Pinker argues that language provides a window into human nature, and that "analyzing language can reveal what people are thinking and feeling." “The Stuff of Thought” explores the duality of human cognition: the modesty of its construction and the majesty of its constructive power. The medium belies the message. “I like to think I have a better reason to introduce you to my little friends,” he pleads, referring to verbs and his infatuation with them. In The Stuff of Thought, Pinker presents a fascinating look at how our words explain our nature. The Stuff of Thought: Language As a Window Into Human Nature is a 2007 book by experimental psychologist Steven Pinker.In the book Pinker "analyzes how our words relate to thoughts and to the world around us and reveals what this tells us about ourselves".
Sometimes, we use it not to communicate facts about the world but to filter them. Therefore, language functions at these two levels at all times. At one point, Pinker draws up a game-theoretic matrix for the question “Would you like to come up and see my etchings?” Etchings, of course, are code for sex. This question makes a $3.5 billion difference to the World Trade Center’s owner and his insurance company, but you’d be hard pressed to think up a more pointy-headed question about the murder of nearly 3,000 people. We complain about doublespeak but rely on double meanings.These are the aspects of our duality: brain and mind, matter and metaphor, fact and frame, science and politics, information and implication. In an exclusive preview of his book The Stuff of Thought, Steven Pinker looks at language and how it expresses what goes on in our minds -- and how the words we …
Considering scientific questions with examples from everyday life, The Stuff of Thought is a brilliantly crafted and highly readable work that will appeal to fans of everything from The Selfish Gene and Blink to Eats, Shoots & Leaves. The majesty of Pinker’s theories is only one side of the story. The Story of Stuff exposes the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues, and calls us together to create a more sustainable and just world.
Pinker tries. We invent subtle sexual overtures to avoid a confrontation if the other guy turns out not to be gay. The Stuff of Thought, By Steven Pinker Caveman conversations. He asserts that language must do two things: He catalogs scores of terms for genitals, sex acts and excrement. On the one hand, we must face the limits of our mental construction.
5. We euphemize bribes as “contributions” to preserve the dignity of lobbyists and legislators. (Jul., 1956), pp. The next step is to dump our most natural and mistaken metaphor — education as the filling of empty minds — and recognize that we learn by extrapolating, testing, modifying and recombining mental models of the world.That’s the two-faceted human nature Pinker wants to show us through the window of language. Even their common lesson has two sides. 65, No. It's a bit of a social dilemma.
On the other hand, you don't want to boss people around lightly. The mind is what the brain does. In “The Blank Slate,” he trashed the most famous such distinction, the one between mind and matter. In each case, language has fossilized the construction process: “heat flow,” “genetic code,” “natural selection.”Some thinkers worry that this power to frame perceptions can run away with us. Modern science rejects both ideas. You’re supposed to keep your personality out of the way, justifying every topic of interest by some larger theoretical goal. Idealists think it’s all in our heads.
Hence its subtitle: “Language as a Window Into Human Nature.” It sounds as though he’s finally going to pull together his life’s work under one big idea, but he doesn’t. Here is Pinker’s angle: Was it one “event” or two? There are two ways to look at anything.
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