enemies. Indignant commentators depicted us as "apologists for Khmer Rouge Crimes" — in a study that denounces Khmer Rouge atrocities (a fact always surpressed), and then proceeded to demonstrate the remarkable character of Western propaganda, our topic throughout the two-volume study in which this chapter appeared.

Some scholars who reviewed this controversy, such as Milan Rai, consider it to have been part of a propaganda campaign against Chomsky, designed to generate "endless defence" in response to critics in order to distract attention from the substantive issues.

Conservative author David Horowitz, one of Chomsky's more prominent critics, has described Chomsky's as the "Ayatollah of Anti-American Hate" for what he describes as Chomsky's fundamental hatred of the United States. According to Horowitz, Chomsky's historical analysis are always written from a pre-determined perspective in which the government of the United States- regardless of the party in power, the time period, or the issue at hand- will always be viewed as both the instigator and the antagonist in any global crisis. He thus accuses Chomsky of routinely ignoring or ommiting relevant facts of history, especially the actions of other nations and regimes at the time, that may provide a deeper context for the crimes and atrocities he accuses the United States of committing. In an anti-Chomsky pamphlet entitled "The Sick Mind of Noam Chomsky" (later reproduced in a larger "Anti-Chomsky Reader") Horowitz criticized Chomsky's criticism of United States policy during the Cold War saying:

In Chomsky’s telling, the bi-polar world of the Cold War is viewed as though there were only one pole. In the real world, the Cold War was about America’s effort to organize a democratic coalition against an expansionist empire that conquered and enslaved more than a billion people. [...] In Chomsky’s world, the Soviet empire hardly exists, not a single American action is seen as a response to a Soviet initiative, and the Cold War is "analyzed" as though it had only one side. This is like writing a history of the Second World War without mentioning Hitler.

Chomsky has not responded in detail to Horowitz's allegations, stating in an interview that "I haven't read Horowitz. I didn't read him when he was a Stalinist and I don't read him today" [2] (http://www.robert-fisk.com/chomsky_interview7_oct18_2001.htm). This response has in turn been disputed by Horowitz himself, who argues he was never in fact a Stalinist and that Chomsky has in fact read and analyzed his writings in the past.

Francis Wheen criticized Chomsky as a leading "intellectual quack" in his book How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World arguing that Chomsky uses an "inexhaustible hoard of analogies and precedents" as distractions, allowing him to avoid addressing certain issues. Wheen accuses Chomsky of constantly bringing up certain "favorite" topics, such as Western support for the East Timor massacres of the 70's, to avoid having to take sides on more contemporary political issues.

More recently, Chomsky was criticized for his claim that reports from both Human Rights Watch and the German Embassy when he alleged that the US attack on the al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory "probably led to tens of thousands of deaths" of Sudanese civilians [3] (http://www.salon.com/people/letters/2002/01/22/chomsky/index.html). Chomsky responded that "killing unknown numbers of people, no one knows because ... no one cares to pursue it" [4] (http://www.salon.com/people/letters/2002/01/29/chomsky/).

Chomsky was also involved in a high-profile controversy over an essay he wrote in defence of the right to freedom of speech of Holocaust denier Robert Faurisson, which was then used as the introduction to a book by Faurisson. See: Faurisson Affair.

Chomsky's influence in other fields

Chomskyan models have been used as a theoretical basis in several other fields. The Chomsky hierarchy is usually taught in fundamental Computer Science courses as it confers insight into the various types of formal languages. A number of arguments in evolutionary psychology are derived from his research results.

The 1984 Nobel Prize laureate in Medicine and Physiology, Niels K. Jerne, used Chomsky's generative model to explain the human immune system, equating "components of a generative grammar ... with various features of protein structures". The title of Jerne's Stockholm Nobel lecture was "The Generative Grammar of the Immune System".

Bibliography

See a full bibliography on Chomsky's MIT homepage [5] (http://web.mit.edu/linguistics/www/bibliography/noam.html).

Linguistics

• Chomsky, Noam, Morris Halle, and Fred Lukoff (1956). "On accent and juncture in English." In For Roman Jakobson. The Hague: Mouton
• Syntactic Structures (1957). The Hague: Mouton. Reprint. Berlin and New York (1985).
• Chomsky (1965). Aspects of the Theory of Syntax. Cambridge: The MIT Press.
• Chomsky (1965). Cartesian Linguistics. New York: Harper and Row. Reprint. Cartesian Linguistics. A Chapter in the History of Rationalist Thought. Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America, 1986.
• Chomsky, Noam, and Morris Halle (1968). The Sound Pattern of English. New York: Harper & Row.
• Chomsky (1981). Lectures on Government and Binding: The Pisa Lectures. Holland: Foris Publications. Reprint. 7th Edition. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 1993.
• Chomsky (1986). Barriers. Linguistic Inquiry Monograph Thirteen. Cambridge, MA and London: The MIT Press.
• Chomsky, Noam (1995). The Minimalist Program. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

Political works

• Chomsky (1960). American Power and the New Mandarins. New York: Pantheon.
• Chomsky (1970). At War with Asia. New York: Pantheon.
• Chomsky (1971). Problems of Knowledge and Freedom: The Russell Lectures. New York: Pantheon.
• Chomsky (1973). For Reasons of State. New York: Pantheon.
• Chomsky & Herman, Edward (1973). Counter-Revolutionary Violence: Bloodbaths in Fact and Propaganda. Andover, MA: Warner Modular. Module no. 57.
• Chomsky (1974). Peace in the Middle East: Reflections on Justice and Nationhood. New York: Pantheon.
• Chomsky (1979). Language and Responsibility. New York: Pantheon.
• Chomsky & Herman, Edward (1979). Political Economy of Human Rights (two volumes). Boston: South End Press. ISBN 0896080900 and ISBN 0896081001
• Otero, C.P. (Ed.) (1981, 2003). Radical Priorities. Montréal: Black Rose; Stirling, Scotland: AK Press.
• Chomsky & Pilger, John (1982). Towards a New Cold War: Essays on the Current Crisis and How We Got There. New York: Pantheon.
• Chomsky (1983, 1999). The Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel, and the Palestinians. Boston: South End Press. ISBN 0896086011
• Chomsky (1985). Turning the Tide: U.S. Intervention in Central America and the Struggle for Peace. Boston: South End Press.
• Chomsky (1986). Pirates and Emperors: International Terrorism and the Real World. New York: Claremont Research and Publications.
• Chomsky (1987). On Power and Ideology: The Managua Lectures. Boston: South End Press.
• Peck, James (Ed.) (1987). Chomsky Reader ISBN 0394751736
• Chomsky (1988). The Culture of Terrorism. Boston: South End Press.
• Chomsky & Herman, Edward (1988, 2002). Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. New York: Pantheon.
• Chomsky (1989). Necessary Illusions (http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/ni/ni-overview.html). Boston: South End Press.
• Chomsky (1989). Language and Politics. Montréal: Black Rose.
• Chomsky (1991). Terrorizing the Neighborhood: American Foreign Policy in the Post-Cold War Era. Stirling, Scotland: AK Press.
• Chomsky (1992). Deterring Democracy. New York: Hill and Wang.
• Chomsky (1992). Chronicles of Dissent. Monroe, ME: Common Courage Press.
• Chomsky (1992). What Uncle Sam Really Wants (http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/sam/). Berkeley: Odonian Press.
• Chomsky (1993). Year 501: The Conquest Continues. Boston: South End Press.
• Chomsky (1993). Rethinking Camelot: JFK, the Vietnam War, and U.S. Political Culture. Boston: South End Press.
• Chomsky (1993). Letters from Lexington: Reflections on Propaganda. Monroe, ME: Common Courage Press.
• Chomsky (1993). The Prosperous Few and the Restless Many. Berkeley: Odonian Press.
• Chomsky (1994). Keeping the Rabble in Line. Monroe, ME: Common Courage Press.
• Chomsky (1994). World Orders Old and New. New York: Columbia University Press.
• Chomsky (1996). Class Warfare. Pluto Press.
• Chomsky (1999). Profit Over People. Seven Stories Press.
• Chomsky (2000). Rogue States: The Rule of Force in World Affairs. Cambridge: South End Press.
• Chomsky (2001). 9-11. Seven Stories Press.
• Mitchell, Peter & Schoeffel, John (Ed.) (2002). Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky (http://understandingpower.com).
• Chomsky (2003). Hegemony or Survival. Metropolitan Books. (Part of the American Empire Project.)

About Chomsky

• Hitchens, Christopher (1985, Autumn). "The Chorus and Cassandra (http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/other/85-hitchens.html)", Grand Street
• Roy, Arundhati (2003). "The Loneliness of Noam Chomsky (http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/mag/2003/08/24/stories/2003082400020100.htm)", The Hindu
• Rai, Milan (1995). Chomsky's Politics
• Horowitz, David, et al. (2004). The Anti-Chomsky Reader

See also

• language acquisition
• Chomskybot
• Chomsky hierarchy
• Important publications in computability
• "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously."
• Intellectual worker
• Nim Chimpsky

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations by or about Noam Chomsky.

Wikisource has original works written by or about Noam Chomsky.

• The Official Noam Chomsky Website (http://www.chomsky.info)
• Turning the Tide (http://blog.zmag.org/bloggers/?blogger=chomsky) — The Official Blog of Noam Chomsky (subset of his forum replies, link below)
• Chomsky's MIT homepage (http://web.mit.edu/linguistics/www/chomsky.home.html)
• ZNet: Noam Chomsky Archive (http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/)
• Bad News: Noam Chomsky Archive (http://monkeyfist.com/tmp/BN/)
• e-text.org: Noam Chomsky Archive of Texts (http://www.e-text.org/text/)
• A-Infos Radio Project: Talks by Noam Chomsky (http://www.radio4all.net/index.php?op=search&nav=&session=&searchtext=chomsky) — MP3 format.
• Noam Chomsky Replies to Daily Questions from Members of the ZNet Forum (http://forum.zmag.org/search?str=noam%20AND%20chomsky%20AND%20replies%20AND%20reply%20AND%20nc&offset=0&confs=5&detail=0&sort=1&fromdate=&todate=) — You might need to log in as a guest here (http://forum.zmag.org/~ZNetCmt) first.

Select speeches and interviews

• The New War Against Terror (http://www.zmag.org/globalwatch/chomskymit.htm) — The Technology & Culture Forum at MIT, October 18, 2001; Transcript, RealAudio format.
• The World After September 11th (http://www.c-span.org/search/basic.asp?ResultStart=1&ResultCount=10&BasicQueryText=chomsky&image1.x=30&image1.y=6) — December 8, 2001; Provided by C-SPAN in RealVideo format.
• C-SPAN Book TV In Depth 3 Hours Interview (http://www.booktv.org/feature/index.asp?segid=3562&schedID=195) — June 1, 2003; RealVideo format.
• Ohio State University Debate (http://www.radio4all.net/index.php?op=program-info&program_id=8409) — Noam Chomsky vs. Richard Perle, 1988; MP3 format.
• Noam Chomsky on Charlie Rose (http://media5.bloomberg.com:443/cgi-bin/getavfile.cgi?A=22615137) - November 20, 2003; RealAudio format.
• Talk and Q&A at Boston College (http://frontrow.bc.edu/program/chomsky/) — March 23, 2003; RealVideo format.

Select articles

• Chomsky on Socialism (http://mediafilter.org/caq/CAQ54chmky.html)
• Chomsky on Anarchism (http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/rbr/noamrbr2.html)
• Commentary on Chomsky and Anarchism (http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/interviews/9612-anarchism.html)
• The Legitimacy of Violence as a Political Act (http://www.chomsky.info/debates/19671215.htm)

Criticism of Chomsky

• The Hypocrisy of Noam Chomsky, by Keith Windschuttle (http://www.newcriterion.com/archive/21/may03/chomsky.htm)
• Partners in Hate: Noam Chomsky and the Holocaust Deniers, by Werner Cohn (http://www.mega.nu:8080/ampp/cohn_on_chomsky.html)
• The Sick Mind of Noam Chomsky, by David Horowitz (http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=1020)
• Dissecting Chomsky and Anti-Americanism by George Shadroui (http://www.intellectualconservative.com/article3754.html)
• America's Dumbest Intellectual, by Stefan Kanfer (http://www.city-journal.org/html/12_3_urbanities-americas_dumbe.html)

Linguistics

Linguistics

Theoretical linguistics

Phonetics

Phonology

Morphology

Syntax

Semantics

Lexical semantics

Stylistics

Prescription

Pragmatics

Applied linguistics

Sociolinguistics

Cognitive linguistics

Historical linguistics

Etymology

Broadly conceived, linguistics is the study of human language, and a linguist is someone who engages in this study. The study of linguistics can be thought of along three major axes, the endpoints of which are described below:

• Synchronic and diachronic -- Synchronic study of a language is concerned with its form at a given moment; diachronic study covers the history of a language (group) and its structural changes over time.
• Theoretical and applied -- Theoretical linguistics is concerned with frameworks for describing individual languages and theories about universal aspects of language; applied lingusitics applies these theories to other fields.
• Contextual and independent -- Contextual linguistics is concerned with how language fits into the world: its social function, how it is acquired, how it is produced and perceived. Independent linguistics considers languages for their own sake, aside from the externalities related to a language. Terms for this dichotomy are not yet well established--the Encyclopædia Britannica uses macrolinguistics and microlinguistics instead.

Given these dichotomies, scholars who call themselves simply linguists or theoretical linguists, with no further qualification, tend to be concerned with independent, theoretical synchronic linguistics, which is acknowledged as the core of the discipline.

Linguistic inquiry is pursued by a wide variety of specialists, who may not all be in harmonious agreement; as Russ Rymer flamboyantly puts it:

"Linguistics is arguably the most hotly contested property in the academic realm. It is soaked with the blood of poets, theologians, philosophers, philologists, psychologists, biologists, and neurologists, along with whatever blood can be got out of grammarians." 1

Contents [showhide]

1 Areas of theoretical linguistics 2 Diachronic linguistics 3 Applied linguistics 4 Contextual linguistics 5 Individual speakers, language communities, and linguistic universals 6 Prescription and description 7 Speech versus writing 8 Research areas of linguistics 9 Interdisciplinary linguistic research 10 Important linguists and schools of thought 11 Representation of speech 12 Narrower conceptions of "linguistics" 13 See also 14 References 14.1 Textbooks 14.2 Academic works 14.3 Popular Works 14.4 Reference Books 15 External links

Areas of theoretical linguistics

Theoretical linguistics is often divided into a number of separate areas, to be studied more or less independently. The following divisions are currently widely acknowledged:

• phonetics, the study of the different sounds that are employed across all human languages;
• phonology, the study of patterns of a language's basic sounds;
• morphology, the study of the internal structure of words;
• syntax, the study of how words combine to form grammatical sentences
• semantics, the study of the meaning of words (lexical semantics), and how these combine to form the meanings of sentences;
• stylistics, the study of style in languages;
• pragmatics, the study of how utterances are used (literally, figuratively, or otherwise) in communicative acts;

The independent significance of each of these areas is not universally acknowledged, however, and nearly all linguists would agree that the divisions overlap considerably. Nevertheless, each subarea has core concepts that foster significant scholarly inquiry and research.

Diachronic linguistics

Whereas the core of theoretical linguistics is concerned with studying languages at a particular point in time (usually the present), diachronic linguistics examines how language changes through time, sometimes over centuries. Historical linguistics enjoys both a rich history (the study of linguistics grew out of historical linguistics) and a strong theoretical foundation for the study of language change.

In American universities, the non-historic perspective seems to have the upper hand. Many introductory linguistics classes, for example, cover historical linguistics only cursorily. The shift in focus to a non-historic perspective started with Saussure and became predominant with Noam Chomsky.

Explicitly historical perspectives include historical-comparative linguistics and etymology.

Applied linguistics

Whereas theoretical linguistics is concerned with finding and describing generalities both within languages and among all languages, as a group, applied linguistics takes the results of those findings and applies them to other areas. Usually applied linguistics refers to the use of linguistic research in language teaching, but linguistics is used in other areas, as well. Speech synthesis and Speech recognition, for example, use linguistic knowledge to provide voice interfaces to computers.

Contextual linguistics

Contextual linguistics is that realm where linguistics interacts with other academic disciplines. Whereas core theoretical linguistics studies languages for their own sake, the interdisciplinary areas of linguistic consider how language interacts with the rest of the world. But that rather depends upon their world-view.

Sociolinguistics, anthropological linguistics, and linguistic anthropology are where the social sciences that consider societies as whole and linguistics interact.

Critical discourse analysis is where rhetoric and philosophy interact with linguistics.

Psycholinguistics and neurolinguistics is the where the medical sciences meets linguistics.

Other cross-disciplinary areas of linguistics include language acquisition, evolutionary linguistics, stratificational linguistics, and cognitive science.

Individual speakers, language communities, and linguistic universals

Linguists also differ in how broad a group of language users they study. Some analyze a given speaker's language or language development in great detail. Some study language pertaining to a whole speech community, such as the language of all those who speak Black English Vernacular. Others try to find linguistic universals that apply, at some abstract level, to all users of human language everywhere. This latter project has been most famously advocated by Noam Chomsky, and it interests many people in psycholinguistics and cognitive science. It is thought that universals in human language may reveal important insight into universals about the human mind.

Prescription and description

Main article: Prescription and description.

Most work currently done under the name "linguistics" is purely descriptive; the linguists seek to clarify the nature of language without passing value judgments or trying to chart future language directions. Nonetheless, there are many professionals and amateurs who also prescribe rules of language, holding a particular standard out for all to follow.

Whereas prescriptivists might want to stamp out what they perceive as "incorrect usage", descriptivists seek to find the root of such usage; they might describe it simply as "idiosyncratic", or they may discover a regularity that the prescriptivists don't like because it is perhaps too new or from a dialect they don't approve of.

Within the context of fieldwork, descriptive linguistics refers to the study of language using a descriptivist (rather than a prescriptivist) approach.

Speech versus writing

Most contemporary linguists work under the assumption that spoken language is more fundamental, and thus more important to study, than writing. Reasons for this standpoint include:

• Speech appears to be a human universal, whereas there are and have been many cultures that lack written communication;
• People learn to speak and process oral language more easily and earlier than writing;
• A number of cognitive scientists argue that the brain has an innate "language module", knowledge of which is thought to come more from studying speech than writing.

Of course, linguists agree that that the study of written language can be worthwhile and valuable. For linguistic research that uses the methods of corpus linguistics and computational linguistics, written language is often much more convenient for processing large amounts of linguistic data. Large corpuses of spoken language are difficult to create and hard to find.

Furthermore, the study of writing systems themselves falls under the aegis of linguistics.

Research areas of linguistics

phonetics, phonology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, etymology, lexicology, lexicography, theoretical linguistics, historical-comparative linguistics and descriptive linguistics, linguistic typology, computational linguistics, corpus linguistics, semiotics.

Interdisciplinary linguistic research

applied linguistics, historical linguistics, orthography, writing systems, comparative linguistics, cryptanalysis, decipherment, sociolinguistics, critical discourse analysis, psycholinguistics, language acquisition, evolutionary linguistics, anthropological linguistics, stratificational linguistics, text linguistics, cognitive science, neurolinguistics, and in computational linguistics there is natural language understanding, speech recognition, speaker recognition (authentication), speech synthesis, and more generally, speech processing

Important linguists and schools of thought

Early scholars of linguistics include Jakob Grimm, who devised the principle of consonantal shifts in pronunciation known as Grimm's Law in 1822, Karl Verner, who discovered Verner's Law, August Schleicher who created the "Stammbaumtheorie" and Johannes Schmidt who developed the "Wellentheorie" ("wave model") in 1872. Ferdinand de Saussure was the founder of modern structural linguistics. Noam Chomsky's formal model of language, transformational-generative grammar, developed under the influence of his teacher Zellig Harris, who was in turn strongly influenced by Leonard Bloomfield, has been the dominant one from the 1960s.

Other important linguists and schools include Michael Halliday, whose systemic functional grammar is pursued widely in the U.K., Canada, Australia, China, and Japan; Dell Hymes, who developed a pragmatic approach called The Ethnography of Speaking; George Lakoff, Leonard Talmy, and Ronald Langacker, who were pioneers in cognitive linguistics; Charles Fillmore and Adele Goldberg, who are associated with construction grammar; and linguists developing several varieties of what they call functional grammar, including Talmy Givon and Robert Van Valin, Jr..

Representation of speech

• International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), a system used to write down and reproduce the sounds of human speech.
• SAMPA, an ASCII-only transcription for the IPA used by some authors. See also the SAMPA home page (http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/sampa/home.htm).

Narrower conceptions of "linguistics"

"Linguistics" and "linguist" may not always be meant to apply as broadly as above. In some contexts, the best definitions may be "what is studied in a typical university's department of linguistics", and "one who is a professor in such a department." Linguistics in this narrow sense usually does not refer to learning to speak foreign languages (except insofar as this helps to craft formal models of language.) It does not include literary analysis. Only sometimes does it include study of things such as metaphor. It probably does not apply to those engaged in such prescriptive efforts as found in Strunk and White's The Elements of Style; "linguists" usually seek to study what people do, not what they should do. One could probably argue for a long while about who is and who is not a "linguist".

See also

• List of linguists
• History of linguistics
• Linguistics basic topics, a page designed to organize information about linguistics on Wikipedia
• List of linguistic topics
• Philology, the study of ancient texts and languages.
• Structuralism

References

Textbooks

• O'Grady, W. et. al. (2001). Contemporary Linguistics: An Introduction. New York, Bedford/St. Martins.
• Akmajian, A. et. al. (1979). Linguistics: An Introduction to Language and Communication. Cambridge, MIT Press.
• Schmid, H. J. et. al. (1996). An Introduction to Cognitive Linguistics. New York, Longman.
• Lyons, J. (1996). Linguistic Semantics: An Introduction. New York, Cabridge University Press.

Academic works

• Geoffrey Sampson: "Schools of Linguistics.", Hutchinson, London (1980), ISBN 0804710848
• Rymer, p. 48, quoted in Fauconnier and Turner, p. 353)
• Gilles Fauconnier and Mark Turner (2002). The Way We Think: Conceptual Blending and the Mind's Hidden Complexities. Basic Books.
• Fauconnoier, Gilles, (1994). Mentalm Spaces:Aspects of meaning construction in natural language. Cambridge, Cambridge Unuversity Press.
• Fauconnier, Gilles. (1997). Mappings in Thought and Language. Cambridge, cambridge University Press.
• Taylor, J. R. (2002). Cognitive Grammar. Oxford, Oxford University Press.
• Sweetser, E. E. (1997). From Etymology to Pragmatics:Metaphorical and cultural aspects of semantic structure.

Popular Works

• Steven Pinker,(1995).The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language. New York, Harper Perrenial.
• Pinker, Steven. (1999). Words and Rules: The Ingrediants of Language. New York, Perrenial.
• Rymer, Russ (1992). "Annals of Science: A Silent Childhood-I". New Yorker, April 13.
• Deacon, T. W. (1998). The Symbolic Species: The Co-evolution of Language and Brain. New York, W. w. Norton & Co.

Reference Books

• Arnoff, M. et. al., Ed. (2003). The Handbook of Linguistics. Blackwell Handbooks in Linguistics. Malden, Massachusetts, Blackwell Publishers.
• Malmkaer, K., Ed. (1995). The Linguistics Encyclopedia. Language Titles. New York, Routledgw.
• Skeat, W. W. (1993). Concise Dictionary of English Etymology. Hertfordshire, Wordsworth Editions Ltd.

External links

Wikiversity, is developing courses on Linguistics.

• Multilingual Morphology Software (http://www.canoo.com/wmtrans/home/index.html)
• Grammar Book (http://www.englishpage.com/grammar/)
• Automated word analysis for the German language (http://www.arcs.ac.at/dissdb/rn036488)
• Syllabification algorithm (http://www.sfs.nphil.uni-tuebingen.de/linguist/issues/6/6-1586.html)
• The hyphenation block (http://www.tu-chemnitz.de/global-text/short-docs/html2ps.html#hyph)

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistics"

Categories: Linguistics

Cognitive science

Cognitive science is usually defined as the scientific study either of mind or of intelligence (e.g. Luger 1994). Practically every introduction to cognitive science also stresses that it is highly interdisciplinary; it is often said to consist of, take part in, and/or collaborate with psychology (especially cognitive psychology), linguistics, neuroscience, artificial intelligence (neural network research in particular), and philosophy (especially philosophy of mind and philosophy of mathematics, but also with applications in philosophy of science).

Contents [showhide]

1 Overview 1.1 Cognitive science? 2 Philosophy 2.1 Theories 2.1.1 Mind/brain identity theory 2.1.2 Quantum mind theory 2.1.3 Biocognitive theory 3 Psychology 3.1 Experimental methods 3.2 Key findings 3.3 Theories 4 Linguistics 5 Artificial intelligence 5.1 Goals 5.2 Theories 5.2.1 Symbolicism/GOFAI 5.2.2 Connectionism 5.2.3 Dynamical systems 6 Notable researchers in cognitive science and related fields 7 See also 8 External links 9 References

Overview

Cognitive science tends to view the world outside the mind much as other sciences do; thus it has an objective, observer-independent existence. Cognitive science is usually seen as compatible with and interdependent with the physical sciences, and makes frequent use of the scientific method, as well as simulation or modeling, often comparing the output of models with aspects of human behavior. Still, there is much disagreement about the exact relationship between cognitive science and other fields, and the inter-disciplinary nature of cognitive science is largely both unrealized and circumscribed.

Cognitive science has much to its credit. Among other accomplishments, it has given rise to models of human cognitive bias and risk perception, and has been influential in the development of behavioral finance, part of economics. It has also given rise to a new theory of the philosophy of mathematics, and many theories of artificial intelligence, persuasion and coercion. It has made its presence firmly known in philosophy of language and epistemology - a modern revival of rationalism - as well as constituting a substantial wing of modern linguistics.

Cognitive science?

The term "cognitive" in "cognitive science" is "used for any kind of mental operation or structure that can be studied in precise terms." (Lakoff and Johnson 1999) This conceptualization is very broad, and should not be confused with how "cognitive" is used in some traditions of analytic philosophy, where "cognitive" has to do only with formal rules and truth conditional semantics. (Nonetheless, that interpretation would bring one close to the historically dominant school of thought within cognitive science on the nature of cognition - that it is essentially symbolic, propositional, and logical.)

The earliest entries for the word "cognitive" in the OED take it to mean roughly pertaining to "to the action or process of knowing". The first entry, from 1586, shows the word was at one time used in the context of discussions of Platonic theories of knowledge. Most in Cognitive science, however, presumably do not believe their field is the study of anything as certain as the knowledge sought by Plato.

Philosophy

"By ratiocination, I mean computation." -Thomas Hobbes (1651)

Many but not all who consider themselves cognitive scientists have a functionalist view of mind/intelligence, which means that, at least in theory, they study mind and intelligence from the perspective that these attributes could perhaps (at least someday) be properly attributed not only to human beings but also to, say, other animal species, alien life forms or particularly advanced computer sytems. This perspective is one of the reasons the term "cognitive science" is not exactly coextensive with neuroscience, psychology, or some combination of the two.

Theories

• dualism
• materialism
  • functionalism
• mind/brain identity
• quantum mind
• Modularity of Mind

Mind/brain identity theory

The mind/brain identity theory is the idea that, whatever "mind" and "intelligence" are, they are rooted strictly in the brain, and do not make use of, depend on, or interact with anything non-physical. Nonetheless, there is reasonable consensus that there is sense in talking about the organization of the mind without talking about the organization of the brain, and that cognitive scientists are not simply neuroscientists. Often the justification for this takes place by reference to different levels of analysis. A cognitive scientist is likely to assert that what he says about reasoning is true at the symbolic level of abstraction, while what the neuroscientist says is true at the physical level implementing the symbolic level (much like a computer as a physical object implements a virtual machine on which a word-processor runs). An exploration of this is found in the Chinese Room argument, which proposes a gedanken experiment to elucidate potential loci for "cognition".

Quantum mind theory

There exist several different quantum models of mind. In one class, the brain is considered a quantum machine; in another, the brain is a classical machine that reduces the universal consciousness function.

Biocognitive theory

A model proposed by Mario E. Martinez in which cognition, biology and historical culture coemerge as an inseparable bioinformational field that contextualizes personal reality and influences health and longevity. The theory of biocognition draws from the research in psychoneuroimmunology and medical anthropology.

Psychology

Rendering of human brain based on MRI data

Particular subtopics of Cognitive Science arguably include perception, attention, consciousness and memory. However, these are all long established fields within psychology, and there is a constant risk that cognitive scientists will merely reinvent discarded psychological analyses under a new vocabulary.

As described, Cognitive Science is an expansive and exhilarating vista. However, it should be recognized that cognitive science is not equally concerned with every topic which might bear on the nature and operation of the mind or intelligence. Social and cultural factors, emotion, consciousness, animal cognition, comparative and evolutionary approaches are frequently de-emphasized or excluded outright, often on the basis of key philosophical conflicts. Some within the Cognitive Science community, however, consider these to be vital topics, and advocate the importance of investigating them.

Experimental methods

• reaction time

The time between the presentation of a stimulus and an appropriate response can indicate differences between two cognitive processes, and can indicate some things about their nature: e.g., if reaction times vary proportionally with the number of elements in a search task, then it is evident that the search task involves serial processing and not parallel processing.

• Psychophysics

Psychophysical experiments are an old psychological technique which have been adopted by cognitive psychology. They typically involve the elictation of verbal judgements of some physical property, e.g. the loudness of a sound.

• • sameness judgements for colors/tones/etc
  • threshold differences for colors/tones/etc
• brain imagery by means of
  • EEG
  • Positron emission tomography (PET)
  • fMRI
• scores/wins/losses in games
• recording bodily movements in response to a task (e.g. walking towards an object)

Key findings

(partial list)

Discovery of systemic human cognitive bias, usually credited to Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman, 1967. Basis of behavioral finance.

Assertion of equivalence of Euler's identity (basis of complex analysis in mathematics) with basic cognitive processes, George Lakoff and Rafael E. Núñez, 2000. Basis of cognitive science of mathematics.

Theories

• Cognitive response theory
• Cognitive dissonance theory
• Cognitive consistency theory
• Cognitive science of mathematics
• Propaganda
• Attitudes and Affection

Linguistics

Noam Chomsky

Linguists find on one hand that people - even the young and the uneducated - form sentences in ways seemingly governed by very complicated rule systems. On the other hand, the same people are remarkably inept at identifying the rules that lie behind their own speech, and linguists must resort to very indirect methods to determine what those rules might be. Thus, if speech is indeed governed by rules, those rules seem to lie below conscious consideration.

Noam Chomsky

• grammaticality judgements

The primary basis of Chomskyan psycholinguistics is the grammaticality judgement. A native speaker of a language is asked whether or not a sentence is grammatically correct, independent of whether or not it makes sense (e.g., 'colorless green ideas sleep furiously.') Collections of these grammaticality judgements are used to generate putative formal (purely syntactic) descriptions of human languages in terms of grammars. (For more on what these are, see formal language, Chomsky hierarchy.) These grammars, in turn, are held to describe the speaker's linguistic competence. Other approaches to linguistics have characterized this approach as too artificial (at least as an exclusive linguistic program), questioning the meaning of grammaticality judgements, a much too frequent emphasis on English grammar, and the exclusive use of orthographic (written) rather than verbal sentences.

Artificial intelligence

Main article: Artificial intelligence

Goals

Strong AI versus Weak AI

• simulation vs recreation

Turing test.

Theories

Symbolic vs Connectionist approaches There is some debate in the field as to whether the mind is "best" viewed as a huge array of small but stupid elements (i.e. neurons), or as a collection of higher-level structures, such as "symbols", "schemas", "plans", and rules. One way to view the issue is whether it is possible to accurately simulate a human brain on a computer without accurately simulating the neurons that seem to make up the human brain.

Symbolicism/GOFAI

Artificial intelligence. Turing machine. Chinese Room. Minds, Machines and Gödel.

Connectionism

Connectionism. Neural nets.

Dynamical systems

Dynamical systems theory of cognition (special application of dynamical systems theory).

Notable researchers in cognitive science and related fields

• Maggie Boden
• David Chalmers
• Noam Chomsky
• Kenneth Craik
• Antonio Damasio
• Daniel Dennett
• Gerald Edelman
• Leon Festinger
• Jerry Fodor
• Tim van Gelder
• Douglas Hofstadter
• Edwin Hutchins
• Daniel Kahneman
• David Kirsh
• George Lakoff
• Colin McGinn
• George A. Miller
• Marvin Minsky
• Rafael E. Núñez
• Seymour Papert
• Roger Penrose
• Steven Pinker
• Jonathan Potter
• Karl Pribram
• Vilayanur S. Ramachandran
• John Searle
• Herbert Simon

See also

• Neural Darwinism
• Society of Mind theory
• cognitive science of mathematics
• cognitive bias
• cognitive neuropsychology
• cognitive neuroscience
• notation bias
• neural networks
• neuropsychology
• computational neuroscience
• simulated consciousness
• artificial consciousness
• artificial consciousness NPOV
• narrative psychology/psychology of narrative [1] (http://www.stolaf.edu/people/thorshm/390-narrative-course-descr.htm)
• Important publications in cognative science

External links

• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Cognitive Science (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/cognitive-science/)
• List of leading thinkers in cognitive science (http://carbon.cudenver.edu/~mryder/itc_data/cogsci.html)
• MIT CogNet (http://cognet.mit.edu/)
• Center for Cognitive Science, Rutgers University (http://ruccs.rutgers.edu/)
• Institute for Research in Cognitive Science, University of Pennsylvania (http://www.ircs.upenn.edu/)
• Department of Cognitive Science, University of California, San Diego (http://cogsci.ucsd.edu/cogsci/)
• School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh (http://www.inf.ed.ac.uk/) (Centre for Cognitive Science has been merged into this school)
• Bandung Fe Institute:Cognitive Science (http://cogsci.bandungfe.net)

References

• George Lakoff and Mark Johnson. Philosophy In The Flesh. Basic Books, 1999.
• Luger, George. Cognitive science : the science of intelligent systems. San Diego : Academic Press, c1994
• Bechtel, W. et. al. Ed. (1999). A Companion to Cognitive Science. Blackwell Companions to Philosophy. Malden, Massachusetts. Blackwell Publishers.
• Gardner, Howard. (1985). The Minds New Science. Basic Books.
• Baumgartner, P., et. al. Eds. (1995). Speaking Minds: Interviews With Twenty Eminent Cognitive Scientists. Princeton, New Jersey, Princeton University Press.
• Damasio, A. R. (1994). Descarte's Error: Emotion, Reason and the HUman Brain.
• Gazzanija, M. S., Ed. Conversations in the Cognitive Neursciences. New York, THe MIT Press.

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_science"

Categories: Cognitive science

Mind

Contrast with 'soul'.

The mind is a subject about which very much theorizing, experimenting, and expostulating has occurred in philosophy (studied under the heading philosophy of mind), psychology, and religion (where, in theology, it is often considered alongside such related notions as soul and spirit). Some people think it is synonymous with the brain. For some theorists the mind is the software of a brain, and the mind-body problem can be understood as analogous to this software-hardware connection. Other people, such as the philosopher John Searle, say that the mind or consciousness is not an analogous to a program, but instead, is a property of a biological system, much as wetness is a property of water.

Substance or bundle?

There is a popular problem in philosophy about what the mind is, which can be presented as follows. It is commonplace to wonder what the mind, or soul (if you will), is. One can identify individual thoughts, individual feelings, in one's mind. But what is this mind that has these thoughts and feelings? One can imagine all sorts of mental goings-on, but what is it to imagine the mind itself? It seems the only way we have of understanding, by introspection, what our minds are is by considering various particular thoughts, feelings, decisions, and other events in our minds (i.e., mental events).

So, someone might boldly maintain that we really do not have a mind, or a soul, per se--at least, we do not have any mind or soul that is distinct from our thoughts, perceptions, and other mental events. All there are is a series of thoughts and feelings that are associated with our bodies. There are no minds that are something over and above these thoughts and feelings. This would be the view of someone who held a bundle theory about the mind. The Scottish philosopher David Hume held a theory of mind like this. Buddhism holds a very similar view.

The view of common sense, it seems, is opposed to a bundle theory of the mind. We seem to have a mind, or soul, which is distinct from our thoughts and feelings--and that mind is just exactly what we call our selves. Hume seems to want to deny that there is such a thing as the self. To some people this seems absurd. To them, a substance theory of mind will seem more attractive. On this view, one holds that there is something--one may not know what, but something--which has the thoughts and feelings, and the thoughts and feelings are in our minds, in about the same way that properties inhere in a substance.

Philosophers have not infrequently bandied the phrase "mental substance," and indeed, it has been made central to the ontologies of several philosophers, including most notably Gottfried Leibniz; according to Leibniz, the monad, a "simple soul," is that in terms of which everything else in the universe was to be explained. The notion of mental substance is also basic to the dualism of René Descartes. David Hume was very famous for advocating a bundle theory of mind.

Psychological experiments on mind-body relations

In a study by Benjamin Libet, patients were asked to flex the index finger of their right hand suddenly at various times of their own choosing while the electrical signals in their brain were being recorded on an EEG. It was found that there was a gradual build-up of recorded electric potential for a second or a second and a half before the finger was actually flexed, indicating that the unconscious mind had made the decision before the conscious mind decided to act. Or, the actual initiation of volition may have begun earlier in some other part of the brain.

In another experiment on patients undergoing brain surgery, it took about half a second to register a stimulus applied to the skin, despite the fact that the brain would have received the signal of the stimulus in about a hundredth of a second and the pre-programmed reflex response takes only about the tenth of a second.

However, it should be noted that mind and brain are two quite different concepts -- the first implies an "inside out" look, the second an "outside in" look. We have little more than unprovable assumptions on how exactly the two are related.

See also

• artificial consciousness
• cognitive science
• consciousness
• Philosophy of mind
• simulated consciousness
• Society of Mind theory
• unconscious mind

Intelligence (trait)

Intelligence is a general mental capability that involves the ability to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend ideas and language, and learn. While the definition and importance of intelligence is an issue of some controversy, especially in the popular press, a consensus opinion exists among intelligence researchers on many issues.

When considering animal intelligence, a more general definition of intelligence might be applied: the "ability to adapt effectively to the environment, either by making a change in oneself or by changing the environment or finding a new one" (Encyclopædia Britannica).

Intelligence tests are often used to quantify human intelligence. This is not without controversy; see below for more information.

Some thinkers have explored the idea of collective intelligence, arising from the coordination of many people. Computer science has developed the field of artificial intelligence, which seeks to make computers act in increasingly intelligent ways. Many people have also speculated about the possibility of extraterrestrial intelligence.

Contents [showhide]

1 Intelligence tests 2 Practical importance 3 Controversies 4 References 5 External links

Intelligence tests

Intelligence, narrowly defined, can be measured by intelligence tests (see IQ). They are among the most accurate (reliable and valid) psychological tests, but they are not intended to measure creativity, personality, character, or wisdom. Intelligence tests take many forms, but they all measure the same intelligence. The general factor measured by each intelligence test is known as g (see g theory).

Some researchers have proposed that intelligence is not a single quantity or concept, but really consists of a set of relatively independent abilities. Yale psychologist Robert J. Sternberg has proposed a Triarchic Theory of Intelligence. Harvard psychologist Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences, for example, breaks intelligence down into the seven different components: logical, linguistic, spatial, musical, kinesthetic, intra-personal and inter-personal intelligences. Daniel Goleman and several other researchers have developed the concept of emotional intelligence and claim it is at least as important as more traditional sorts of intelligence.

Proponents of multiple-intelligence theories often claim that g is, at best, a measure of academic ability. Other types of intelligence, they claim, might be just as important outside of a school setting. One theory even suggests the existence of two types of g (see Fluid and crystallized intelligence).

In response, g theorists have argued that multiple intelligences have not been borne out when actually tested (Hunt 2001) and that g actually has a substantial impact on personal affairs.

Practical importance

Intelligence is well recognized as being important for academic success. There is also an important role for intelligence in other valued life outcomes. In addition to performance in school, intelligence is associated with job performance (i.e. supervisor ratings), socioeconomic advancement (e.g., level of education, occupation, and income), and social pathology (e.g., adult criminality, poverty, unemployment, dependence on welfare, children outside of marriage). Also, there has been recent work demonstrating a relationship between intelligence and health, longevity, and functional literacy. Correlations between g and life outcomes are pervasive, but interestingly there is no correlation between IQ and happiness. IQ/g correlates highly with school performance, less so with occupational prestige, income correlates moderately, and law-abidingness only to a small degree. The correlation between job performance and IQ depends on the complexity of the job, ranging from .2 for unskilled jobs to .8 for the most complex.

The correlations discussed above are non-controversial. However, there is disagreement over their interpretation. One group maintains that IQ is a product of the privileged classes, used to maintain their privilege. Others insist that IQ/g is a useful tool in performing life tasks. The two explanations can be distinguished because they make opposite predictions about what would happen if people were given equal opportunities to succeed. The first predicts that equal treatment would destroy the correlations, and the second predicts that it would create them. Several pieces of data can address these predictions. Adoption studies show that by adolescence adopted siblings are no more similar than strangers, and the gap between full siblings is 2/3 of that size. Conversely, monozygotic twins raised separately are highly similar, more so than dizygotic twins raised together. The heritability of IQ increases with age, such that differences in family advantage are lost by adolescence.

Controversies

Researchers in the field of human intelligence have encountered a considerable amount of public concern and criticism; much more than many scientists would be accustomed to or comfortable with. Some of the controversial topics include:

• the relevance of psychometric intelligence to the common sense understanding of the topic
• the importance of intelligence in everyday life
• the genetic and environmental contributions to individual variation in intelligence (see Nature versus nurture).
• differences in average measured intelligence between racial groups and sexes; and the source and meaning of these differences (see Race and intelligence).

References

• Hunt, E. (2001). Multiple views of multiple intelligence. [Review of Intelligence reframed: Multiple intelligence in the 21st century.] Contemporary Psychology, 46, 5-7.

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations by or about Intelligence (trait).

• Wall Street Journal: Mainstream Science on Intelligence (http://www.lrainc.com/swtaboo/taboos/wsj_main.html)
• APA Task Force Examines the Knowns and Unknowns of Intelligence (http://www.lrainc.com/swtaboo/taboos/apa_01.html)
• Human Intelligence (http://www.indiana.edu/~intell/)

Soul

This page is about the core essence of a being. For the music genre, see soul music; for the chief city of South Korea see Seoul.

The soul, in several philosophical movements and many religious traditions, is the core essence of a being. In some traditions it is considered immortal; in others it is considered to be mortal. In most religions, and some philosophical movements, a soul is strongly connected with notions of the afterlife, but opinions vary wildly even within a given religion as to what happens to the soul after death. Many within these religions and philosophies believe the soul is immaterial, while others feel it may indeed be material.

Contents [showhide]

1 Philosophical views 1.1 Socrates and Plato 1.2 Aristotle 2 Religious views 2.1 Buddhist beliefs 2.2 Christian beliefs 2.2.1 Christian Gnosticism: Valentinus 2.3 Hindu beliefs 2.4 Islamic beliefs 2.5 Jainist beliefs 2.6 Jewish beliefs 2.6.1 Extra soul states 2.7 Other religious beliefs and views 3 Science and the soul 4 Other uses of the term 5 See also 6 External references and link

Philosophical views

The Ancient Greek word for 'alive' is the same as 'ensouled'. So the earliest philosophical view might be taken to be that the soul is what makes living things alive.

Socrates and Plato

Plato, probably quoting Socrates, considers the soul to be the essence of a person that reasons, decides and acts. He considered this essence to be an incorporeal occupant of the body with its own separate, and immortal, existence.

Aristotle

Aristotle, following Plato, defined the soul as the core essence of a being, but argued against it having a separate existence. For instance, if a knife had a soul, the act of cutting would be that soul, because 'cutting' is the essence of what it is to be a knife. Unlike Plato and the religious traditions, he did not consider the soul to be some kind of separate, ghostly occupant of the body (just as the activity of cutting cannot be separated from the knife). As the soul, in Aristotle's view, is an activity of the body it cannot be immortal (when a knife is destroyed, the cutting stops). To be more exact, the soul is the "first activity" of a living body. This is a state, or a potential for actual, or 'second', activity. "The axe has an edge for cutting" was, for him, analogous to "humans have bodies for rational activity," and the potential for rational activity thus constituted the essence of a human soul. Aristotle used his concept of the soul in many of his works, the Nicomachean Ethics is a good place to start to gain more understanding of his views.

Aristotle's view appears to have some similarity to the Buddhist 'no soul' view (see below). For both there is certainly no 'separable immortal essence'. It may simply be a matter of definition, as most Buddhists would agree, surely, that a knife can be used for cutting. They might, perhaps, stress the impermanence of the knife's cutting ability, and Aristotle would probably agree with that.

Religious views

Buddhist beliefs

According to Buddhist teaching, all things are impermanent, in a constant state of flux, all is transient, and there is no abiding state. This applies to humanity as much as anything else in the cosmos; thus, there is no unchanging and abiding self. Our sense of "I" or "me" is simply a sense belonging to the ever-changing entity that is us, our body, and mind. This in essence is the Buddhist principle of anatta (Pāli; Sanskrit: anātman).

Buddhists hold that the delusion of a permanent, abiding self is one of the main root causes for human conflict on the emotional, social, political level, that understanding of anatta or not-self provides an accurate description of the human condition, and that this understanding allows "us" to go beyond "our" mundane desires. The ineffable state of nirvana is solely recognized as being distinct. Buddhists can speak in conventional terms of the soul or self as a matter of convenience, but only under the conviction that ultimately "we" are changing entities. At death, the body and mind disintegrate; if the disintegrating mind contains any remaining traces of karma, it will cause the continuity of the consciousness to bounce back an arising mind to an awaiting being, that is, a fetus developing the ability to harbor consciousness. Thus, in Buddhist teaching, a being that is born is neither entirely different nor exactly the same as it was prior to rebirth.

However, scholars such as Shirō Matsumoto have argued that a curious development occurred in Mahayana Buddhist philosophy, stemming from the Cittamatra and Vijnanavada schools in India: although the permanent personal selfhood is denied, concepts such as Buddha-nature, Tathagatagarbha, Rigpa, or "original nature" are affirmed. Matsumoto argues that these concepts constitute a non- or trans-personal self, and are almost equal in meaning to the Hindu concept of Atman, although they differ in that Buddha-nature does not incarnate. One should note the polarity in Tibetan Buddhism between shes-pa (the principle of consciousness) and rig-pa (pure consciousness equal to Buddha-nature). Even more controversial is the concept of tulku, a person who has, due to heroic austerieties and esoteric training, achieved the goal of transferring personal identity from one rebirth to the next (for instance, the Dalai Lama is considered to be a tulku). The mechanics behind this are described as follows: although Buddha-nature does not incarnate, the individual self is composed of skandhas or components that are reborn. For an ordinary person, skandhas cohere in a way that will be dissolved upon the person's death. So, elements of personality, transformed, are reborn, but they lose the unity that constitutes personal selfhood for a specific person. In the case of tulkus, however, it is supposed that they achieve a "crystallization" of skandhas in such a manner that the skandhas do not "disentangle" upon the tulku's death; rather, a voluntary reincarnation occurs. In this new birth, the tulku possesses a continuity of personal identity that is rooted in the fact that the consciousness or shes-pa (which is equivalent to a type of skandha called vijnana) has not dissolved after death, but is durable enough to survive in repeated births. The compatiblility of these concepts with Buddhist orthodoxy is matter of dispute.

Many modern Buddhists, particularly in Western countries, reject the concept of rebirth or reincarnation as being incompatible with the concept of anatta. They take the view that if there is no abiding self and no soul then there is nothing to be reborn. This is notably discussed by Stephen Batchelor in his book Buddhism Without Beliefs.

Christian beliefs

Most Christians believe the soul to be the immortal essence of a human, and that after death, the soul is either rewarded or punished. Whether this reward or punishment is contingent upon doing good deeds, or merely upon believing in God and Jesus, is a heated dispute among different Christian groups.

Many Christian scholars hold as Aristotle did that "to attain any assured knowledge of the soul is one of the most difficult things in the world." Augustine, considered one of the most influential early Christian thinkers, wrote that the soul is "a special substance, endowed with reason, adapted to rule the body." Philosopher Anthony Quinton said the soul is a "series of mental states connected by continuity of character and memory, [and] is the essential constituent of personality. The soul, therefore, is not only logically distinct from any particular human body with which it is associated; it is also what a person is." Richard Swinburne, Christian philosopher of religion at Oxford University, wrote that, "it is a frequent criticism of substance dualism that dualists cannot say what souls are.... Souls are immaterial subjects of mental properties. They have sensations and thoughts, desires and beliefs and perform intentional actions. Souls are essential parts of human beings...."

A sometimes vexing question in Christianity has been the origin of the soul; the major theories put forward are creationism, traducianism and pre-existence.

Other Christian beliefs differ:

• A few Christian groups do not believe in the soul, and hold that people cease to exist, both mind and body, at death; they claim however that God will recreate the minds and bodies of believers in Jesus Christ at some future time, the "end of the world."
• Another minority of Christians believe in the soul, but don't believe it is inherently immortal. This minority also believes the life of Christ brings immortality, but only to believers.
• Medieval Christian thinkers often assigned to the soul attributes such as thought and imagination as well as faith and love: this suggests that the boundaries between "soul" and "mind" can vary in different interpretations.
• Jehovah's Witnesses believe that men's soul is themselves, and every soul will die. (Gen.2:7; Ezek.18:4,NWT)
• The soul sleep theory states that the soul goes to "sleep" at the time of death, and stays in this quiescent state until the last judgment.
• The "absent from the body, present with the Lord" theory states that the soul at the point of death, immediately is present at the end of time, without experiencing any time passing between.
• The "purgatory" theory states the soul, if imperfect, spends a period of time purging or cleansing before being ready for the end of time.

Christian Gnosticism: Valentinus

In early centuries of Christianity, gnostic Christian Valentinus proposed a version of spiritual psychology that was in accordance with numerous other ‘’perennial wisdom’’ doctines. He conceived human being as a triple entity, consisting of body (soma, hyle), soul (psyche) and spirit (pneuma). This is identical to the division one finds in St. Peter’s Epostle to Thessalonians I, but enriched: Valentinus considered that all humans possess semi-dormant "spiritual seed" (sperme pneumatike) which, in spiritually developed Christians, can be united with spirit, equated with Angel Christ. It is evident that his spiritual seed is identical to shes-pa in Tibetan Buddhism, jiva in Vedanta, ruh in Hermetic Sufism or soul-spark in other traditions, and Angel Christ to Higher Self in modern transpersonal psychologies, Atman in Vedanta or Buddha nature in Mahayana Buddhism. In Valentinus’ opinion, spiritual seed, the ray from Angel Christ, returns to its source. This is true ressurection (as Valentinus himself wrote in "The Gospel of Truth": "People who say they will first die and then arise are mistaken. If they do not receive resurrection while they are alive, once they have died they will receive nothing."). In Valentinus’ vision of life, our bodies go to dust, soul-sparks or spiritual seeds unite (in realised Gnostics) with their Higher Selves/Angel Christ and soul proper, carrier of psychological functions and personalities (emotions, memory, rational faculties, imagination,..) will survive- but will not go to Pleroma or Fullness (the source of all where resurrected seeds that have realised their beings as Angels Christ return to). The souls stay in "the places that are in the middle", the worlds of Psyche. In time, after numerous purifications, the souls receive "spiritual flesh", ie. resurrection body. This division is rather puzzling, but not dissimilar to Kabbalah, where neshamah goes to the source and ruach is, undestructed and indestructible, but unredeemed, relegated to a lower world. Similarly, according to Valentinus, complete resurrection is accomplished only after the end of Time (in Christian worldview), when transfigured souls who have acquired spiritual flesh are finally united to the perfect, individual Angel Christ, residing in the Pleroma. This is, according to Valentinus, final salvation.

Many non-denominational Christians, and indeed many that oestensibly subscribe to denominations having clear-cut dogma on the concept of soul, take an "a la carte" approach to the belief, that is, they judge each issue on what they see as its merits and juxtapose different beliefs from different branches of Christianity, other religions, and their understanding of science.

See also Christian eschatology.

Hindu beliefs

In Hinduism, the Sanskrit word most closely corresponding to soul is "Atman", which can mean soul or even God. It is seen as the portion of Brahman within us. Hinduism contains many variant beliefs on the origin, purpose, and fate of the soul. For example, advaita or non-dualistic conception of the soul accords it union with Brahman, the absolute uncreated (roughly, the Godhead), in eventuality or in pre-existing fact. Dvaita or dualistic concepts reject this, instead identifying the soul as a different and incompatible substance.

Islamic beliefs

According to the Qur'an of Islam (15:29), the creation of man involves God "breathing" a soul into him. This intangible part of an individual's existence is "pure" at birth and has the potential of growing and achieving nearness to God if the person leads a righteous life. At death the person's soul transitions to an eternal afterlife of bliss, peace and unending spiritual growth (Qur’an 66:8) . This transition can be pleasant (Heaven) or unpleasant (Hell) depending on the degree to which a person has developed or destroyed his or her soul during life (Qur’an 91:7-10).

In Sufism, Islamic mysticism, elaborate doctines on the soul have been developed, as explained in chapters on Sufi psychology.

Jainist beliefs

Jainists believe in a jiva, an immortal essence of a living being analogous to a soul, subject to the illusion of maya and evolving through many incarnations from mineral to vegetable to animal, its accumulated karma determining the form of its next birth.

Jewish beliefs

Jewish views of the soul begin with the book of Genesis, in which verse 2:7 states, "the LORD God formed man from the dust of the earth. He blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being." (New JPS)

The Hebrew Bible offers no systematic definition of a soul; various descriptions of the soul exist in classical rabbinic literature.

Saadia Gaon, in his Emunoth ve-Deoth 6:3, explained classical rabbinic teaching about the soul through the lens of neo-Aristotelian philosophy. He held that the soul is that part of a person's mind which constitutes physical desire, emotion, and thought.

Maimonides, in his The Guide to the Perplexed, explained classical rabbinic teaching about the soul through the lens of neo-Aristotelian philosophy, and held that the soul is a person's developed intellect, which has no substance.

Within Kabbalah (esoteric Jewish mysticism) the soul was seen as having three elements. The Zohar, a classic work of Jewish mysticism, posits that the human soul has three elements, the nefesh, ru'ah, and neshamah. A common way of explaining these three parts is as follows:

• Nefesh - the lower or animal part of the soul. It is linked to instincts and bodily cravings. It is found in all humans, and enters the physical body at birth. It is the source of one's physical and psychological nature.

The next two parts of the soul are not implanted at birth, but are slowly created over time; their development depends on the actions and beliefs of the individual. They are said to only fully exist in people awakened spiritually:

• Ruach - the middle soul, or spirit. It contains the moral virtues and the ability to distinguish between good and evil. In modern parlance, it is equivalent to psyche or ego-personality.

• Neshamah - the higher soul, Higher Self or super-soul. This is what separates man from all other life forms. It is related to the intellect, and allows man to enjoy and benefit from the afterlife. This part of the soul is provided both to Jew and non-Jew alike at birth. It allows one to have some awareness of the existence and presence of God. In "Zohar", after death Nefesh disintegrates, Ruach is sent to a sort of intermediate zone where it is submitted to purification and enters in "temporary paradise", while Neshamah returns to the source, the world of Platonic ideas, where it enjoys "the kiss of the beloved". Supposedly after resurrection, Ruach and Neshamah, soul and spirit are united again in a permanently transmuted state of being.

The Raaya Meheimna, a Kabbalistic tractate always published with the Zohar, posits that there are two more parts of the human soul, the chayyah and yehidah. Gersom Scholem wrote that these "were considered to represent the sublimest levels of intuitive cognition, and to be within the grasp of only a few chosen individuals":

• Chayyah - The part of the soul that allows one to have an awareness of the divine life force itself.

• Yehidad - the highest plane of the soul, in which one can achieve as full a union with God as is possible.

Extra soul states

Both Rabbinic and kabbalistic works posit that there are also a few additional, non-permanent states to the soul that people can develop on certain occasions. These extra souls, or extra states of the soul, play no part in any afterlife scheme, but are mentioned for completeness.

• Ruach HaKodesh - a state of the soul that makes prophecy possible. Since the age of classical prophecy passed, no one receives the soul of prophesy any longer.

• Neshamah Yeseira - The supplemental soul that a Jew experiences on Shabbat. It makes possible an enhanced spiritual enjoyment of the day. This exists only when one is observing Shabbat; it can be lost and gained depending on one's observance.

• Neshoma Kedosha - Provided to Jews at the age of majority (13 for boys, 12 for girls), and is related to the study and fulfillment of the Torah commandments. It exists only when one studies and follows Torah; it can be lost and gained depending on one's study and observance.

For more detail on Jewish beliefs about the soul see Jewish eschatology.

Other religious beliefs and views

In Egyptian Mythology, a person possessed six souls, three of the body and three of the mind. They were called Chet, Ren, Schut, Ka, Ba and Ach.

Some transhumanists believe that it will become possible to perform mind transfer, either from one human body to another, or from a human body to a computer. Operations of this type (along with teleportation), raise philosophical questions related to the concept of the Soul.

Crisscrossing specific religions, the phenomena of therianthropy and belief in the existence of otherkin have also been observed. These can perhaps better be described as phenomena rather than beliefs, since people of varying religion, ethnicity, or nationality may believe in them. Therianthropy is the belief that a person or his soul has a spiritual, emotional, or mental connection with an animal. Such a belief manifests in many forms, and the reasons for it are often explained in terms of the person's religious beliefs. A similar belief is that held by otherkin, who generally believe their souls are entirely non-human, and usually not of this world.

Another fairly large segment of the population, not necessarily favoring organized religion, simply label themselves as spiritual and hold that both humans and all other living creatures have souls. Some further believe the entire universe has a cosmic soul as a spirit or unified consciousness. Such a conception of the soul may be linked with the idea of an existence before and after the present one, and could be considered as the spark, or the self, the "I" in existence that feels and lives life.

Some believe souls in some way "echo" to the edges of this universe, or even to multiple universes with compiled multiple possibilities, each presented with a slightly different energy version of itself. Such ideas have been explored for example by science fiction author Robert Heinlein.

Science and the soul

The concept of soul and the idea of a soul entity are not recognized in mainstream science or medicine. Popular presentation of the dominant scientific view of the soul uses the "computer paradigm", where the brain is compared to the hardware and the mind (mental processes that have been long subsumed under the concept of soul) to the software. When the brain/hardware is gone, there is no place left for functioning mind/software. Others, like famous French neurologist Jean Pierre Changeaux deny the appropriateness of the computer paradigm and propose an analogy with the anharmonic oscillator from physics. Needless to say, both notions have dismissed the concept of soul as a self-sustaining entity. Some have tried to measure the soul, for example by attempting to measure the weight of a person just before and just after death in hopes of determining the weight of a soul. The results of these experiments were equivocal, especially due to conflicting reports on the findings, and are not viewed as good science. [1] (http://www.snopes.com/religion/soulweight.asp).

Other uses of the term

In popular usage, experiences that evoke deep emotions are often described as "touching the soul."

See also

• Vitalism

External references and link

• Batchelor, Stephen. Buddhism Without Belief.
• Swinburne (1997). The Evolution of the Soul. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Therianthropy overview (http://www.kodekitten.com/therian.html)

Anarcho-syndicalism

Anarcho-syndicalist flag.

Anarcho-syndicalism is the anarchist wing of the labor union movement. Its primary aim is to abolish the capitalist wage-labor system.

The basic principles of anarcho-syndicalism are:

1. workers’ solidarity
2. direct action
3. self-management

Workers’ solidarity means that anarcho-syndicalists believe all workers, no matter their race, gender, or ethnic group, are in a similar situation in regard to their bosses (Class consciousness). Furthermore, it means that, within capitalism, any gains or losses made by some workers in their relation to bosses will eventually impact all workers. Therefore, in order to liberate themselves, all workers must support one another in their class conflict.

Anarcho-syndicalists believe that only direct action — that is, action concentrated on directly attaining a goal, as opposed to indirect action, like electing a representative to a government position — will allow workers to liberate themselves.

Moreover, anarcho-syndicalists believe that workers’ organizations — the organizations which struggle against the wage system and which, in anarcho-syndicalist theory, will eventually form the basis of a new society — should be self-managing. They should not have bosses or “business agents”; rather, the workers should be able to make all the decisions which affect them amongst themselves.

Rudolf Rocker was one of the most popular voices in the anarcho-syndicalist movement. He outlined a view of the origins of the movement, what it sought, and why it was important to the future of labor in his pamphlet Anarcho-Syndicalism.

Hubert Lagardelle wrote that Pierre-Joseph Proudhon laid out the fundamental theories of anarcho-syndicalism, through his repudiation of both capitalism and the state, his flouting of political government, his idea of free, autonomous economic groups, and his view of struggle, not pacifism, as the core of man.

The International Workers Association is an international anarcho-syndicalist federation of various labor unions from different countries. The Industrial Workers of the World, a once-powerful, still active, and now re-growing labor union, is considered a leading organ of the anarcho-syndicalist philosophy in the United States. The Spanish Confederación Nacional del Trabajo played and still plays a major role in the Spanish labor movement; it was also an important force in the Spanish Civil War.

The anarcho-syndicalist orientation of many early American labor unions played an important role in the formation of the American political spectrum. The United States is the only industrialized ("first world") country that does not have a major labor-based political party. See It Didn’t Happen Here: Why Socialism Failed in the United States, Seymour Martin Lipset and Gary Marks, ISBN 0-39-332254-8.

Rudolf Rocker, wrote in Anarcho-Syndicalism:

“Political rights do not originate in parliaments; they are rather forced upon them from without. And even their enactment into law has for a long time been no guarantee of their security. They do not exist because they have been legally set down on a piece of paper, but only when they have become the ingrown habit of a people, and when any attempt to impair them will meet with the violent resistance of the populace”

See also: general strike, syndicalism

Anarcho-syndicalist Organizations

• Solidarity Federation (Britain)
• Industrial Workers of the World
• Workers Solidarity Alliance
• Confederación Nacional del Trabajo

External links

• Industrial Workers of the World (http://www.iww.org)
• Confederación Nacional del Trabajo - CNT/AIT (http://www.cnt.es)
• Workers' Solidarity Alliance (http://www.workersolidarity.org)
• Anarcho-Syndicalism 101 (http://www.anarchosyndicalism.net)
• see also Panarchy

Direct action

Direct action is a method and a theory of stopping objectionable practices or creating more favorable conditions using immediately available means, such as strikes, boycotts, workplace occupations, sit-ins, or sabotage, and less oppositional methods such as establishing radical social centres, although these are often squatted. Direct actions are often (but not always) civil disobedience. Those employing direct action aim to either

• obstruct another agent or organization from performing some objectionable practice
• act with whatever resources and methods are within their power, either on their own or as part of a group, in order to solve problems

This method and theory is direct in that it seeks immediate remedy for perceived ills, as opposed to indirect tactics such as electing representatives who promise to provide remedy at some later date.

Contents [showhide]

1 History 2 Nonviolent direct action 2.1 Other examples 3 Direct action and anarchism 4 See also 5 External links

History

The theory of direct action developed primarily in the context of labor struggles. In his 1920 book, Direct Action, William Mellor placed direct action firmly in the struggle between worker and employer for control "over the economic life of society." Mellor defined direct action "as the use of some form of economic power for securing of ends desired by those who possess that power." Mellor considered direct action a tool of both owners and workers. For this reason he included within his definition lockouts and cartels, as well as strikes and sabotage.

By the middle of the 20th century, the sphere of direct action had undoubtedly expanded, though the meaning of the term had perhaps contracted. Most campaigns for social change -- notable those seeking suffrage, improved working conditions, civil rights, an end to abortion, and environmental protection -- employ at least some types of violent or non-violent direct action.

Nonviolent direct action

Mahatma Gandhi's teachings of Satyagraha (or truth force) have inspired many practitioners of nonviolent direct action (NVDA), who often view it as a tool that the less powerful can use against those with more power. In 1963, civil rights leader, Martin Luther King Jr. described the goal of NVDA in his Letter from Birmingham Jail: "Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored."

The anti-nuclear movement has deployed NVDA: for instance, during the 1980s many groups which opposed the introduction of Cruise missiles into the UK employed tactics such as breaking into and occupying US air bases, blocking roads in order to prevent the movement of military convoys, disruption of building works related to military projects and so forth. Many groups also set up semi-permanent 'peace camps' outside air bases such as Molesworth and Greenham Common.

Animal rights groups such as the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) have also used the tactics of NVDA in the past, such as breaking into laboratories where animal experiments are carried out and physically removing—"liberating"—the animals from the premises (although it is arguably cruel to release these tame animals into the wild). The ALF have largely abandoned their commitment to nonviolence in more recent years, primarily turning to arson, intimidation and destruction of private property.

Other examples

• Angle-Grinder Man

Direct action and anarchism

As a principle, direct action is central to many strands of anarchist theory, especially anarcho-syndicalism and anarcho-pacifism.

"Direct Action" has also served as the moniker of at least two terrorist groups, the French Action Directe and the Canadian group more popularly known as the Squamish Five.

See also

• Civil disobedience
• Direct democracy
• Dual power
• Flash mob
• General strike
• Greenpeace
• Nonviolence
• Sabotage and/or Ecotage (monkey wrench)
• Tree sitting
• Pagan Activism

External links

• ACTivist Magazine (http://www.activistmagazine.com)
• Civil Disobedience Manual from ACT-UP/NY (http://www.actupny.org/documents/CDdocuments/CDindex.html)
• Ruckus (http://ruckus.org)
• direct-action.info (http://www.direct-action.info) aims "to challenge vicious and violent protest" and "to defend the human rights of protestors and their targets"
• Greenpeace encourages its activists to use Non-Violent Direct Action (http://www.greenpeace.org.au/getactive/happen/nvda.html)

State terrorism

Terrorism
General
Definition
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U.S. State Dept.
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Terrorism insurance

State terrorism, is a controversial term that is separate from the more common term, State sponsored terrorism. State terrorism is defined by some as violence upon a national population committed by national governments or their proxies. State terrorism can be effected directly, at the hands of national military or security forces, or indirectly, through state sponsored terrorist organizations. States can terrorize their own populations, to secure rule and suppress dissent, or foreign citizens, to support favoured or destabilize unfavoured foreign regimes.

Contents [showhide]

1 Confines and definition 2 Methods of state terror 2.1 Extrajudicial execution 3 Acts labelled as state terrorism, sorted by state 3.1 Chile 3.2 Colombia 3.3 Cuba 3.4 China 3.5 Germany 3.6 Indonesia 3.7 Iran 3.8 Iraq 3.9 Israel 3.10 Myanmar 3.11 Soviet Union 3.12 Spain 3.13 Syria 3.14 United Kingdom 3.15 United States 4 See also 5 References

Confines and definition

State terrorism, like terrorism, is a contested term. Acts that accusers may describe as terror, supporters may defend as legitimate defense against supposed threats. State terrorism has been defined as "The use or threat of violence by the state or its agents or supporters, particularly against civilian individuals and populations, as a means of political intimidation and control (i.e. a means of repression)" (Sluke, 2000). However, many contend that states cannot commit acts of terror and/or that acts of terror cannot be committed within the scope of a declared war. The distinction between state and nonstate terror has been criticized as distracting from or justifying official terrorism (Chomsky and Herman, 1979). Some, such as Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón view particular political systems as instances of state terrorism: "State terrorism is a political system whose rule of recognition permits and/or imposes a clandestine, unpredictable, and diffuse application, even regarding clearly innocent people, of coercive means prohibited by the proclaimed judicial ordinance." Some acts of state terrorism also qualify as genocide, democide, crimes against humanity or mass murder.

Methods of state terror

Although state terrorism is an almost universal social phenomenon, instances of state terror usually fall into certain categories. Unfair trial, torture and extrajudicial execution are said to be common practices of state terror, often used to terrorize domestic populations by sovereign or proxy regimes.

Citizens of Western nations are generally protected from unfair trial by constitutional or legislative safeguards and the requirements of due process. Undeveloped nations may have weak institutions and unstable political climates that allow governments to have inappropriate influence over the judiciary, allowing dissenters to be victimized as criminals.

According to Amnesty International (1997), in 1996, out of 150 countries surveyed, 82 had committed torture. Acts of torture are fueled by the lucrative international trade in torture equipment. Many Western companies sell equipment to known human-rights violating regimes.

Extrajudicial execution

Extrajudicial execution, or political murder, is the practice of states or their proxies illegally assassinating citizens because they are viewed as political threats and to intimidate communities. Extrajudicial execution may be carried out by the official military, police forces or unofficial paramilitaries (often called "death squads" or euphemized as "civilian defence"). In the latter case, there may be strong ties between the paramilitaries and official forces, with an overlapping membership and a "blind eye" turned to illegal activities.

Such death squads often unpredictably attack the socially disadvantaged ("undesirables"), religious or ethnic minorities, or citizens deemed to be subversive. Their targets typically include the homeless, street children, union leaders, indigenous peoples, clergy, activists, journalists, and academics. Death squads conveniently shield their sponsors from liability, the illusion of spontaneous criminal violence providing "plausible deniability". Often, the bodies of victims are secretly disposed, typically in mass graves, leaving no evidence of a crime and increasing the trauma to families and communities. These cases are known as "disappearances", particularly in South America. The UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances was formed in 1980 to investigate the global phenomenon of disappearances.

Acts labelled as state terrorism, sorted by state

Chile

Chile, under the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, pursued an extensive policy regarded by many as state terrorism against both civilians at home and perceived enemies abroad. On the international stage, the Chilean state's actions included the assassination of former ambassador Orlando Letelier in Washington, D.C., by means of a car bomb, the killing of Gen. Carlos Prats in Argentina in similar circumstances, and the attempted assassination of Bernardo Leighton in Italy.

Colombia

Colombian paramilitary groups, such as the AUC, have usually been considered responsible for as many as 70 to 80% of yearly civilian deaths in the South American country's internal conflict [1] (http://www.hrw.org/campaigns/colombia/action/factsheet.htm). It has been argued in many occasions that some of these groups have maintained well documented relationships with several elements of the official state and police forces. The paramilitaries have often been accused of making and executing death threats against suspected guerrilla collaborators among the civilian and NGO population. The blame for many of the murders of a number of the poor and the homeless, as well as street children and others allegedly considered social undesirables, has also been assigned to them, though most of these crimes remain unresolved.

In recent years, both civilian critics and leftwing insurgencies have criticized the Colombian government's policies, including but not limited to those of Colombian president Álvaro Uribe, considering that some measures, such as the use of temporary mass roundups (where many of the detainees are later released) and the attempted implementation of an anti-terror statute (which was shot down in late August 2004 by the Colombian Constitutional Court due to a procedure error.[2] (http://indh.pnud.org.co/articuloImprimir.plx?id=187&t=informePrensa) The Court has also previously struck down other security measures it considered as unconstitutional), may be seen as signs of alleged state repression. The state itself is usually directly blamed by critics for about 5% of the yearly civilian deaths in Colombia's war. [3] (http://www.hrw.org/campaigns/colombia/action/factsheet.htm)

Cuba

Under the dictatorship of Fidel Castro, Cuba has been accused of various abuses of human rights.

China

The government of the People's Republic of China has repeatedly engaged in behaviors considered to violate international standards of human rights. Some of these are also considered by many as acts of state terrorism, such as the suppression of the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989.

China has also actively suppressed movements in Tibet which support independence for the Dalai Lama. Some of these actions, such as mass imprisonment and using violence against peaceful demonstrators, would be classified by some as state terrorism.

Germany

In the Weimar Republic of the 1920s and early 1930s, the Nazi Party's paramilitary organisation (Sturmabteilung, or SA for short) terrorized political opponents and minorities. Although the SA committed their crimes in the open, they were only forbidden for short periods of time in 1924 and 1932. In 1932, power shifted from SA to the other Nazi paramilitary organisation, the SS. During Adolf Hitler's dictatorship of Germany (1933-1945) the SS played a key role in building a system of state terror. It controlled the Gestapo, and was responsible for the persecution and the extermination of the Jews, brutalities and killings in concentration camps, excesses in the administration of occupied territories, the administration of the slave labor program and the maltreatment and murder of prisoners of war.

During the 1950s in East Germany, labor revolts and labor strikes were often put down with what most would consider hugely disproportionate force, the goal likely being to terrorize workers into conforming behavior. Also, East Germany provided assistance to the Red Army Faction, a West German terrorist organization.

Indonesia

The massacres of communist PKI members in Indonesia from 1965 - 1969 are estimated to have claimed the lives of up to a million and have been described as "anti-communist pogroms". The official minimum number of deaths is 500,000.

The Indonesian government has repeatedly used state sponsored terrorism as a method of controlling and opressing several minority groups under its rule. They are Archeh (Sumatra), East Timor and West Papua (Irian Jaya).

Iran

The United States Department of State includes Iran as a terrorist state using its definition of state-sponsors of terrorist activity. This is based mainly on allegations of financial support to terrorist organisations, including Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Palestinian Islam Jihad, and PFLP-GC ; as well as "financial, training, weapons, explosives, political, diplomatic, and organizational aid" to Hizbullah. [4] (http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/pgtrpt/2002/)

Iraq

Iraq under Saddam Hussein is widely believed to have been responsible for numerous chemical weapons attacks on its own civilian population to stem revolutionary activity and pacify ethnic groups. One of the more famous incidents is the Halabja poison gas attack.

See also Human rights situation in Saddam's Iraq and Human rights situation in post-Saddam Iraq.

Israel

The neutrality of this section is disputed. See the article's talk page for more information.

During the al-Aqsa Intifada, Israel have undertaken controversial military percussions and tactics which resulted with criticism on Israel's policy. Most of the criticism by Europe, the UN and mainstream Human Rights groups condemn Israel for disproportionate use of military force in populated areas, but they never accused Israel is a policy of deliberately targeting civilians. They do accept Israel's claim that its operation are aimed against militants and suicide bombers, but calling some of the methods "unlawful" due to collateral damage and civilian casualties caused by them. Israel counters that Palestinian terrorists hide in populated areas and use civilians as decoys in order to maximize the civilian death toll, and incite hatred toward Israel. Israel claims the IDF try to minimize civilian death toll but civilian casualties are bound to happen due to the misconduct of Palestinian militias which force urban warfare on Israeli soldiers. Israel is not listed in the U.S. list of state sponsors of international terrorism.

Pro-Palestinians groups and Arab officials accuse Israel in "state terrorism" aimed to attack Palestinian civilians, protesters and members of organizations that it labels as "terrorist". Israel reject this accusation outright, and state that those kind of accusations are only raised by radical anti-Israeli groups.

Some of the disputed Israeli tactics are:

• Israel's official policy of "targeted assassination" of purported terrorist leaders has been criticized as "extra-judicial execution". Palestinian spokesmen condemn the "target killing" as terroristic, while countries like the United States see them as legitimate self-defense measure against Palestinian terrorism.
• The use of bulldozers, explosives, helicopters and tanks by the Israel - which resulted in destruction of homes, businesses, farms, and schools have been criticized as collective punishment and disproportionate use of force. Israel claims that destroyed property is owned by accused militants and their families, or that they contain terrorist infrastructure such as bomb labs, weapon stash or smuggling tunnels.
• A multitude of Israeli military operation conducted at urban areas and refugee camps such as the Qana Massacre, and attacks on Jenin and Jabalia have been condemned as terroristic by Palestinian and Arab spokesmen, although Israel maintains that their military attacks on civilian areas are always in response to terrorist activity in these camps. On April, 2002, Palestinian officials blamed Israel of massacring 500-3000 civilians in Jenin during Operation Defensive Shield, but those allegation were refuted by Human Rights groups and UN fact-finding commission.
• Israel's policy of mass detention without charge or trial of Palestinian civilians suspected of terrorism and allegations of torture in Israeli prisons are also considered by some to be terroristic. Israel claims that mass arrests are sometimes necessary to protect Israeli citizens, and claims that "moderate physical pressure" of a type that many others, including B'Tselem and the United Nations Committee Against Torture, consider to constitute torture, are necessary [5] (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/353491.stm).

Myanmar

The ruling junta of Myanmar has repeatedly engaged in activities to suppress democratic movements within the country. Many of the junta's opponents, such as Aung San Suu Kyi, believe the goal of some of these is to terrorize the population into compliance. See, for instance, the August 8, 1998 Burma protest.

Soviet Union

Under the reign of Josef Stalin (and, to a lesser extent, under several other Soviet leaders), political opponents of the Soviet regime, as well as perceived "enemies of the people", were subject to incarceration under life-threatening circumstances and execution. Stalin was able to cement his hold on power by intimidating and executing his political opponents, real and imagined.

The assassination of dissidents in exile (such as the 1940 murder of Leon Trotsky in Mexico by agents of Stalin) might also be considered an example of state terrorism.

Spain

During the 1970s and the 1980s, several groups attacked suspected members of Basque terrorist organization ETA. These groups are:

• Guerrilleros de Cristo Rey
• Batallón Vasco Español
• Antiterrorismo ETA (ATE)
• Grupos Antiterroristas de Liberación (GAL)

These groups have been suspected and in some cases proved to include Spanish policemen and to be funded with state secret funds.

Spanish magistrate Baltasar Garzón's investigations led to the conviction of a Spanish PSOE minister and several subordinates for organizing the GAL.

Syria

The United States Department of State classifies Syria as a state sponsor of terrorism for providing "political and limited material support" to a number of Palestinian rejectionist groups, some of which are accused of terrorist activity, including Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC), the Palestine Islamic Jihad (PIJ), and the Islamic Resistance Movement (HAMAS). [6] (http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/pgtrpt/2002/html/19986.htm) [7] (http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/pgtrpt/2002/html/19988.htm).

United Kingdom

In Northern Ireland, Loyalist death squads, supported by the British military, have been blamed for the deaths of Irish Republicans as part of a campaign of terror.

United States

A number of critics have labeled actions of the United States of America as terrorism. For instance, the US has taken sides in various foreign civil wars and conflicts, notably siding with Israel against other Middle East countries, often working with organizations with questionable human rights practices. The CIA, in particular, has been accused of supporting terrorist organizations in other countries. Such support has been labeled state terrorism.

Other actions have also been criticized as terroristic in intent.

The Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is considered by some as another example of mass killing of civilians which went beyond the laws of war. This has been a highly debated issue over the years. See Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The firebombing of Tokyo and Dresden during WWII, which killed many thousands of people, especially civilians, is also considered state terrorism by some.

Some, particularly critics of the US, claim the UN sanctions on Iraq, which the US helped push for, harmed the people more than the government. A response to this is that other countries in the security council, particularly France and Russia, established backdoors so that they could profit immensely through kickbacks. Similarly, the entire Oil for Food program has come under investigation for taking kickbacks and bribes from Saddam Hussein.

Another example is the U.S. intervention in Chile. The United States' military action against Nicaragua in 1984-1985 was criticized by some commentators as terroristic after the International Court of Justice, whose authority the US does not recognize, found the US guilty of "unlawful use of force" [8] (http://212.153.43.18/icjwww/icases/inus/inus_isummaries/inus_isummary_19860627.htm). The US Army runs the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation training camp, the successor to "The School of the Americas", in Georgia, USA where some of its graduates have gone on to commit acts of what others consider to be state terrorism in Latin America.

See also

• Death squad
• Dirty War

References

• Sluka, Jeffrey A. (Ed.) (2000). Death Squad: The Anthropology of State Terror. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 0-8122-1711-X.
• Chomsky, Noam and Herman, Edward S. (1979). The Political Economy of Human Rights - Volume I. Boston: South End Press. ISBN 0-89608-090-0

Language acquisition

The manner in which a child acquires language is a matter long debated by linguists and child psychologists alike. The father of most nativist theories of language acquisition is Noam Chomsky, who brought greater attention to the innate capacity of children for learning language, which had widely been considered a purely cultural phenomenon based on imitation. Nativist linguistic theories hold that children learn through their natural ability to organize the laws of language, but cannot fully utilize this talent without the presence of other humans. This does not mean, however, that the child requires formal tutelage of any sort. Chomsky claims that children are born with a hard-wired language acquisition device (LAD) in their brains. They are born with the major principles of language in place, and with some parameters to set (such as whether sentences in the language they are to acquire must have explicit subjects). According to nativist theory, when the young child is exposed to a language, their LAD makes it possible for them to set the parameters and deduce the grammatical principles, because the principles are innate.

This is still a controversial view, and many linguists and psychologists do not believe language is as innate as Chomsky argues. There are important arguments for Chomsky's view of development, however. These include the idea of universal grammar, the similarities that underlie every human language. Another argument is that without a propensity for language, human infants would be unable to learn such complete speech patterns in a natural human environment where complete sentences are the exception. This is sometimes mischaracterised as the poverty of stimulus argument. Psychologists such as Catherine Snow at Harvard, who study parent-child interaction, point out that children do not have to deduce the principles of language from impoverished and ungrammatical scraps of talk. Many studies of child directed speech or CDS have shown that speech to young children is slow, clear, grammatical, and very repetitious, rather like traditional language lessons. Social interactionists like Snow theorize that adults play an important part in children's language acquisition. These criticisms would be powerful against Chomsky's argument if the argument from the poverty of stimulus were indeed an argument from degenerate stimulus, but it is not. The argument from the poverty of stimulus is that there are principles of grammar that cannot be learned on the basis of positive input alone, however complete and grammatical that evidence is. This argument is not vulnerable to objection based on evidence from interaction studies such as Snow's.

Linguist Eric Lenneberg states that the crucial period of language acquisition ends around the age of 12 years. He claims that if no language is learned before then, it can never be learned in a normal and fully functional sense. This is known as the "Critical Period Hypothesis".

An interesting example of this is the case of Genie, otherwise known as "The Wild Child". A thirteen-year-old victim of lifelong child abuse, Genie was discovered in her home on November 4th, 1970, strapped to a potty chair and wearing diapers. She appeared to be entirely without language. Her father had judged her retarded at birth and had chosen to isolate her, and so she had remained up until her discovery. It was an ideal (albeit horrifying) opportunity to test the theory that a nurturing environment could somehow make up for a total lack of language past the age of 12. Sadly, she was unable to acquire language completely. Due to this and other complications, she eventually ended up in an adult foster care home.

Detractors of the "Critical Age Hypothesis" point out that in this example and others like it (see Feral children), the child is hardly growing up in a nurturing environment, and that the lack of language acquisition in later life may be due to the results of a generally abusive environment rather than being specifically due to a lack of exposure to language.

However, there exists emerging evidence of both innateness of language and the "Critical Age Hypothesis" from the deaf population of Nicaragua. Until approximately 1986, Nicaragua had neither education nor a formalized sign language for the deaf. As Nicaraguans attempted to rectify the situation, they discovered that children past a certain age had difficulty learning any language. Additionally, the adults observed that the younger children were using gestures unknown to them to communicate with each other. They invited Judy Kegl, an American linguist from MIT, to help unravel this mystery. Kegl discovered that these children had developed their own, distinct, Nicaraguan Sign Language with its own rules of "sign-phonology" and syntax. She also discovered some 300 adults who, despite being raised in otherwise healthy environments, had never acquired language, and turned out to be incapable of learning language in any meaningful sense. While it was possible to teach vocabulary, these individuals seem to be unable to learn syntax.

The developmental period of most efficient language learning coincides with the time of rapid post-natal brain growth and plasticity in both humans and chimps. Prolonged post-natal brain growth in humans allows for an extended period of the type of brain plasticity characteristic of juvenile primates and an extended time window for language learning. The neotenic pattern of human brain development is associated with persistence of considerable language learning capacity into human adulthood.

Derek Bickerton's (1981) landmark work with Hawaiian pidgin speakers studied immigrant populations where first-generation parents spoke highly-ungrammatical "pidgin English". Their children, it was found, grew up speaking a grammatically rich language -- neither English nor the broken pidgin of their parents. Furthermore, the language exhibited many of the underlying grammatical features of many other natural languages. The language became "creolized". This was taken as powerful evidence for children's innate grammar module. See Bickerton, D. (1981). Roots of language. Ann Arbor, MI: Karoma. See: Wug Test, Jean Berko Gleason, fis phenomenon, babbling, Steven Pinker.

By studying the ways that children learn their mother tongue, Paul Pimsleur developed the Pimsleur language learning system.

James Asher has put forth a trademarked term for his theories on language acquisition, TPR that could be qualified as corporal verbosity. Often used consciously in young student environments and could be considered as group modeling for older students.

See also

• How to learn a language
• Origin of language

External links

• The open directory project's list of sites about language acquisition (http://dmoz.org/Science/Social_Sciences/Language_and_Linguistics/Applied_Linguistics/Language_Acquisition/)
• Signs of success article (http://www.economist.com/science/PrinterFriendly.cfm?Story_ID=2441743) in (The Economist),
• Birth Of A Language (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2000/04/25/60II/main188527.shtml)

Intellectual worker

"Intellectual worker" (brain worker or knowledge worker) is a term used in various anarchist, communist, and socialist writings. Chomsky describes such a working class individual as, "[One] whose work happens to be more with the mind than with the hands." He then notes, "[Those] whose major professional concern is knowledge...[should] have no special opportunit[ies]...to gain any...power [or] prestige..." (Chomsky and Peck, 1987)

See also:

• engineering of consent
• intellectualism

References

• Chomsky, M., & Peck, J. (1987). The Chomsky Reader.

Chomsky hierarchy

The Chomsky hierarchy is a containment hierarchy of classes of formal grammars that generate formal languages. This hierarchy was described by Noam Chomsky in 1956.

Formal grammars

A formal grammar consists of a finite set of terminal symbols (the letters of the words in the formal language), a finite set of nonterminal symbols, a set of production rules with a left- and a right-hand side consisting of a word of these symbols, and a start symbol. A rule may be applied to a word by replacing the left-hand side by the right-hand side. A derivation is a sequence of rule applications. Such a grammar defines the formal language of all words consisting solely of terminal symbols that can be reached by a derivation from the start symbol.

Nonterminals are usually represented by uppercase letters, terminals by lowercase letters, and the start symbol by an "S". For example, the grammar with terminals {a, b}, nonterminals {S, A, B}, production rules

S → ABS

S → ε (with ε the empty string)

BA → AB

BS → b

Bb → bb

Ab → ab

Aa → aa

and start symbol S, defines the language of all words of the form aⁿbⁿ (i.e. n copies of a followed by n copies of b).

See formal grammar for a more elaborate explanation.

The hierarchy

The Chomsky hierarchy consists of the following levels:

• Type-0 grammars (unrestricted grammars) include all formal grammars. They generate exactly all languages that can be recognized by a Turing machine. The language that is recognized by a Turing machine is defined as all the strings on which it halts. These languages are also known as the recursively enumerable languages. Note that this is different from the recursive languages which can be decided by an always halting Turing machine.

• Type-1 grammars (context-sensitive grammars) generate the context-sensitive languages. These grammars have rules of the form αAβ → αγβ with A a nonterminal and α, β and γ strings of terminals and nonterminals. The strings α and β may be empty, but γ must be nonempty. The rule S → ε is allowed if S does not appear on the right side of any rule. The languages described by these grammars are exactly all languages that can be recognized by a non-deterministic Turing machine whose tape is bounded by a constant times the length of the input.

• Type-2 grammars (context-free grammars) generate the context-free languages. These are defined by rules of the form A → γ with A a nonterminal and γ a string of terminals and nonterminals. These languages are exactly all languages that can be recognized by a non-deterministic pushdown automaton. Context free languages are the theoretical basis for the syntax of most programming languages.

• Type-3 grammars (regular grammars) generate the regular languages. Such a grammar restricts its rules to a single nonterminal on the left-hand side and a right-hand side consisting of a single terminal, possibly followed by a single nonterminal. The rule S → ε is also here allowed if S does not appear on the right side of any rule. These languages are exactly all languages that can be decided by a finite state automaton. Additionally, this family of formal languages can be obtained by regular expressions. Regular languages are commonly used to define search patterns and the lexical structure of programming languages.

Note that there is no specific characterization above of the kind of grammar that corresponds to recursive languages.

Every regular language is context-free, every context-free language is context-sensitive and every context-sensitive language is recursive and every recursive language is recursively enumerable. These are all proper inclusions, meaning that there exist recursively enumerable languages which are not recursive, recursive languages that are not context-sensitive, context-sensitive languages which are not context-free and context-free languages which are not regular.

The following table summarizes each of Chomsky's four types of grammars, the class of languages it generates, the type of automaton that recognizes it, and the form its rules must have.

Grammar	Languages	Automaton	Production rules
Type-0	Recursively enumerable	Turing machine	No restrictions
Type-1	Context-sensitive	Linear-bounded non-deterministic Turing machine	αAβ → αγβ
Type-2	Context-free	Non-deterministic pushdown automaton	A → γ
Type-3	Regular	Finite state automaton	A → aB A → a

References

• Noam Chomsky: Three models for the description of language, IRE Transactions on Information Theory, 2 (1956), pages 113-124
• Noam Chomsky: On certain formal properties of grammars, Information and Control, 1 (1959), pages 91-112

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chomsky_hierarchy"

Categories: Formal languages

Intellectual

(Redirected from Intellectualism)

An intellectual is a person who uses his or her intellect to study, reflect, and speculate on a variety of different ideas. In some contexts, especially journalistic speech, intellectual often refers to academics, generally in the humanities, especially philosophy, who speak about various issues of social or political import. These are so-called public intellectuals — in effect communicators.

Contents [showhide]

1 Men of letters 2 The clerisy and the intelligentsia 3 Modes of 'intellectual class' 4 Intellectualism 5 Outside the West 6 Some public intellectuals 7 Related articles 8 See also

Men of letters

The man of letters stood in many cultures for what we might take to be the contemporary intellectual; the distinction not having great weight when literacy was not fairly universal (and, incidentally, not assumed of a woman). Men of letters are also termed literati (from the Latin), as a group; literatus, in the singular, is hardly used in English.

The clerisy and the intelligentsia

Coleridge speculated early in the nineteenth century on the concept of the clerisy, a class rather than a type of individual, and a secular equivalent of the (Anglican) clergy, with a duty of upholding (national) culture. The idea of the intelligentsia, in comparison, dates from roughly the same time, and is based more concretely on the status class of 'mental' or white-collar workers.

Modes of 'intellectual class'

From that time onwards, in Europe and elsewhere, some variants of the idea of an intellectual class have been important (not least to intellectuals, self-styled). The degrees of actual involvement in art, or politics, journalism and education, of nationalist or internationalist or ethnic sentiment, constituting the 'vocation' of an intellectual, have never become fixed. Some intellectuals have been vehemently anti-academic; at times universities and their professoriat have been synonymous with intellectualism, but in other periods and some places the centre of gravity of intellectual life has been elsewhere.

One can notice a sharpening of terms, in the latter part of the nineteenth century. Just as the coinage scientist would come to mean a professional, the man of letters would more often be assumed to be a professional writer, perhaps having the breadth of a journalist or essayist, but not necessarily with the engagement of the intellectual.

Intellectualism

Strictly a doctrine about the possibility of deriving knowledge from reason alone, intellectualism can stand for a general approach favouring the head over all else. Criticism of this attitude, sometimes summed up as Left Bank, is probably more general than of intellectual workers; it is possible more easily to be reconciled with a writer being an intellectual, by trade, than to any overall intellectualist claim that thinking in the abstract has priority.

Outside the West

In ancient China literati referred to the government officials who formed the ruling class in China for over two thousand years. They were a status group of educated laymen, not ordained priests. They were not a hereditary group as their position depended on their knowledge of writing and literature. After 200 B.C. the system of selection of candidates was influenced by Confucianism and established its ethic among the literati.

The Hundred Flowers Campaign in China was largely based on the government's wish for a mobilisation of intellectuals; with very sour consequences later. This is perhaps typical of a state's instrumentalist approach to the existence of an intellectual class.

Some public intellectuals

These figures might represent the range, if not the extent.

• Noam Chomsky
• John Dewey
• Benjamin Franklin
• Jürgen Habermas
• Lewis Mumford
• Thomas Paine
• George Bernard Shaw
• Gore Vidal
• Cornel West

Related articles

• Academia
• Academic,
• Anti-intellectualism, philistinism
• Hundred Schools of Thought
• Independent scholar
• La trahison des clercs
• School of Literati

See also

• Intellectual honesty
• Intellectual history
• Intellectual property
• Intellectual rigor
• Intellectual virtues

Direct realism

Direct realism is a theory of perception that claims that the senses provide us with direct awareness of the external world. In contrast, indirect realism and representationalism claim that we are directly aware only of internal representations of the external world.

Direct realists sometimes claim that indirect realists are confused about conventional idioms of perceptions. Perception is an exemplar of direct contact with something. Examples of indirect perception might be seeing something in a photograph, or hearing a recording of a voice. Direct realists often argue, contra representationalists, that the fact that one becomes aware of a tree in perception through a complex neurophysical process does not argue in favour of indirect perception. It merely establishes the method, undoubtedly complex, by which direct awareness of the world is secured. Arguing that perceiving a tree directly requires a magical, acausal mirroring of the tree in the mind is akin to arguing that traveling directly to grandmother's requires that one magically appear at her doorstep. The inference from the fact of a complex route to indirectness may be an instance of the genetic fallacy.

On the other hand direct realism proposes no physical theory of experience and does not identify experience with the quantum phenomena that are things in themselves, the photons that enter the eye or the twin retinal images. This lack of supervenience of experience on the physical world means that direct realism is not a physical theory.

See also

• Philosophy of mind
• Consciousness
• Philosophy of perception
• Thomas Reid