The Stuff of Thought

Language as a Window into Human Nature

By: Steven Pinker

Narrated by: Dean Olsher

This New York Times bestseller is an exciting and fearless investigation of language

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.

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

"An important and inviting book."
--Science

"There's plenty of stuff to think about, but a lot of fun stuff too."
-Boston Globe

"Fascinating."
Wired

"Unfailingly engaging to read."
--New York Review of Books

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.

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.