BRASILIA.- The American linguist and philosopher Noam Chomsky died today at the age of 95, a week after being hospitalized in a hospital in the Brazilian city of Sao Paulo to recover from a stroke.
Family and medical sources reported that he suffered such a stroke in June 2023, which caused him difficulty speaking and caused numbness on the right side of his body.
Chomsky was professor emeritus of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Arizona, both in the United States.
In addition to being an academic for more than 40 years, he was an activist and became known for his criticism of White House foreign policy.
Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1928, the teacher studied at Oak Lane Country Day School and Central High School.
It was at Harvard University, where he worked as a research assistant between 1951 and 1955, and carried out most of his studies on linguistics.
His most popular work is the one that deals with generative grammar, a theory that points out that the ability to structure sentences is innate to human beings and obeys structures.
The analysis system is related to philosophy, logic and psycholinguistics.
Starting in 1964, Chomsky actively protested against the United States Government for the Vietnam War and five years later, in 1969, he published the book “American Power and the New Mandarins”, a work of essays on the conflict.
He also received the Kyoto Prize, the Japanese equivalent of the Nobel Prize, which recognizes research in the fields of philosophy, art, science and technology, in 1988.
Likewise, he was awarded the Helmholtz Medal, dedicated to educators in the areas of natural and technical sciences, medicine and theory of knowledge.
He held the Benjamin Franklin Medal, a science and engineering award, in 1999, and the Sydney Peace Prize in 2011.
“Noam is the most influential intellectual of all time. Full stop,” Professor Andrew Kennis of the Rutgers School of Communications, whose book Digital Age Resistance contains a foreword co-written by Chomsky, recently told the Common Dreams website. non-profit news.
She said that “he was the greatest influence on my life in every way, personal or professional.”
As for movements, he noted, “no other thinker has helped shape and positively mold anti-imperialist analysis and criticism of American bullying in the world on behalf of Wall Street and Silicon Valley better and more effectively.” that he”.
For his part, American journalist and political analyst Anand Giridharadas described Chomsky, whom he interviewed in 2020, as a “lion of the left.”
“In addition to the total transformation of his academic field (he is widely recognized as the father of modern linguistics and the main force behind cognitive change in the sciences), his political impact has been incalculable,” he noted.
It is difficult to imagine the world without Chomsky, according to a US magazine
It is difficult to imagine a world without Noam Chomsky, who for more than 60 years was the most visible and prolific left-wing intellectual on the planet, stated today an article published in the United States press.
The left-wing quarterly magazine based in New York, Jacobin, dedicated an extensive text to the American writer, philosopher, political scientist and activist, who died this Tuesday at the age of 95 in Brazil, where he was hospitalized.
Described as an extra-sized intellectual and moral giant, Chomsky suffered a stroke a year ago and was convalescing in a care institution in São Paulo.
There is hardly a corner of the world where his writings and his tireless fight for justice have not touched people’s lives, the text stressed.
More than any other postwar thinker, Chomsky embodied Karl Marx’s favorite maxim: “nothing human is alien to me,” he stressed.
“Noam didn’t just point out injustice where he saw it, no matter how remote: he felt it. The Vietnamese, the Palestinians, the East Timorese, the Kurds – they all saw Noam adopt their struggle as his own,” he added.
Not only did he have informed opinions on a bewildering variety of topics and geographic regions, he emphasized, he had real experience.
This is what made him such an imposing figure: He was a one-man think tank, doing the work of dozens, producing commentary and analysis at a pace that no other contemporary thinker has been able to match, Jacobin noted.
For Jacobin, Chomsky had a clear structural theory of capitalism and the state, but unlike most academics, he did not dress it up in indecipherable prose or bury it under a hundred qualifications.
Avram Noam Chomsky, his full name, was born in the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on December 7, 1928.
Professor emeritus of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), he is one of the most prominent figures in 20th century linguistics, thanks to his work in linguistic theory and cognitive science.
He is also recognized for his political activism, characterized by a strong criticism of contemporary capitalism and the foreign policy of the United States.
The New York Times classified him as “the most important of contemporary intellectuals.”
