Language As a Window Into Human Nature Ebook, Epub
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THE STUFF OF THOUGHT:: LANGUAGE AS A WINDOW INTO HUMAN NATURE PDF, EPUB, EBOOK Steven Pinker | 512 pages | 30 May 2008 | Penguin Books Ltd | 9780141015477 | English | London, United Kingdom The Stuff of Thought:: Language as a Window into Human Nature PDF Book I suppose that PInker argues throughout from a evolutionary psychological view point, but this becomes most clear in the second to last chapter and maybe it is simply because I am still very critical towards that school of thought, but to my mind the second to last chapter is the least convincing. Pinker is known for his wide-ranging explorations of human nature and its relevance to language, history, morality, politics, and everyday life. An extreme nativist holds that the language we use for thought is totally predetermined. This isn't a knee-jerk reaction from a sociologist; socio-biological explanations are generally examples of people reading their own interpretations of the social world, and how it "ought" to be, back into "history" and saying that it's natural. As such these two have been my least favourite of his books. Is it a construction of our language? He seems to think it has a lot to do with verbs. Through this lens, Pinker asks questions such as "What does the peculiar syntax of swearing tell us about ourselves? First we hear of academics that make claims that imply that nearly all words are innate to the human mind, and are inborn as part of our genetic makeup i. He argues with everyone! We hear of psychology, cultural practices, and evolution. He has two younger siblings. I assume that by 'good' he means 'effective' and in context he means 'of exposition. Not only is he a deep thinker, but he is a good writer and when you can't understand him, it's not because he writes in an obtuse way, it's just that you are literally incapable of going that deep into a concept. So, according to this logic, despite our conviction that the world consists of more than human minds, it would be impossible to determine what reality is except by consultation with other minds. There are myriad illustrations, statistics and studies that support and ease readability. In an early chapter, Pinker asks us to consider why some verbs are both content- and container-locative. I just couldn't find a focus, a significance, to all the interesting stuff. Yet, language must now take a passive back-seat to these issues, only acting to give us tiny clues to their nature. There are a multitude of lovely linguistic furnishings, the erudition of extensive research lines the bookshelves, quirky incidental knowledge is apparent in the quaint knickknacks strewn throughout, and there are even quite a few saucy paintings on the walls. The Stuff of Thought:: Language as a Window into Human Nature Writer Metaphor turns out to be our crucial talent. From describing the way children learn sentence structure, showing by their cute mistakes how infant speech can help us trace the language of time, space and causality; to the surfacing o Stunned. Pinker is one brainy dude, so perhaps the problem is with my own intelligence. That would be dualism. It was comedian Lenny Bruce's dream to do for sexual profanity what the Protestants had done for religious blasphemy - render it harmless. Pinker weaves this paradox from a series of opposing theories. In fact it is our model of reality tout court his analysis of verbs in shaping thought is exemplary. Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts 1 We have not used OCR Optical Character Recognition , as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. What do we mean by cause? He has two younger siblings. It would be a little strange if it wasn't the case that our mind is constructed in a particular way in our thinking. You can't help but admire the breadth of Pinker's inquiry, but at the same time wonder at the point. But as I reflected on it over the next few days, my opinion radically changed. For example, we can say, 'Jared sprayed water on the roses,' and also, 'Jared sprayed the roses with water. I just have access to an audiobook version, but I wanted to cite his work properly. The great role of innuendo as social glue is examined in its full spectrum. This runs counter to Wittgenstein's belief that thought is the slave of language. Frequently, after spending a few moments to decrypt some of his more florid paragraphs, I found that the concept they contained was fairly banal. The stuff in question is language, what the subtitle describes as a 'window into human nature'. Oct 16, liz rated it it was amazing Shelves: non-fiction. Is it a construction of our mind? It's quite rewarding and verbs will be your friends forevermore People need some concept in their heads that corresponds to the words used. The book starts off to look too heavy with a long chapter on verbs. The Doors' song "Love Me Two Times" sounds strange at first, because the temporal phrase x times applies only to events, not to states, and loving someone is a state. Most popular. For example, a common-place statement such as "If you could pass the salt, that would be great" functions both as a request though formally not a request and as a means of being polite or non-offensive through not directing the audience to overt demands. It's the sort of odd things that linguists discover: patterns in how we use language, that we follow without knowing. If frames overpower rational criticism, Pinker asks, then why do Lakoff and other quasi-relativists write books rationally criticizing frames? However, many of the insights found here would no longer be considered news to anyone with a passing interest in modern psychology. If two people call you a horse, look in the mirror. It's a subject he's explored in some depth before, but here he is at his most intellectually peripatetic. He could have written about the quaint vagaries of mostly English language semantics and its implicit politics and left it at that. There are definitely some strong points to be found in these pages. But those self-induced chuckles are pretty much self-indulgent, because they fail to dam an overwhelming onslaught of logorrhea. Error rating book. This is a very interesting question and I think Pinker's writing here is quite interesting as well. For example, in the movie "Fargo," he said, a kidnapper with the hostage in the back seat, is pulled over by a police officer because of a missing license plate. The Stuff of Thought:: Language as a Window into Human Nature Reviews A writer is someone who writes, and a stinger is something that stings. They come across as too wonky a word that is a phonaesthesia in case you were wondering and arcane to leave much of an impression. I suppose that PInker argues throughout from a evolutionary psychological view point, but this becomes most clear in the second to last chapter and maybe it is simply because I am still very critical towards that school of thought, but to my mind the second to last chapter is the least convincing. He was born in Canada and graduated from Montreal's Dawson College in He conducts research on language and cognition, writes for publications such as the New York Times, Time, and The New Repu Steven Arthur Pinker is a prominent Canadian-American experimental psychologist, cognitive scientist, and author of popular science. Shelves: toolbox , classics , need-to-review. We hear of psychology, cultural practices, and evolution. Maybe it has something to do with explanatory levels. But those self- induced chuckles are pretty much self-indulgent, because they fail to dam an overwhelming onslaught of logorrhea. I very much enjoyed The Better Angels of our Natures and The Blank Slate , but the books Pinker has written about his own field of expertise linguistics , not so much. It was fascinating not just because it showed that there are families of verbs whose existence I had never suspected existed but also because I was impressed by how this type of analysis provides a plausible window on the mind. I did just complete a module in speech and language development last week, and I finished reading this book yesterday, so this heightened sensitivity to words might not last forever. Steven Pinker. Date of Birth: September 18, Apr 23, Alex rated it really liked it. Pinker is one brainy dude, so perhaps the problem is with my own intelligence. So they'll sleep with anyone to spread their seed, but not take a chance of impregnating a less-than-attractive woman? Yet the Harvard professor demonstrates a frustrating reluctance to go from A to B if there's any chance of a detour to Z. There are a few things I don't think he is fair about- and one of those things is religion Surprise! In a series of stories before, after, and even during neurosurgery, an epileptic patient, Neil; Oct 08, Lars Guthrie rated it it was ok. The Observer Health, mind and body books. I know that Pinker argues that it is easy to make a computer aware of itself, but the level of self-reflexivity in the human mind is still impressive I think. The tracks of a bird in the Why is it that 'Steve' and variations such as Stephen went from being 75th in popularity, to being so omnipresent that Stephen Pinker admits to getting some extra sales because Stephen Hawking, Steve Jobs, and Stephen Jay Gould all gave the name some extra cachet? Lists with This Book.