The mind of Noam Chomsky

Streaming video - 2014

Noam Chomsky revolutionized our understanding of language, cognition, and the nature of the human mind. Join host Howard Gardner (Multiple Intelligences theory) as he leads you on a fascinating journey through the life and mind of Noam Chomsky. From an epiphany on a 1953 boating trip, to a radical break with behaviorism and structural linguistics, Noam Chomsky's fascinating story charts the course of a sweeping intellectual adventure. It is a story that plots decades of insights and breakthroughs that would ultimately crystallize in the theory of Generative Grammar -- Chomsky's definitive treatise on the principles of language and the nature of mind. From why the obscure field of linguistics captured his interest 50 years ago, to ...his critique of scientific "objectivism," Chomsky reveals why language must be viewed as a "biological system," and what makes it a "species property. " In turn, he demonstrates how language is both a model for other aspects of cognition, and at the core of human nature, and evolution. On a sweeping canvas of human history, Chomsky performs a "thought experiment" and argues how the biologically endowed language organ was responsible for the sudden burst of human creativity, artistic production, and migration 75,000 years ago -- and why this language faculty must have preceded communication itself. From his seminal contributions to the cognitive revolution, to systematic scientific approaches to language, and even politics, Chomsky takes your students on a fascinating tour: from psychology to physics, from evolution to international affairs, and from the meaning of science itself to the very nature of man. Enlightening and terrifically entertaining, The mind of Noam Chomsky will inspire your students to rethink, to question, and to understand language, cognition, and the mind in entirely new ways. The mind of Noam Chomsky is an essential presentation for curricula in psychology, philosophy, linguistics, and the cognitive sciences. Don't miss this unique opportunity to bring The mind of Noam Chomsky into your classroom. more