A Review of B. F. Skinner’s Verbal Behavior

by Noam Chomsky

Genres: Psychology, Linguistics

Unknown Binding

About the author

Avram Noam Chomsky is an American professor and public intellectual known for his work in linguistics, political activism, and social criticism. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky is also a major figure in analytic philosophy and one of the founders of the field of cognitive science. He is a laureate professor of linguistics at the University of Arizona and an institute professor emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Among the most cited living authors, Chomsky has written more than 150 books on topics such as linguistics, war, and politics. In addition to his work in linguistics, since the 1960s Chomsky has been an influential voice on the American left as a consistent critic of U.S. foreign policy, contemporary capitalism, and corporate influence on political institutions and the media.
Born to Ashkenazi Jewish immigrants (his father was William Chomsky) in Philadelphia, Chomsky developed an early interest in anarchism from alternative bookstores in New York City. He studied at the University of Pennsylvania. During his postgraduate work in the Harvard Society of Fellows, Chomsky developed the theory of transformational grammar for which he earned his doctorate in 1955. That year he began teaching at MIT, and in 1957 emerged as a significant figure in linguistics with his landmark work Syntactic Structures, which played a major role in remodeling the study of language. From 1958 to 1959 Chomsky was a National Science Foundation fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study. He created or co-created the universal grammar theory, the generative grammar theory, the Chomsky hierarchy, and the minimalist program. Chomsky also played a pivotal role in the decline of linguistic behaviorism, and was particularly critical of the work of B.F. Skinner.
An outspoken opponent of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, which he saw as an act of American imperialism, in 1967 Chomsky rose to national attention for his anti-war essay "The Responsibility of Intellectuals". Becoming associated with the New Left, he was arrested multiple times for his activism and placed on President Richard M. Nixon's list of political opponents. While expanding his work in linguistics over subsequent decades, he also became involved in the linguistics wars. In collaboration with Edward S. Herman, Chomsky later articulated the propaganda model of media criticism in Manufacturing Consent, and worked to expose the Indonesian occupation of East Timor. His defense of unconditional freedom of speech, including that of Holocaust denial, generated significant controversy in the Faurisson affair of the 1980s. Chomsky's commentary on the Cambodian genocide and the Bosnian genocide also generated controversy. Since retiring from active teaching at MIT, he has continued his vocal political activism, including opposing the 2003 invasion of Iraq and supporting the Occupy movement. An anti-Zionist, Chomsky considers Israel's treatment of Palestinians to be worse than South African–style apartheid, and criticizes U.S. support for Israel.
Chomsky is widely recognized as having helped to spark the cognitive revolution in the human sciences, contributing to the development of a new cognitivistic framework for the study of language and the mind. Chomsky remains a leading critic of U.S. foreign policy, contemporary capitalism, U.S. involvement and Israel's role in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, and mass media. Chomsky and his ideas are highly influential in the anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist movements. Since 2017, he has been Agnese Helms Haury Chair in the Agnese Nelms Haury Program in Environment and Social Justice at the University of Arizona.

Reviews

[Ioana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like an epitaph, but longer.

[Sarah]

I'm not going to rate this because I'm in no way shape or form a Ph.D. holding linguist. Anyways, fascinating things from Noam Chomsky a living legend for linguistics, and a living legend for proving B.F. Skinner wrong. Even though B.F. Skinner has contributed so much to psychology... it's a struggle. Gah. Anywho, my linguistics professor sent me this, so shout out to her, a true queen among queens.

[danielle; ▵ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Much of this went over my head, but I enjoyed the parts I understood and the academic jabs.

[Daniel K · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found myself re-reading quite a lot because of the quite academic nature of the article. Chomsky is a very talented writer, I surprised by how entertaining and even amusing this article was. However, I am slightly concerned that his style is too flippant, or at least uncharitable to Skinner's view - I found myself wondering on a number of occasions that he surely wasn't arguing for something as patently absurd as Chomsky's portrayal. I was particularly taken by his focus on dismissing the Skinner as masquerading in the clothes of objectivity as well as arguing that Skinner's argument is not in anyway new, but simply renames and muddies pre-existing frameworks: two crucial problems which perhaps all the great psychologists fall into in one way or another. I came to this essay above all because the clash with Skinner made his name and is a good place to get to grips in short-form with his early lines of thought that would become the Language Acquisition Device and Universal Grammar. Chomsky's simple but seductive suggestion that language must be in someway innate is incredibly difficult to refute. The principle evidence for this claim seems to me to be: the dearth of stimulus of infants to understand language so deeply such that a) they can eventually formulate, and regularly sentences that have never been created before, but yet can be understood and b) develop the remarkable ability to distinguish a sentences from non-sentences 'colourless green ideas sleep furiously) that are grammatically false though they obey the rules of syntax. The example of the immediate imprinting of the parent by a bird, which is replicated at a more sophisticated level in the human infant would seem to confirm the fact that our behaviour is deeply coloured by pre-programmed behaviours not are not simply conditioned into us as a result of our desperation for food, and thus survival.

[Erica Stratton · Rating 4 out of 5]

A psychology book that I'm reading recommended that people read this. I do enjoy reading both an argument and a counterargument and making up my own mind.