Nominator's statement

This paper is often credited with being one of the handful of papers that helped launch the cognitive revolution. It is also credited with discrediting behaviorism. By setting out clearly (rare for Chomsky) the case for a rich innate structure, instead of the simple learning mechanisms of behaviorism, it allowed a more substantial sense of "mind" to be studied.

comments

• This review contained a series of misinterpretations of Skinner's book as well as a confusion of Skinner's behavioral approach with methodological behaviorism. This work discouraged people from reading Skinner's book.

• This paper deserves to be high on the list. What it says isn't as important (nowadays, any reasonable student would draw the same criticisms of Verbal Behavior) as when it was said and its historical importance.

• Chomsky's review put Behaviorism to the rest definitively and set out the beginning of a new age in cognitive science.

• Undoubtedly one of the handful of central influences on the course of cognitive science.