The Stuff of Thought

Language as a Window into Human Nature

By: Steven Pinker

Narrated by: Dean Olsher

Length: 9 hrs and 36 mins

Publisher's summary

New York Times best-selling 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 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 life: why 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 everything from The Selfish Gene and Blink to Eats, Shoots & Leaves.

©2007 Steven Pinker (P)2007 Penguin Audio, a member of Penguin Group (USA), Inc. and Books on Tape. All rights reserved.

Critic reviews

"Engaging and provocative...filled with humor and fun." (Douglas Hofstadter, Los Angeles Times)

"Pinker is a star, and the world of science is lucky to have him." (Richard Dawkins)

"Curious, inventive, fearless, naughty." (New York Times Book Review)

Much more about language than about thought

It is nice that the author delves into logic and linguistic rules and exceptions, and the consequential influence on the thought. However the presentation is quite arcane.
It may be of interest to a linguist, and as a person that never had much interest in linguistics, for me it was an interesting insight into what linguists are up to. I still reserve a right to the opinion that most of this is an academic endeavor which reached the point of exceedingly diminishing returns to anyone but specialists long time ago. However, new PhDs must to be awarded for something...

I would like it better if the book took the opposite approach: from a generalization of thought process to underlying language constructs. Then delving into exceptions, etc.

Just my subjective opinion, many people found the current way of presentation exciting.

Challenging listening

This audiobook is challenging though fascinating listening. The exploration of how we use language to represent our social, psychic and physical worlds is well researched and often surprising and amusing. It's rather difficult to keep one's concentration given the complexity of many of the ideas and theories presented here. I've often wished I was reading the actual text, to see the words and technical jargon on the printed page. There do seem to be gaps in the narrative, and I plan to go to the hard copy version of the book now that I've finished listening. Worth the effort, though, for the insights it offers on how we process language to negotiate the worlds we live in.

Enlightening dissection of how we talk

Pinker dissects the psychology of euphemisms, face saving, polite indirectness, and many other quirks of language that point to often-unconscious motivations and social alculations.

Narrator in a hurry to finish the book

great book. Slower speed will help! Ideas are complex and needs time to comprehend. Had to reduce the speed to read it. Have to keep changing the listening speeds.

Mmmeeehhhhhhh

Nothing compares to the Blank Slate, or The better Angels bro, How The Mind Works would be 3rd place on my list at least.This was garbage in comparison from every angle, but again, I’m just a regular guy with a 110 for an IQ so,… maybe more capable minds can extract much more from it

Escaping the Cave

Steven Pinker's "The Stuff of Thought" is about language. Yet - it is not just about the language. It's a deep philosophical tractate about the very nature of mind and its interaction with the world.

"Language is a window into human nature, exposing deep and universal features of our thoughts and feelings. The thoughts and feelings cannot be equated with the words themselves"

The central theme of the book is an attempt to uncover the abstract layer that our mind uses to think, to perceive, to be conscious. Going from the concepts of innate words, through polysemy, metaphors, names, and language games we play - Steven slowly makes evident the existence of deeper, more abstract, but also more precise layer of the human mind. There are numerous examples that illustrate the specific reflection of this abstract "stuff" in our language. Equally amazing is to find reflections of concepts of space, time and causality in the forms of our language.

I'm glad to notice that Pinker goes far beyond the biological interpretation of our mind. When you read "The stuff of thought" you have the impression that this author finally writes about the software our brain runs. To me - this software is the "stuff", although Pinker does not formulate such thesis.

Here is a small weakness of the book - while Pinker convinces the reader to his main argument - and the reader expects to learn more about "the stuff of thought" - he suddenly comes short on this subject.
But the book ends with fantastic chapter "Escaping the Cave" where the cave is Platon's metaphorical cave. The language is our cave, but it also can help us to escape this cave. Here lies its strength, beauty and power...

Not A Book To Listen To

I did not get beyond the first hour of listening to this book. While the subject matter is very interesting to me, and it was written in a fashion to be easy to understand, as well as the narrator was doing a good job ...it should be read. It is enough like a text that listening just doesn't cut it.

What a fantastic introduction to linguistics.

Pinker's writing is wonderfully precise, informative, and hilarious. Although I wish Pinker narrated it himself, the narrator did a great job!

An interesting tour of the mind with language

Pinker once again uses plenty of analogies with fresh metaphors to keep a clear explanations at a comfortable pace. The chapters seemlessly blend multiple angles for each topic, often so comprehensively, this book could be the introduction for a course of computational theory applied to language aquistion or something. Overall, I especially liked the balance of formal scholarly reference and casual levity, it kept the ever-changing train of thought accessible.

Excellent!

A fantastic book for anyone interested in why we speak the way we do. Great introduction to linguistics.