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| The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature | 
 enlarge | Author: Steven Pinker
Publisher: Viking Adult
Category: Book
List Price: $29.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  33 reviews
Sales Rank: 22833
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 512
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.7
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.4 x 1.7
ISBN: 0670063274
Dewey Decimal Number: 401
EAN: 9780670063277
ASIN: 0670063274
Publication Date: September 11, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: NEW !! Hardback by Steven Pinker with clean crisp pages - cover and dust jacket are also in new condition - shipped within 48 hours
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Product Description
New York Times 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 booksincluding the Pulitzer Prize finalist The Blank Slatehave catapulted him into the limelight as one of todays most important and popular science writers.
Now, in The Stuff of Thought, Pinker marries two of the subjects he knows best: language and human nature. The result is a fascinating look at how our words explain our nature. What does swearing reveal about our emotions? Why does innuendo disclose something about relationships? Pinker reveals how our use of prepositions and tenses taps into peculiarly human concepts of space and time, and how our nouns and verbs speak to our notions of matter. Even the names we give our babies have important things to say about our relations to our children and to society.
With his signature wit and style, Pinker takes on scientific questions like whether language affects thought, as well as forays into everyday lifewhy is bulk e-mail called spam and how do romantic comedies get such mileage out of the ambiguities of dating? The Stuff of Thought is a brilliantly crafted and highly readable work that will appeal to fans of readers of everything from The Selfish Gene and Blink to Eats, Shoots & Leaves.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 28 more reviews...
 Good Stuff September 11, 2007
262 out of 269 found this review helpful
The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature by Steven Pinker
Is there a difference between the meanings of these two sentences?
(1) Hal loaded hay into the wagon, and,
(2) Hal loaded the wagon with hay.
Well, Steven Pinker claims there is a difference and it's a difference that reveals something about the way the mind conceptualizes experience. That is "the stuff of thought" with which Pinker's latest book is concerned, and this "stuff," as he convincingly demonstrates, can be made accessible through a careful analysis of "the stuff of language," i.e., word categories and their syntactic habitats.
In the case of the two sentences above, we can see the human capacity to frame events in alternate ways through the dual function of verbs like "load." This verb draws attention to the hay and its movement in the first sentence, but to the transformation (a kind of metaphorical "movement") of the wagon in the second.
That children can learn the dual use of "load" and the dual conceptualizations that it entails, and distinguish this verb from others (like, say, toss) that don't work in both sentences (E.g., we don't say "Hal tossed the wagon with hay" even though we can say "Hal tossed the hay into the wagon") is evidence that distinct ways of thinking underlie our ability to master language. There are, after all, many thousands of verbs that fall into scores of different categories based on their applicability to different contexts like those involving Hal's hay in the cases above. Pinker believes that our ability to learn the subtle distinctions that control these and other word usages is evidence of their role as reflectors and enablers of the basic elements of human thought, elements like causality, animation, possession, time-as-space, and so on.
Pinker faces quite a challenge in bringing to life profound truths about human nature through a systematic, fine-grained analysis of mundane words like "drip" and "pour," but he succeeds admirably. This is a book that will amply reward a careful reading.
Of course some words are inherently more interesting than others, and for my money the chapter on "The Seven Words You Can't Say on Television" is by itself worth the price of the book. A number of features that help condemn a word to the realm of taboo are revealed here. For example, there are clear syntactic distinctions between the usually unprintable words for sex (which Pinker, I'm happy to report, audaciously prints) and their more presentable cousins, such as have sex, make love, sleep together, copulate, etc. I had never before noticed that the taboo and vulgar forms, which tend to specify physical motion, differ from the non-taboo terms in that they usually occur in a subject-verb-direct object construction (e.g., Austin shagged Vanessa). The more respectable terms lack a direct object and do not specify "a particular manner of motion or effect." Furthermore, they are semantically symmetrical, so that if Austin had sex with Vanessa, Vanessa also had sex with Austin. More fundamentally Pinker ties the cathartic effect of some swearing with "the Rage circuit, which [is]... connected with negative emotion." The Rage circuit, as part of the limbic system, is found in other animals and is associated with "a reflex in which a suddenly wounded or confined animal would erupt in a furious struggle to startle, injure and escape from a predator, often accompanied by a bloodcurdling yowl."
This is rich stuff, the drawing of a neat connection between a specific category of words and an emotional pattern linked to specific parts of the brain. This chapter also helps make sense of Tourette's syndrome and otherwise identifies swearing as "a coherent neurobiological phenomenon." Other chapters are similarly rewarding. Pinker's analysis of metaphors both expands on, and, to an extent, revises the classic works in this field by George Lakoff, Mark Johnson and others.
I have some quibbles with parts of Pinker's overall model, but this is to be expected with a work so ambitious and wide-ranging. I am surprised, for example, that Pinker doesn't mention the extensive work on cognitive prototypes by such authors as Brent Berlin and Eleanor Rosch since their research seems to overlap with his.
Another point: His arguments against connectionist models of language and thought I found to be not quite convincing. Here Pinker is arguing for a genetically-based set of neural patterns to explain the complexities of language, where connectionism points to a more flexible, post-natal learning system. Pinker demonstrates that connectionism is probably not adequate to explain language learning if one assumes (as he apparently does) that learning after puberty is just as permanent as that which is learned in childhood. But such an assumption is unwarranted, and if childhood learning does have a special durability, his criticism of connectionism loses its punch.
Also, in discussing social change (part of his analysis of changing tastes in the naming of children), he cites data indicating that most disappearances such as the end of hat-wearing among men in the 1960s, were the natural outcome of a long and steadily declining trajectory for this fashion. However, there are so many distinctly abrupt social changes that can be identified in this era (including such linguistic ones as the disappearance of the basic slang term "swell" and its replacement by "cool") that this argument for gradual social change leaves me skeptical.
Naturally these are the kinds of disputable points that a book like this is bound to stir up, and that's, of course, all to the good. All in all, Pinker has succeeded, once again, in writing a book which, while effectively tackling a very knotty set of issues, manages to be both accessible and engaging. Five stars.
The best writer on the subject of language September 15, 2007
83 out of 90 found this review helpful
For the verbivore, no one sets out a feast like Steven Pinker. For my money, The Language Instinct is still the best, most comprehensive, and most entertaining introduction to linguistics ever composed, and I have been waiting for more than 10 years for this book (Words and Rules was also a great book, but a little technical for my taste; I am more drawn to semantics than grammar).
The Stuff of Thought can be a little technical as well. After an introduction in the most appealing Pinker style, chapters 2 and 3, on the ways verbs imply metaphorical categories and the reasons competing language theories are wrong, are both persuasive and engaging, but only if you think about them really, really hard. I remember feeling the same way about the sentence trees and bushes early on in The Language Instinct. But the rewards for the persevering reader comes later. Should you find yourself bogging down, skip to the chapter The Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television, which treats the subject of George Carlin's famous monologue in a manner that is more comprehensive and penetrating (sorry), but at times equally hilarious. That should provide the fuel to travel the rest of his landscape.
The subject of this book is incredibly important and it represents the culmination of a number of themes. Pinker himself says that it completes two parallel trilogies of books he has been writing for the past ten years, and I also read this as the fulfillment of Lakoff and Johnson's brilliant 1980 book "Metaphors We Live By," which lists the fundamental ways our physical reality structures our mental constructs, as revealed by pervasive metaphors. Pinker argues convincingly that Lakoff's later work pushes the metaphorical envelope too far, but he agrees that metaphor provides key insights into thoughts and understanding. He explores the theme of how language reveals and subtly shapes the ways the human mind makes sense of the world in a comprehensive, thoughtful, and compelling manner, carrying Lakoff's initial premise to a compelling, comprehensive theory of the function of metaphor in language and thought.
The linguist S.I. Hiyakawa observed that the last thing fish would think to study would be water; as we increasingly live in a world where words impinge on our every moment of consciousness, unpacking language helps us all understand the way it reveals and shapes our mental worlds. It also helps us understand what is not up for debate, and one of Pinker's most compelling themes is the universal community of human minds revealed by language commonalities. Pinker's philosophy of language somehow makes me feel both that language reveals individual creative genius (often in unexpected speakers) and a central set of commonalities among all human minds.
As a final note, the beauty of Pinker's writing in itself is sufficient reason to read this book. As a language lover, I find it a discouraging irony that so many linguists are so poor at articulating their arguments and insights, and that so much written about language is difficult and boring to read. Pinker, while taking on complex, abstruce topics, writes with clarity, enthusiasm, and humor. Aside from Richard Lederer, he is the only linguist I know who makes me laugh regularly.
Basically,I feel about Steven Pinker approximately the way Wayne and Garth felt about Aerosmith, and I am certainly dancing happily to The Stuff of Thought. Rock on, Steve!
Pinker's command on language almost too commanding September 24, 2007
45 out of 52 found this review helpful
Pinker's book, `The Stuff of Thought', is a thorough survey of linguistics and word use that is often very funny and insightful. The countless examples of word origins and of the logic that goes into sayings and lingual mechanisms (like metaphors) are brilliant and really do lend insight to the way our minds work. The thorough survey of naming (possibly the most entertaining chapter) could well be the quintessential treatment of the subject.
A downside to this book that the prospective reader should consider is that there seems to be no real idea. The author makes many good points about language in general and phrases a question about why we say what we don't mean, but it doesn't really add up to anything. By the end of the book, after the author has shuffled through a brief examination of words' roles in society, the reader is left grasping for something more useful.
It is possible that I (typical American English-user) was not able to `pick up' the idea of the book. The author does get rather scientific in his treatise and it is likely that I missed some of the more pedantic lines of thought. But this would seem to be counterproductive in a book about language. In many instances, Pinker employs words that will not connect with the average reader for their very scientific (abstract and cold) style, which piles up heaps of what looks like an argument, but does not issue an idea.
The reader should be prepared to read a lot of `scientisms' including the following: The Wholism Effect, locative construction, Gestalt shift, Anti-causative, polysemy, ungrammaticality, combinatory, dysphemistic, metonym / hypernym, count noun, combinatorics, and, my favorite, "causation from correlation by experimental manipulation". To some degree, the author expects the reader to know what all these mean because he does not explain them very well.
Getting beyond the linguistic jargon, which is quite heavy in the first half, the reader is treated to mesmerizing explorations of metaphors and word origins in the second half of the book. This is most likely where the popularity of the book will come from. The reader will connect, most likely because Pinker is talking about things that we all know about: names, cliches, catch phrases, etc. The section on cursing will also titillate the modern reader and sheds some discerning light on the contemporary speaker's overuse of profanity (much like Tom Wolfe's excellent survey in I Am Charlotte Simmons: A Novel). Readers should note that to survey cursing, Pinker uses the vulgarities regularly and so this book is quite vulgar in itself.
It is ironic that at the same time Pinker is explaining the effects of profanity, the reasons why we use it, and the consequences of overusing it, he is guilty of perpetuating the phenomenon. This is a problem throughout the book. Looking at something scientifically doesn't exempt one from being a part of it, especially if both the subject and method used are the same things--words. Indeed, it would seem that Pinker is unable to take the fully scientific objective perspective on this topic because of that innate challenge.
Overall, Pinker does remain meticulously objective (especially compared with noted colleagues of his) and one can read the text without being bombarded with irrelevant and annoying logical errors. His subtle Bush-bashing and Clinton-praising are done in ways pertinent to the subject matter, and he tries not to fall prey to other modern requisites of academia (he acknowledges that even liberals reserve taboos [the N-word], for example).
Worth the time and money for its analysis of language, `The Stuff of Thought' also touches on and could probably expand into a really useful survey of human thought and the human condition as a whole. For that, it is recommended.
 Just Plain Wrong December 8, 2007
25 out of 69 found this review helpful
It is amazing to me that Steven Pinker continues to churn out books on a topic for which he is completely off-track and that readers continue to buy into these theories.
Pinker continues to insist that language is a reflection of the user's "nature" rather than the user being shaped by language that is reflective of the environment in which he or she is shaped and molded. Anyone who has raised children understands that Mr. Pinker is not so much wrong, but that he purposely rejects theories that suggest that there is more going on than Pinker chooses to address.
The almost partisan rejection of scientific evidence that suggests that Pinker is grossly singular in his beliefs gives the reader the impression that the author has a wider political or social agenda rather than the desire to provide true scientific data that truly reflects what goes on in the relationship between society, language, and the human being.
Why doesn't a hammer 'ham'? September 14, 2007
24 out of 30 found this review helpful
If waiters wait and bankers bank, why don't hammers ham? Stephen Pinker asks this question along with numerous other questions in his interesting and enlightening book "The Stuff of Thought", which focuses on the bizarre quirks of language and its interaction with human conception. He also wonders why we abbreviate things but end up making them longer (it's longer to say 'www' than 'world wide web'); why the f-bomb is considered obscene, but the word 'rape', with its vile definition, is not; and how the tautological phrase 'enough is enough' actually says anything worthwhile. The reader will be quite familiar with the bizarre quirks in the English language that Pinker brings up and they will certainly come to the same conclusion that there may be rhyme, but no reason.
Among dozens of entertaining anecdotes and studies, Pinker reveals that what we take in in language is not what we actually conceive or remember and this mismatch is the root of much of the antagonism in today's society. One study described in the book showed that we don't remember exact sentences, but we remember the gist of the idea. This leads to insight on how the human brain actually works. Pinker explains how Schankian reminding (placing a new concept in the same mental basket as previous events) is why we humans are so smart but also why language is so abstract and imperfect. The brain may be able to respond to 10,000 words, but it puts all of them in just seven basic constructions of thought, which most languages work with: basic concepts, relationships, taxonomy, spatial concepts, time line, causal relationships, and goals.
Pinker is witty, but doesn't waste time getting technical though the entire book is fairly approachable by a non-scientific mind. The book is reminiscent (Schankian?) of Stumbling on Happiness and delves deeper than another interesting book on language, Words That Work. However, there is no unifying idea and the book really just serves to sum up the oddities in our language. Despite this, the book deserves many rereads and is recommended to anyone who is interested in society, culture, psychology, or why hammers don't 'ham'.
JSBM
Author, How to Take Advantage of the People Who Are Trying to Take Advantage of You: 50 Ways to Capitalize on the System
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