The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature 1st Edition by Steven Pinker (PDF)

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This New York Times bestseller is an exciting and fearless investigation of language from the author of Rationality, The Better Angels of Our Nature and The Sense of Style and Enlightenment Now.”Curious, inventive, fearless, naughty.”–The New York Times Book Review Bestselling author Steven Pinker possesses that rare combination of scientific aptitude and verbal eloquence that enables him to provide lucid explanations of deep and powerful ideas. His previous books – including the Pulitzer Prize finalist The Blank Slate – have catapulted him into the limelight as one of today’s most important popular science writers. In The Stuff of Thought, Pinker presents a fascinating look at how our words explain our nature. 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.

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⭐In The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature, Steven Pinker examines samples of everyday speech to validate modern theories of cognitive science. Pinker is currently a professor and experimental psychologist at Harvard University. He earned his doctorate at Harvard in 1979, then moved to MIT for a postdoctoral fellowship and has been back and forth between the two since then. He’s best known for his work on language and the mind; his early research focused on visual cognition, while his more recent work focused more on child language acquisition (with a particular emphasis on verbs). The Stuff of Thought makes excellent use of verbal acquisition data to provide insight to cognitive function. While a basic knowledge in semantic formalism would be helpful for getting more out of the book, I feel that it is a well-balanced composition of popular culture and linguistic theory. Colorful metaphors bring to light linguistic principles essential for Pinker’s arguments on human nature. Pinker writes that through language, many complex ideas and attitudes are communicated in varying detail. These concepts shine through language, but they stem from a deeper, and at the most basic level, innate, system. Conceptual semantics, the language of thought, is important to understand because it provides evidence that our utterances are not inane, but that they have meaningful, interpretable content. He presents the question: how do children acquire language in the first place? It’s clear that they are not memorizing the information based on their affinity to regularize (ie runned is a regularized version of the irregular past tense) – which is something that is not found in the input (adult speech). They are analyzing the input to make generalizations using innate building blocks. There is much discussion on what exactly these building blocks are and their functions, all in an effort of fortifying the concept of the human mind. The machinery innate to our minds, that is, what we are born capable of, is a topic worthy of much philosophical discussion because the answer is still unknown. Pinker takes time to introduce Fodor’s Extreme Nativism (words are the smallest building blocks, and therefore the meaning is the word itself) and Radical Pragmatics (there is very little innate knowledge – all meanings are devised from the context in which the words are uttered). He argues in favor of conceptual semantics, which suggests spatial and eventive qualities of words are innate, while qualities specific to the words are learned. He uses metaphor and the attributes of various words with similar meanings that belong in different syntaxes to support his claim. His ultimate statement on the mind is that it’s clear, through linguistic evidence, that our mind is shaped by the world, and the world by our mind. That is, our perception of reality is a product of the way we think, which is derived from the world around us. Pinker’s style is informative and memorable. His makes great use of everyday language, like advertisements and common phrases, to communicate sophisticated linguistic theories, as when he describes the verb classes when discussing the difficulties of the acquisition of verbs. The frequent appearance of metaphors based on media and pop culture keeps the reader engaged by eliminating technical terminology and making the research accessible to a much wider audience. He initially draws on the events of 9/11 to explain the slight differentiations semantics makes, a topic well understood by the majority of Americans. I appreciate that he lets his personal style show through and really gives the reader a sense of being included in the observations and linguistic inductions that he makes. While I would not consider his analysis neuroscience based, it finds a home in cognitive science, which is valuable for understanding neuroscience on the level of higher cognitive function. The Stuff of Thought provides an excellent introduction to the relationship between cognitive science and language, all while engaging the reader in a light-weight, cultured script. I give The Stuff of Thought five stars for its integrity to the field and appealing writing style. Anyone with an interest in cognitive science and a passion for linguistics and languages would be no less than thrilled with this book.

⭐There were things I liked about “The Stuff of Thought” and things I didn’t. I would have preferred the book to be shorter. I certainly could take away many profound observations. However, I don’t think Pinker had to go into so many examples, although I am sure many readers will like that. Anyway, here are some important things which I will remember from the book.1. We can learn a lot about people from the way they put together words. Pinker shows many examples.2. What is an event? 9-11 was an event, however there were also many events which went into effecting it.3. Words take on new meanings to reflect on how the world works.4. Learning a language is really a remarkable process. Pinker discredits linguistic determination, that is the brain learning language to generate thinking. He asserts that thoughts effect language. Meanings are stored, not the exact combination of words which reflect them. Personally, I think both can work in parallel, when learning a language, but Pinker makes a good argument.5. Metaphors are very important. They are an essential part of thought. “To think is to grasp a metaphor”. He shows the use of metaphor in Leviticus, which makes one think even more that biblical scripture, at least the Torah, should not necessarily be taken literally, more like a living document which encourages deeper thinking especially as times change.6. The chapter on profanity is certainly interesting. The amygdala, in the brain, is important in storing memories with emotion. Bilingual people react more to taboo words in their first language, rather than their second. Aphasia, loss of articulate language, victims retain the ability to swear. This shows more memories of thought formulas rather than rule combinations. Such swearing in Tourettes’s Syndrome is called copolalia.7. The basal ganglia in the brain, when weakened, taboo thoughts are more easily released. There is a “Rage Circuit” which runs from the amygdala to the hypothalmus – limbic circuitry.8. Implicative language, like with sarcasm and politeness, versus direct. Hierarchical and “culture of honor” societies use politeness more.9. Pinker brings up UN Resolution 242, about the Israeli – Palestinian situation, showing how the wording was intentionally made ambiguous, so each side could more likely agree to it. Best to get some agreement, so at least there is somewhere from which to proceed in negotiations. There again, words reflect thoughts, to often encourage further thinking.So, the book is certainly worthwhile, despite its perhaps unnecessary length.

⭐Steven Pinker is no fool, but neither is he exceptionally smart.This is the sort of book you buy if you want to pontificate pretentiously around your not-particularly-intelligent friends and reminisce about your time together at Oxbridge spending your parents money.You may be tempted to ask such questions as “What does Intelligence mean!” and “But don’t you find it so interesting that language is like that.”Rest assured there are no meaningful answers within.

⭐Stephen Pinker’s books is intended to give us a view of human nature that emerges from the study of language.Successive chapters look at a range of topics very familiar to philosophers who have theorised about these things without the benefit of the studies psychologists and others have carried out in recent years – do we have innate ideas and is that the source of our ability to use language? does our use of language shape our view of the world? what is our concept of causation? how does metaphor work? how do names (of individuals and natural kinds) refer to things in the world? how does swearing and obscenity work? and what about ‘conversational implicature’, ie how we use language in ways that make it clear what we mean without saying precisely and literally what we mean.The treatments of these subjects are generally persuasive, though the discussion is (for all the liveliness of Pinker’s style) quite complex and hard going. So: we do have thought prior to speech, we have views about causation and the nature of agency that are probably quite askew from any kind of physics (Newtonian as much as Einstein and beyond – we think instead in terms of ‘agonists’ and ‘antagonists’), metaphors are sometimes indeed dead, sometimes alive and sometimes literary, and there are wider reasons (to do with e.g. authority relationships or membership of a community) why we might not always say precisely and squarely what we mean. And swear words don’t seem to work like other locutions grammatically and are more like ejaculations – but ones that place us in a social context as much as ones that express e.g. anger and so on in parts of the brain that otherwise don’t much go in for language.These are interesting conclusions, even if you have read the musings of philosophers on all this (Pinker cites Hume and Lewis on causation; Grice on conversational implicature, Kant on the nature of knowledge, Kripke and Putnam on rigid designators, and he might cite Davidson on metaphor and self-deception). It’s probably more interesting if those ideas are new to the reader, however. And I suspect it would be more interesting again if Pinker were to link up this theory to some wider questions – notably how much of a hold does our ‘conscious reason’ have on our behaviour (see for example the books of Jonathan Haidt) and how far is our language linked to ‘slow’ as opposed to ‘fast’ thinking?Overall not nearly as gripping – and not nearly as revelatory about human life – as his more recent book The Better Angels of Our Nature.

⭐Steven Pinker, The Stuff of ThoughtSteven Pinker in his Preface to this examination of language function warns the reader that `the early chapters occasionally dip into technical topics.’ That puts it mildly, for this is such a thorough and detailed analysis of the thing that makes us human that one is tempted to use the term `exhaustive’ – except that, as Pinker shows us, nothing in this world, including space, time and substance is exhaustive. Even one schooled in linguistic analysis would be sorely tested, though surely fascinated, by the author’s exploration of how we acquire and use the tool that enables man to function in a world that without him makes no sense.With over 450 pages of closely argued and abundantly illustrated verbal and diagrammatical text the casual reader will inevitably struggle to keep afloat. The 60 pages of Notes, References and Index alone bear witness to the range of Steven Pinker’s research. And if Pinker is not enough, the reader is invited to delve further into language theory – alphabetically from Abarbanell to Zwicky (yes, these are, I believe, real people) via Hume, Kant and Benjamin Lee Whorf.Mercifully, for the layman the book is replete with homely examples of language in daily use. Thus the author shows us that someone we call William Shakespeare, whatever scholarly dissenters may maintain, did write Hamlet, many other plays and 154 sonnets, that names do mean something. He concludes that names are `ways to identify unbroken chains of person-to-person transmission through time, anchored to a specific event of dubbing in the past.’I must confess to having recourse to the occasional re-reading of sentences like the above, but then I am not accustomed to thinking much about the relation between language and thought. Language is the essential tool we take for granted, but it has a history and a future, is volatile and an essential part of everyday existence, providing not only knowledge and information, but solace and humour. In which last this book abounds, despite the high seriousness of the topic; from known witticisms to strip cartoons this book is alive with fun and games: – Mother: `Would you like a piece of toast for breakfast?’ Boy: `I’d rather have a whole one, thanks.’ A middle-aged couple staring at a notice: `Please don’t feed the duck.’ He asks her if there isn’t something strange about the notice. She asks why, so he begins to explain: `Well, “Duck” is singular. It seems if you don’t want people feeding ducks, you’d make it plural: “Please do not feed the -” Final frame in the cartoon: QUACK! comes a voice from the pond. Focus on the notice. `Never mind,’ says the man.

⭐Pinker is a very clear speaker and writer and his books on language and linguistics range from ideal for the non-linguistic student/reader to definitely for the specialist. This leans very much towards the latter and is not an easy read.However, to anyone with a grounding in Vygotsky, Chomsky, post-Chomsky and early Pinker, it is a very interesting read but in “Fifty Thousand Innate Concepts”, having dealt with many of them, he comments: ” … each of the radical theories about language and thought refutes one of the others in a game of rock-paper-scissors”.He also quotes Sassoon:”Words are foolsWho follow blindly, once they get a lead.But thoughts are kingfishers that haunt the poolsOf quiet, seldom seen”.Looking at language which would seem, by its very design, “to be a tool with well-defined and limited functionality” (P 178) he considers the limits of language, metaphor and the process of naming. In an amusing chapter, entitled “The Seven Words You Can’t Say on Television” he looks at humanity’s curse words and the taboos we build around them. (Here, I must admit to some speed reading to discover what they were!)Finally, taking us back to Plato’s cave, he discusses how language allowed us to describe the cave but also the ways in which language allowed us to venture out of it to be free from its limitations; firstly through metaphor, secondly through the combinational power of language. As a dual tool, these linguistic features by combining analogies and uniting words in new ways, allow the expression of thoughts outside our cave.Pinker is an original thinker who uses language very clearly to elucidate itself.

⭐This was not my favourite book. Pinker makes a point once about every 40 pages, and then meanders from topic to topic in between. There are definitely interesting points throughout, but it is buried under a lot of stuff that might not feel as relevant. Read Guy Claxton’s Intelligence in the flesh instead.

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