Just noticed that Amazon is taking pre-orders for The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature, Steve Pinker’s latest. His website states that Pinker will start his book tour on the publication date listed on Amazon, a little over 3 months from now, so that seems sufficient confirmation. Here is Steven Pinker on The Stuff of Thought from his 10 Questions last year:
(10) Most GNXP readers probably know you for The Blank Slate and your work as a public intellectual. However, your next book (entitled The Stuff of Thought) returns to the themes of language and cognitive science. Now, as you may or may not know, GNXP readers are interested in genetics and evolution; politics, religion, and world affairs; and the past, present, and future of the human species. What can you tell us about your upcoming book that might whet the appetites of GNXP readers?
The subtitle of the book is “Language as a Window Into Human Nature,” and The Stuff of Thought deals with many aspects of human cognitive and social evolution–how a mind that evolved to think about rocks and plants and enemies can invent physics and math and democracy; why people impose taboos on topics like sex and excretion and the divine; why they threaten and bribe and seduce in such byzantine ways. I also discuss many real-world applications of semantics–words that have impeached one president and that many feel should impeach another; language that continues to embroil the Middle East; whether Democrats can win back the White House by winning the metaphor wars; whether language traps us in a self-referential circle (as the postmodernists believe) or offers us contact with truth and reality.
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