The Human Mind Through The Lens Of Language

Author : Nirmalangshu Mukherji
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Page : 281 pages
File Size : 49,6 Mb
Release : 2022-06-30
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9781350062702

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The Human Mind through the Lens of Language by Nirmalangshu Mukherji Pdf

Most living forms in nature display various cognitive abilities in their behaviour. However, except for humans, no other animal builds fires and wheels, navigates with maps and tells stories to other conspecifics. We can witness this unique feature of the human mind in almost everything humans do, such as painting, singing and cooking; there is an underlying sense of unity in the generative part of these systems despite wide differences in what they are about. This book introduces, defends and develops a novel philosophical approach to the study of the generative mind. Nirmalangshu Mukherji argues for a single, species-specific generative principle that accounts for the human ability to combine symbolic forms without bound in each domain that falls under the generative mind.

Author : Paul Kockelman
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 257 pages
File Size : 43,7 Mb
Release : 2010-02-18
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9781139486262

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Language, Culture, and Mind by Paul Kockelman Pdf

Based on fieldwork carried out in a Mayan village in Guatemala, this book examines local understandings of mind through the lens of language and culture. It focuses on a variety of grammatical structures and discursive practices through which mental states are encoded and social relations are expressed: inalienable possessions, such as body parts and kinship terms; interjections, such as 'ouch' and 'yuck'; complement-taking predicates, such as 'believe' and 'desire'; and grammatical categories such as mood, status and evidentiality. And, more generally, it develops a theoretical framework through which both community-specific and human-general features of mind may be contrasted and compared. It will be of interest to researchers and students working within the disciplines of anthropology, linguistics, psychology, and philosophy.

Author : Robert K. Logan
Publisher : University of Toronto Press
Page : 329 pages
File Size : 40,6 Mb
Release : 2008-06-12
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781442691803

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The Extended Mind by Robert K. Logan Pdf

The ability to communicate through language is such a fundamental part of human existence that we often take it for granted, rarely considering how sophisticated the process is by which we understand and make ourselves understood. In The Extended Mind, acclaimed author Robert K. Logan examines the origin, emergence, and co-evolution of language, the human mind, and culture. Building on his previous study, The Sixth Language (2000) and making use of emergence theory, Logan seeks to explain how language emerged to deal with the complexity of hominid existence brought about by tool-making, control of fire, social intelligence, coordinated hunting and gathering, and mimetic communication. The resulting emergence of language, he argues, signifies a fundamental change in the functioning of the human mind - a shift from percept-based thought to concept-based thought. From the perspective of the Extended Mind model, Logan provides an alternative to and critique of Noam Chomsky's approach to the origin of language. He argues that language can be treated as an organism that evolved to be easily acquired, obviating the need for the hard-wiring of Chomsky's Language Acquisition Device. In addition Logan shows how, according to this model, culture itself can be treated as an organism that has evolved to be easily attained, revealing the universality of human culture as well as providing an insight as to how altruism might have originated. Bringing timely insights to a fascinating field of inquiry, The Extended Mind will be sure to find a wide readership.

Author : Barbara Malt,Phillip Wolff,Phillip M. Wolff
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 362 pages
File Size : 51,6 Mb
Release : 2010-03
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9780195311129

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Words and the Mind by Barbara Malt,Phillip Wolff,Phillip M. Wolff Pdf

The study of word meanings promises important insights into the nature of the human mind by revealing what people find to be most cognitively significant in their experience. Here, the authors present evidence on topics as diverse as spatial relations, events, emotion terms, motion events, objects, body-part terms, and more.

Author : Robert C. Berwick,Noam Chomsky
Publisher : MIT Press
Page : 229 pages
File Size : 54,5 Mb
Release : 2017-05-12
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9780262533492

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Why Only Us by Robert C. Berwick,Noam Chomsky Pdf

Berwick and Chomsky draw on recent developments in linguistic theory to offer an evolutionary account of language and humans' remarkable, species-specific ability to acquire it. “A loosely connected collection of four essays that will fascinate anyone interested in the extraordinary phenomenon of language.” —New York Review of Books We are born crying, but those cries signal the first stirring of language. Within a year or so, infants master the sound system of their language; a few years after that, they are engaging in conversations. This remarkable, species-specific ability to acquire any human language—“the language faculty”—raises important biological questions about language, including how it has evolved. This book by two distinguished scholars—a computer scientist and a linguist—addresses the enduring question of the evolution of language. Robert Berwick and Noam Chomsky explain that until recently the evolutionary question could not be properly posed, because we did not have a clear idea of how to define “language” and therefore what it was that had evolved. But since the Minimalist Program, developed by Chomsky and others, we know the key ingredients of language and can put together an account of the evolution of human language and what distinguishes us from all other animals. Berwick and Chomsky discuss the biolinguistic perspective on language, which views language as a particular object of the biological world; the computational efficiency of language as a system of thought and understanding; the tension between Darwin's idea of gradual change and our contemporary understanding about evolutionary change and language; and evidence from nonhuman animals, in particular vocal learning in songbirds.

Author : Michael C. Corballis
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 308 pages
File Size : 43,7 Mb
Release : 2014-04-27
Category : Psychology
ISBN : 9780691160948

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The Recursive Mind by Michael C. Corballis Pdf

The Recursive Mind challenges the commonly held notion that language is what makes us uniquely human. In this compelling book, Michael Corballis argues that what distinguishes us in the animal kingdom is our capacity for recursion: the ability to embed our thoughts within other thoughts. "I think, therefore I am," is an example of recursive thought, because the thinker has inserted himself into his thought. Recursion enables us to conceive of our own minds and the minds of others. It also gives us the power of mental "time travel"--the ability to insert past experiences, or imagined future ones, into present consciousness. Drawing on neuroscience, psychology, animal behavior, anthropology, and archaeology, Corballis demonstrates how these recursive structures led to the emergence of language and speech, which ultimately enabled us to share our thoughts, plan with others, and reshape our environment to better reflect our creative imaginations. He shows how the recursive mind was critical to survival in the harsh conditions of the Pleistocene epoch, and how it evolved to foster social cohesion. He traces how language itself adapted to recursive thinking, first through manual gestures, then later, with the emergence of Homo sapiens, vocally. Toolmaking and manufacture arose, and the application of recursive principles to these activities in turn led to the complexities of human civilization, the extinction of fellow large-brained hominins like the Neandertals, and our species' supremacy over the physical world.

Author : Yann Coello,Angela Bartolo
Publisher : Psychology Press
Page : 378 pages
File Size : 53,6 Mb
Release : 2013
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9781848720824

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Language and Action in Cognitive Neuroscience by Yann Coello,Angela Bartolo Pdf

This book collates evidence from behavioural, brain imagery and stroke-patient studies, to discuss how cognitive and neural processes are responsible for language.

Author : T. W. Simon,R. J. Scholes
Publisher : Psychology Press
Page : 288 pages
File Size : 52,8 Mb
Release : 2019-01-22
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9781317738053

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Language, Mind, and Brain by T. W. Simon,R. J. Scholes Pdf

The chapters in this volume are extended versions of material first presented at the National Interdisciplinary Symposium on Language, Mind, and Brain held April 6-9, 1978, in Gainesville, Florida. Importantly for interdisciplinary goals, the papers contained in this volume are quite “ available” ; that is, papers by philosophers can easily be read and understood by linguists and psychologists; the ideas of the linguists are readily comprehensible to any educated reader; the psychologists and neurologically oriented writers are clear and nderstandable. It is, then, a volume that cuts, not so much across disciplines, but through them. First published in 1982. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Author : Steven Pinker
Publisher : Penguin
Page : 522 pages
File Size : 54,5 Mb
Release : 2007-09-11
Category : Psychology
ISBN : 9781101202609

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The Stuff of Thought by Steven Pinker Pdf

This New York Times bestseller is an exciting and fearless investigation of language from the author of Rationality, The Better Angels of Our Nature and The Sense of Style and Enlightenment Now. "Curious, inventive, fearless, naughty." --The New York Times Book Review 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.

Author : Noam Chomsky
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 216 pages
File Size : 40,5 Mb
Release : 2006-01-12
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9781139448901

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Language and Mind by Noam Chomsky Pdf

This is the third edition of Chomsky's outstanding collection of essays on language and mind, first published in 2006. The first six chapters, originally published in the 1960s, made a groundbreaking contribution to linguistic theory. This edition complements them with an additional chapter and a new preface, bringing Chomsky's influential approach into the twenty-first century. Chapters 1-6 present Chomsky's early work on the nature and acquisition of language as a genetically endowed, biological system (Universal Grammar), through the rules and principles of which we acquire an internalized knowledge (I-language). Over the past fifty years, this framework has sparked an explosion of inquiry into a wide range of languages, and has yielded some major theoretical questions. The final chapter revisits the key issues, reviewing the 'biolinguistic' approach that has guided Chomsky's work from its origins to the present day, and raising some novel and exciting challenges for the study of language and mind.

Author : James Paul Gee
Publisher : Springer Nature
Page : 276 pages
File Size : 55,5 Mb
Release : 2020-09-17
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9783030503826

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What Is a Human? by James Paul Gee Pdf

In a sweeping synthesis of new research in a number of different disciplines, this book argues that we humans are not who we think we are. As he explores the interconnections between cutting-edge work in bioanthropology, evolutionary biology, neuroscience, human language and learning, and beyond, James Paul Gee advances, also, a personal philosophy of language, learning, and culture, informed by his decades of work across linguistics and the social sciences. Gee argues that our schools, institutions, legal systems, and societies are designed for creatures that do not exist, thus resulting in multiple, interacting crises, such as climate change, failing institutions, and the rise of nationalist nationalism. As Gee constructs an understanding of the human that takes into account our social, collective, and historical nature, as established by recent research, he inspires readers to reflect for themselves on the very question of who we are—a key consideration for anyone interested in society, government, schools, health, activism, culture and diversity, or even just survival.

Author : Chiara Mengozzi
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 254 pages
File Size : 47,7 Mb
Release : 2020-05-14
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781000075014

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Outside the Anthropological Machine by Chiara Mengozzi Pdf

In the midst of the climate crisis and the threat of the sixth extinction, we can no longer claim to be the masters of nature. Rather, we need to unlearn our species’ arrogance for the sake of all animals, human and non-human. Rethinking our being-in-the-world as Homo sapiens, this monograph argues, starts precisely from the way we relate to our closer companion species. The authors gathered here endeavour to find multiple exit strategies from the anthropocentric paradigms that have bound the human and social sciences. Part I investigates the unexplored margins of human history by re-reading historical events, literary texts, and scientific findings from an animal’s perspective, rather than a human’s. Part II explores different forms of human-animal relationships, putting the emphasis on the institutions, spaces, and discourses that frame our interactions with animals. Part III engages with processes of "translation" that aim to render animals’ experience and perception into human words and visual language.

Author : Anonim
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 237 pages
File Size : 40,6 Mb
Release : 2024-07-01
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 9781135986469

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Economics and the Mind by Anonim Pdf

Author : James Paul Gee
Publisher : Peter Lang
Page : 212 pages
File Size : 41,8 Mb
Release : 2007
Category : Education
ISBN : 0820497037

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Good Video Games + Good Learning by James Paul Gee Pdf

Textbook

Author : John R. Taylor
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 330 pages
File Size : 46,5 Mb
Release : 2012-05-03
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9780199290802

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The Mental Corpus by John R. Taylor Pdf

John Taylor argues that an individual's knowledge of a language is a repository of memories. Similarities between items lead to generalizations then used to generate new expressions. He makes a compelling contribution to understanding language and the operations of the mind. The book will appeal to linguists, philosophers, and cognitive scientists.