本书是乔姆斯基与加拿大麦吉尔大学哲学教授詹姆斯的对话录。诺姆·乔姆斯基（Noam Chomsky）是我们这个时代最具影响力的思想家之一，可他的观点却常遭误解。在这个此前未曾发表过的访谈系列中，乔姆斯基挑战传统，对其有关语言、人类本质以及政治的重要思想做了深入探讨。乔姆斯基论及众多话题——人类语言的设计和功能、语言演化、表征论、人的概念本质、普通语法的最优性和完美性、人类本质、进化心理学、道德、认识论、人类理解的生物限度等问题。麦克吉尔弗雷教授广博的评论则可以方便不同类型的读者理解这个内容深刻的系列访谈。本书对语言和心智研究者，对任何想了解乔姆斯基思想的人而言，都是重要读物。

1971年，那个政治和经济都起着翻天覆地变化的时候，诺阿姆•乔姆斯基和米歇尔•福柯，两位在世界知识分子界处于顶尖地位的人，完成了一次堪称“世纪辩论”的交锋。这场辩论从“人的天性”出发，很快就拓展到了更宽泛的领域，涉及了历史、创造力、自由以及为政治正义所作的斗争。这本小书已经行销九个国家，也早已超出了学术图书的范畴，而这两位作者的知名度也超出了学术领域。

Noam Chomsky is one of the leading intellectual figures of modern times.He has had a major influence on linguistics,psychology and philosophy,and a significant effect on a range of other disciplines from anthropology to mathematics,education to literary criticism. In this rigorous yet accessible account of Chomsky s work and influence,Neil Smith analyses Chomsky s key contributions to the study of language and the study of mind.He gives a detailed and partly historical exposition of Chomsky s linguistic theorizing,and examines the ideas for which he is best known.Smith discusses the psychological and philosophical implications of Chomsky s work,and argues that he has fundamentally changed the way we think of ourselves,gaining a position in the history of ideas on a par with that of Darwin of Descartes.Finally,he examines Chomsky s political ideas and how these fit intellectually with his scholarly work.Smith argues that,despite Chomsky s own disavowal of any very close connection,there are fundamental ideas of rationality,creativity and modularity that draw together the disparate strands of his vast output.Throughout,Smith explores the coutroversy surrounding Chomsky s work,and explains why he has been both adulated and vilified. This much needed book will be welcomedby a wide range of readers:students and researchers in linguistics,philosophy,psychology,cognitive science and politics,and anyone with an interest in the impact of Chomsky s work.

《语言与心智(第3版)》主要内容：This is the long-awaited third edition of Chomsky' s outstanding collection of essays on Language and mind. The first six chapters, originally published in the 1960s, made a groundbreaking contribution to linguistic theory. This new edition complements them with an additional chapter and a new preface, bringing Chomsky' s influential approach into the twenty-first century. Chapters 1-6 present Chomsky's early work on the nature and acquisition of language as a genetically-endowed, biological system （Universal Grammar）, the rules and principles of which we acquire as internalized knowledge （I-language）. Over the past fifty years, this framework has sparked an explosion of inquiry into a wide range of languages, and has yielded some major theoretical questions. The final chapter revisits the key issues, reviewing the "biolinguistic" approach that has guided Chomsky' s work from its origins to the present day, and raising some novel and exciting challenges for the study of language and mind.

本书为乔姆斯基文之一。本文集所译介的几著作分别成书于不同期均为乔姆斯基政治评论的表作基本上涵盖了作者政治理论的核心体系，探讨了美国自越战、海湾战争、“9·11”事件以来的对外政策走向，其是对于一向自我标榜为“价值中立”的美国媒体和舆论界进行了强有力的批判，并进而对当今世界的最大热点问题之一——恐怖主义——现状和成因进行了深刻的分析，有助于内学人及广大读者更深入地了解西方尤其是美国的政治、外交、军事政策。