Customer Reviews
not as good as Language Instinct 
2008-08-10
Steven Pinker's Language Instinct was a pleasure. But The Stuff of Thought is a disappointment. I couldn't get through it. The writing is dull and lacked the lively quality of Language Instinct. The points that Pinker is trying to make are less compelling than in previous books, and I wound up unconvinced as well as uninterested. Even Pinker seems to realize that he is boring us: at one point in Chapter 3, he says "My point - and I do have one - is...." I thought to myself, I sure hope you will get to it soon, but he did not.
The one exception is marvelous chapter 7 "The Seven Words You Can't Say on Television". The writing in this chapter is more classic Pinker, lively, funny and instructive. Don't buy the book. Rather, read chapter 7 in the bookstore or library.
The chicken-and-egg of language 
2008-07-21
Steven Pinker is an experimental psychologist involved in research into the human mind, but he is also an unabashed popularizer whose books are full of pop culture references (especially comic strips). Apart from a few tedious sections, "The Stuff of Thought" is one of his best books. It applies a scientific perspective to a favorite subject of mine, the relationship between language and thought. But it does it with style, exploring a range of Americana from the semantics of Bill Clinton's lies (a topic that has already received far more attention than it deserves) to the grammar of profanity (a section I find hard to read without smiling).
The overarching theme is how the human mind influences the structure of language. Like most linguists, Pinker largely dismisses the notion that the influence goes the other way. That notion is the basis of the controversial Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, which predicts, for example, that if you grew up speaking a language like Hopi, which lacks verb tenses, you would end up with a different perception of time than if you grew up speaking a language like English.
Pinker discusses some of the alleged evidence for this hypothesis before disposing of it. For example, one Mayan language has no words for left and right. The speakers orient themselves using the mountain slope where they live, with the words "upslope" and "downslope" corresponding roughly with south and north, respectively. Researchers found that the speakers have trouble distinguishing left from right but can locate north and south after having been spun around blindfolded while indoors!
Pinker spoils the picture by revealing that another Mayan people with the same aptitudes does have words for left and right. Apparently, since both groups spend most of their lives outdoors, they have a stronger sense of north and south than we do but little use for the concept of left and right. The absence of those words from the language of one group is an effect, not a cause, of the group's traits.
Distinguishing cause and effect is the subject of the book's most fascinating chapter, where Pinker explains how the whole concept of causality, so central to our common experience, is tantalizingly hard to define. We perceive the flow of time as consisting of nothing but causes and effects, and this intuition is deeply entrenched in language. But "the world is not a line of dominoes in which each event causes exactly one event.... The world is a tissue of causes and effects that criss and cross in tangled patterns" (p. 215). The challenge of identifying which causes are most relevant and guessing what would have happened if not for certain events--effectively imagining an alternate universe--underlies everything from scientific knowledge to moral responsibility.
One of his examples is President Garfield's assassin, who argued that "The doctors killed him; I just shot him." The wound was potentially nonfatal, but the doctors were wildly incompetent even by the standards of their day. Did this get the assassin off the hook? The jury didn't think so, and they sent him to the gallows.
A more recent example came in the aftermath of 9/11. Insurance companies were pledged to reimburse for each destructive event. But was the destruction of the Twin Towers one event or two? This question held billions of dollars at stake.
Questions like these are almost unanswerable because the world, contrary to our perceptions, is a continuum without clear boundaries between things. This dichotomy can be seen in the two categories of nouns, count and mass. Count nouns are words like "book," which you can count: you can talk about one book, two books, etc. Mass nouns are words like "jello" which lack that property. You can't talk about one jello or two jellos; there's just jello.
Curiously, some mass nouns, like furniture, refer to material that should be countable. (We get around this problem by talking about "pieces of furniture.") And many nouns can perform both roles: "rock" is a mass noun in the sentence "The ground is made of rock" and a count noun in the sentence "I'm holding two rocks."
Speakers will occasionally transform a count noun into a mass noun by imagining that something discrete is made up of an amorphous substance. Pinker's example is the distasteful statement "After he backed up, there was cat all over the driveway." His point is that the count/mass distinction doesn't force us into any particular way of thinking, because we can escape that thinking by manipulating the language. But the distinction does reveal how we choose whether to view matter as a collection of objects or as a lump of "stuff."
I've only mentioned a fraction of what the book covers. With each topic, Pinker builds on the thesis that language reflects more than affects our minds, which can see past the constraints it imposes on us. Identifying these constraints helps us understand how we perceive the world and thus provides a way for us to transcend those perceptions.
Insightful, but broad at the expense of depth 
2008-07-17
Pinker makes a very good case for neo-Kantianism based on liguistics. In a nutshell, we humans are hardwired to categorized our experience in certain ways.
His arugument for this is based on the observation that children make some very subtle linguistic distinctions in cases for which they could not possibly have had enough exposure for learning from experience.
My only complaint is that I wish he had gone deeper on this particular issue instead of giving us a broad catalog of language traits.
Not quite as great as some of Mr. Pinker's other books 2008-07-15
I have read some of Prof. Pinker's books (How the mind works, the language instinct, the blank slate), and I bought this one only because those books were phantastic!
The stuff of thought was not that interesting to me. It seemed more "technical" to me, particularly the first chapter. It got better, but never reached e.g. "How the Mind Works".
Still, Prof. Pinker can write! The same subject by anybody else would have been very boring.
I guess, only Richard Dawkins is a match for Steven Pinker.
It is definitely worth reading! I only deducted one star relative to his previous books!
Too Stuffy for my Thoughts 2008-07-13
I admire Steven Pinker and have heard him present his work in one of the most interesting, educational, and entertaining presentations. Having 4 of his books puts me in the category of major fan. I was astounded at the brilliance of insight presented here, but just could not follow it, so gave up after Chapter 2. I spot checked a few of the later chapters, finding too much minutia for me to comprehend. I am astounded that one human mind can understand so much and write a book like this, but I am far from the target market.
I recommend this book only if you want a deep, detailed understanding of the subject. Although this was beyond my comprehension, in my defense I'll point out that I enjoy science books and have an above average number of doctoral degrees (two).
Unfortunately misguided amid amusing anecdotes 2008-03-05
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—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 readers of everything from
The Selfish Gene and
Blink to
Eats, Shoots & Leaves.
Insight through language 2008-02-28
In his recent book, "The Stuff of Thought", author Steven Pinker makes a compelling case for hypocrisy being a vital habit in human conversation. His chapter "Games People Play" argues that hypocrisy furnishes us with a means to ease our ways through conversations in which we face potentially awkward or risk-filled circumstances. He therefore argues that hypocrisy is a necessary value in the evolution of the human species. As a professor of Linguistics and Psychology at Harvard, and the author of six previous books linking these disciplines, Steve Pinker ought to know.
But can we be entirely sure that the popular and prolific professor actually does know what is quintessentially true about hypocrisy? I
confess that, in my heart, I want him to be quite in error on this subject, but not because I have been guiltless in never having indulged in hypocrisy. I want to find him in error on this question because, now in my sixties and a coach in the development of productive authenticity, I feel exceedingly uncomfortable either witnessing or indulging in hypocrisy, and indeed believe this can easily become slippery slope to disaster and perdition in human evolution.
But, given Pinker's academic authority, is my wanting him to be in error just wooly Pollyanna-like fantasy? The issue is critical for each of us to face and decide because hypocrisy is hard to distinguish from deliberate deception. This being so, our condoning deliberate deception in the generous assumption that it is merely "hypocrisy of a commendably easing kind", exposes all of us as a society to the risk that we may be casually enabling mild deception to become a habit that will grow into dangerously deliberate deception.
This issue does not overhang the entire book, however. No, the author has given what could be heavy and complex material frequent injections of delightful humour and penetrating wit. Linguists will, of course, love his breathtaking summations of recent linguistic and psychological research into what language and languages can tell us of the essential nature of the human mind. But, if you want to play your part in the pulling of human nature up from its primitive roots to a better potential future for planetary citizenship in which English will continue to be a potently vital force, or even if you only want to survive in a world of sharp users of English, you too will enjoy it.
Interesting and Thought Provoking 2008-02-04
Well. This is tougher review than I assumed it would be while I anxiously awaited its arrival.
The first three chapters are an entertaining overview of the English language with special mention of the strange quirks and "hidden -- or are they?" intricacies. He starts out with a lawsuit based on words(what else?) to determine the amount of money an insurance company should pay for damages which occurred on 9/11. (Do they pay "double" because each tower was a separate incident ... or do they pay the planned single amount because 9/11 was "9/11" and it was a single event?) Mostly, he goes through the tiny differences in the words we choose and I was certainly left with an Aha! understanding about WHY I choose words differently and the often subtle undercurrents in that choice. (By the way, English doesn't have a monopoly on the "system" he outlines -- variance twixt the grammars of the world are remarkably consistent.) Though typically entertaining, these first chapters are also redundant to the point of sluggishness.
Then the books sparkles with his usual panache for the next three chapters. I found it surprising to learn how many words (and how finite THAT number is!) are spatial prepositions, and, by the way ... why do "slow down" and "slow up" mean the same thing? Each element of language is treated with style, fun and eye-opening examples, plus lots and lots to think about.
Chapter Seven follows. I couldn't finish it. For reasons which totally escape me, he is totally enamoured with "THE SEVEN" -- (inappropriate words for TV -- or in the presence oxygen, in my opinion). I think he contends that a part of the brain just can't wait to unleash them on the world. I do not believe that that is true. I was 18 before I encountered the F--- word and that was in a book printed exactly as I have printed it here. Didn't have a clue! I don't much appreciate his adding to my repertoire in the name of science; I finally gave up on the balance of the chapter.
The remainder is his delightful insights into the "innateness" of language in all cultures, the sneaky applications that people can devise, the continuing "evolution".
As usual he is totally professional in delivery style: his page Notes are numbered within the text, his Reference List is extensive and his Index is complete and easy to use.
It's a good book but not his finest hour. (The Blank Slate -- verrry scary -- wins that award, I think.)
Clever 2008-01-20
Pinker iis brilliant and is trying to bring psychology into the realm of hard science. Better to read his HOW THE MIND WORKS.
A Scientist's view of "The Stuff of Thought" 2008-01-07
Even though I am a scientist with deep interests in language and reason, I found this book too frequently getting bogged down in minutia to keep my interest. The introductory sections were very interesting and promised much would be revealed in the text - but to garner that revelation took too much effort for me, and I gave up after about 100 pages. It reads more like a PhD dissertation than a popular book for the enlightened masses.
