The-stuff-of-thought

<p>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 Books&#8212;including The Pulitzer Prize Finalist The Blank Slate&#8212;have Catapulted Him Into The Limelight As One Of Today's Most Important And Popular Science Writers. Now, In The Stuff Of Thought, Pinker Marries Two Of The Subjects He Knows Best&#58; 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.</p> <h3>the Washington Post - Johah Lehrer</h3> <p>in <i>the Stuff Of Thought</i>, Pinker Pitches Himself As The Broker Of A Scientific Compromise Between Linguistic Determinism And Extreme Nativism. ... He Advocates The Middle Ground Of Conceptual Semantics, In Which The Meaning Of Our Words Depends On An Underlying Framework Of Basic Cognitive Concepts. ... Pinker Tries Hard To Make This Tour Of Linguistic Theory As Readable As Possible. ... But Profanity From Lenny Bruce Can't Always Compensate For The Cryptic Vocabulary And Long List Of Competing 'isms. ... <i>the Stuff Of Thought</i> Concludes With An Optimistic Gloss On The Power Of Language To Lead Us Out Of The Platonic Cave, So That We Can Transcend Our Cognitive And Emotional Limitations. It's A Nice Try At A Happy Ending, But I Don't Buy It. <i>the Stuff Of Thought</i>, After All, Is Really About The Limits Of Language, The Way Our Prose And Poetry Are Bound By Innate Constraints We Can't Even Comprehend.</p>