The Stuff of Thought - Wikipedia The Stuff of Thought From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to navigation Jump to search The Stuff of Thought: Language As a Window Into Human Nature Cover of the first edition Author Steven Pinker Country United States Language English Subject Philosophy Publisher Penguin Group (Viking Press) Publication date 2007 Media type Print Pages 499 ISBN 978-0-670-06327-7 OCLC 154308853 Dewey Decimal 401 22 LC Class P107 .P548 2007 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".[1] Put another way, Pinker "probes the mystery of human nature by examining how we use words".[2] The book became a New York Times best seller. Contents 1 Summary 2 See also 3 References 4 External links Summary[edit] Pinker argues that language provides a window into human nature, and that "analyzing language can reveal what people are thinking and feeling." He asserts that language must do two things: convey a message to an audience, and negotiate the social relationship between the speaker and the audience. Therefore, language functions at these two levels at all times. 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). Pinker says of this example: It's become so common that we don't even notice that it is a philosophical rumination rather than a direct imperative. It's a bit of a social dilemma. On the one hand, you do want the salt. On the other hand, you don't want to boss people around lightly. So you split the difference by saying something that literally makes no sense while also conveying the message that you're not treating them like some kind of flunky.[3] Through this lens, Pinker asks questions such as "What does the peculiar syntax of swearing tell us about ourselves?" Or put another way, "Just what does the 'fuck' in 'fuck you' actually mean?",[1] - as discussed in the chapter The Seven Words You Can't Say on Television. The arguments contained within ride on the backs of his previous works, which paint human nature as having "distinct and universal properties, some of which are innate – determined at birth by genes rather than shaped primarily by environment."[3] See also[edit] Computational theory of mind Sociobiology Evolutionary psychology Imprinting Chomsky, Noam Hofstadter, Douglas Social semiotics Kant, Immanuel References[edit] ^ a b Pinker, Steven. "The Stuff of Thought". Steven Pinker. Harvard University. Archived from the original on 2008-05-09. Retrieved 2008-08-03. ^ Press, Michelle (September 2007), "Reviews: Cyclic Universe•World of Words•Nuclear Terror", Scientific American, Scientific American, Inc., 297 (3), p. 120, retrieved 2008-08-03 ^ a b Calamai, Peter (2007-01-21), "Of thought and metaphor", Toronto Star, Torstar, retrieved 2008-08-03 External links[edit] Steven Pinker's Harvard Department of Psychology website Douglas Hofstadter's review for The Los Angeles Times [1] William Saletan's review for The New York Times Book Review, [2] Seth Lerer's review for The New York Sun, [3] v t e Books by Steven Pinker The Language Instinct How the Mind Works Words and Rules The Blank Slate The Stuff of Thought The Better Angels of Our Nature The Sense of Style Enlightenment Now v t e Evolutionary psychology History Processes Adaptation Altruism Coevolution Cultural group selection Kin selection Sexual selection Evolutionarily stable strategy Social selection Areas Psychological development Morality Religion Depression Educational psychology Evolutionary aesthetics Music Darwinian literary studies Evolution of emotion Biologists/ neuroscientists John Crook Charles Darwin Richard Dawkins Jared Diamond W. D. Hamilton Peter Kropotkin Gordon Orians Jaak Panksepp Margie Profet Peter Richerson Giacomo Rizzolatti Randy Thornhill Robert Trivers Carel van Schaik Claus Wedekind Wolfgang Wickler David Sloan Wilson E. O. Wilson George C. Williams Richard Wrangham Anthropologists Jerome H. Barkow Robert Boyd Napoleon Chagnon Gregory Cochran Robin Dunbar Daniel Fessler Mark Flinn Henry Harpending John D. Hawks Joseph Henrich Ruth Mace Daniel Nettle Stephen Shennan Donald Symons John Tooby Pierre van den Berghe Behavioral economists/ political scientists Samuel Bowles Ernst Fehr Herbert Gintis Dominic D. P. Johnson Gad Saad Literary theory/ aesthetics Edmund Burke Joseph Carroll Denis Dutton Psychologists/ cognitive scientists Simon Baron-Cohen Justin L. Barrett Jay Belsky David F. Bjorklund Paul Bloom Pascal Boyer Joseph Bulbulia David Buss Josep Call Anne Campbell Peter Carruthers Noam Chomsky Leda Cosmides Martin Daly Daniel Dennett Paul Ekman Anne Fernald Aurelio José Figueredo David C. Geary Gerd Gigerenzer Jonathan Haidt Judith Rich Harris Stephen Kaplan Douglas T. Kenrick Simon M. Kirby Robert Kurzban Michael T. McGuire Geoffrey Miller Darcia Narvaez Randolph M. Nesse Steven Neuberg David Perrett Steven Pinker Paul Rozin Mark Schaller David P. Schmitt Todd K. Shackelford Roger Shepard Peter K. Smith Dan Sperber Anthony Stevens Frank Sulloway Michael Tomasello Mark van Vugt Andrew Whiten Glenn Wilson Margo Wilson Research centers/ organizations Center for Evolutionary Psychology Human Behavior and Evolution Society Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences New England Complex Systems Institute Related subjects and articles The Adapted Mind The Evolution of Human Sexuality Evolutionary Psychology Evolution and Human Behavior Dual inheritance theory Memetics Group selection Sociobiology Evolutionary neuroscience Human evolution Sociocultural evolution Evolutionary anthropology Evolutionary medicine Evolutionary linguistics Evolutionary psychology and culture Primatology Biosocial criminology Criticism of evolutionary psychology Lists Evolutionary psychologists Evolutionary psychology research groups and centers Bibliography of evolution and human behavior Evolutionary psychology Psychology portal Evolutionary biology portal Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Stuff_of_Thought&oldid=952775948" Categories: 2007 non-fiction books Books about cognition Linguistics books Cognitive science literature Works by Steven Pinker English-language books Navigation menu Personal tools Not logged in Talk Contributions Create account Log in Namespaces Article Talk Variants Views Read Edit View history More Search Navigation Main page Contents Current events Random article About Wikipedia Contact us Donate Contribute Help Learn to edit Community portal Recent changes Upload file Tools What links here Related changes Upload file Special pages Permanent link Page information Cite this page Wikidata item Print/export Download as PDF Printable version Languages العربية Edit links This page was last edited on 24 April 2020, at 01:11 (UTC). Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization. Privacy policy About Wikipedia Disclaimers Contact Wikipedia Mobile view Developers Statistics Cookie statement