Amazon.com: Customer reviews: The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature

Top positive review

complex but continuously rewarding and structured a certain way on purpose

Reviewed in the United States on June 22, 2018

This is highly technical and reads for the most part like a college text book. I admire and enjoy Pinker for his knowledge. I am not a fan of his humor leading to a less enjoyable reading experience than expected. This book is for people seriously interested in linguistics to the extent of it being nerdy. What i mean by this is not negative it just was not broken down to a simpler level and that is what i was expecting. I was hoping to get a Daniel Dennet type of read. I do see the significance of the way humans group together words and the fluctuation of syntax can tell a lot about a people and their culture. I found it funny that Americans have certain slang aspects of their linguistic flow that indicates a type of laziness not detected in other areas.
Pinker is a great linguist but if you watch his lectures on u tube he is not the most entertaining speaker and this flows over into his books.
I do highly recommend this --you have to be in the same mindset that you are when studying a college text. I would take notes constantly.
People like the neuroscientist Sam Harris and friend of Pinker make their works very accessible to the public so as to not make the work seem like a medical journal. Here Pinker reads like one step up from the blandness of a medical journal. This is mainly just because i subjectively think he is not funny so my mind ejects this entertainment element that was intended to please and make it not so heavy.

6 people found this helpful

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Sandra B. G.

Not what I thought it was

Reviewed in the United States on May 10, 2012

I am not done reading this book, but I thought this would keep my attention. I was wrong, at least for the first part of the book. It goes way too much into detals about how children learn verbs and that subject was not very interesting to me. Perhaps if I was a teacher, speech pathologist or may be an MD - I may be more interested in that one topic. I had to put the book down since this chapter was extremely long (I'm guessing 60 pages or more) and it seems to go on and on forever about a topic that is so dry. Once I'm done reading the other books I'm reading, I'll go back to this and pick up on another chapter. I may update my review later if it grabs me by my tailfeathers.

2 people found this helpful

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From the United States

John P. House

A good read that is easily understood.

Reviewed in the United States on February 25, 2013

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This is a good layman's introduction to the topic. Pinker covers topics with a good level of humanity for the most part. When you want to delve deeper, the texts is cited so that you can find other related sources. Pinker cares little for religion, however, and some of his remarks seem to tell readers what they should believe, rather than what Pinker personally believes. Also, some of his grammar points do not reflect current controversies among descriptive grammarians with sufficient nuance. Read this book carefully, but use a "grain of salt."

One person found this helpful

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W. Hinds

Steven Pinker

Reviewed in the United States on January 19, 2013

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I had a number of years ago a few college courses in psychology that were interesting but those times, while the writers were smart and current then, have no comparison to the status of neurosciences and evolutionary psychology of today. I came back to an interest in current things psychological I guess from learning about the capabilities of Daniel Tammet when he demonstrated his abilities by learning the Icelandic language in 2 weeks and demonstrated his proficiency in the language on National Icelandic Television amazing the whole country. How could he do this? So he has Aspergers and can recite PI to 25 places, so what. Learning a language and becoming fluent in a language is completly different than demonstrating an endmic memory such as illustrated in "Rain Main". I have read parts of many of Steven Plinker current books available in the libraries here in the Orange County library system and like his style of writing. But I have bought this book and his book on how the mind creates language, "The Language Instinct" which I think had a superior presentation to this one in that it had a small glossary in the back that helped quite a bit. But that is just nit picking these days of the internet and Wickipedia.

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Gayle Burghardt

Fast, Great care in the packaging

Reviewed in the United States on August 31, 2021

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Most excellent care given in the packaging against, weather and droppage. Fast response

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Pattee Fletcher

Thoughts

Reviewed in the United States on February 27, 2016

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Pinker never disappoints. The stuff is an intricate, spellbinding read to be slowly consumed rather than taken at one sitting. Pinker has an intriguing and substantiated take on the social life of people and in this book, he unwraps some tested and untested theories that are thought provoking. Well written and organized.

3 people found this helpful

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Always Educational

Reviewed in the United States on November 18, 2008

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Steven Pinker is one of the greatest minds we have. The Blank Slate is on my top 20 lifetime list for books and I've enjoyed seeing him in interviews (and one outstanding debate) online. The Stuff of Thought unfortunately is fairly pedestrian by his standards. To me, this book was far more about language than it was human nature or psychology. As far as linguistics is concerned readers learn much but the same cannot be said in terms of it providing a window into our souls. Some of the wordplay was entertaining and he is insightful concerning speech but not enough psychology was illuminated here in my view to warrant opening it again.

2 people found this helpful

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Sandra B. G.

Not what I thought it was

Reviewed in the United States on May 10, 2012

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2 people found this helpful

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J. Edgar Mihelic, MA, MA, MBA

Good introduction to stuff and thought.

Reviewed in the United States on May 3, 2010

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I don't know enough about the subject outside of what I learned in this book to give a review on the subject matter. What I can say is that Pinker is a clear, precise, and often funny teacher about what can be a difficult subject for most people to wrap their heads around. I would recommend the book if you have ever thought about the interrelation of thought and language.

4 people found this helpful

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C. Van Youngman

Another Pinker winner

Reviewed in the United States on October 20, 2013

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If you were enamored by How the Mind Works, you'll fall in love with this blend of man's best evolutionary trick and the thrill of being human. If you are not a zombie, be glad you live in an era that has given us such giants as Pinker, Dennett, Dawkins, Harris, 20 or so others and the remarkable agent John Brockman.

4 people found this helpful

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Jon D. Zern, DVM

Influence of semantics on our decisions

Reviewed in the United States on December 29, 2013

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Steven Pinker's brilliance and insightful nature continues to impress. This book is a good read for any individual with an interest in language and its daily influence and usage. His humor adds a nice reprisal to the abstract and profound thought. Having read several of his books he continues to impress and stimulate thought.

2 people found this helpful

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Useful Idiot

More philosophical than cognitiave

Reviewed in the United States on July 6, 2009

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I mostly enjoyed the book. The criticism are that is was long winded more of an over technical look a JR. High grammar. It seems like the same point was made over and over again. So much could have been summarized and those lists of words and phrases could have been put into appendices.

I did like the gee wiz comments on language such as how English as all languages are arbitrary. I just didn't see a connection with cognition and language. Most of that was from a philosophical point of view discussing Hume and Kant which I found interesting.

The book has a great deal of entertaining uses of language but I didn't seem to get how language and thought are connected. I thought the explanation of how we learn a language was interesting looking at children but it seems there was a lack of discussion of how adults learn a second language which I have done and I understand the process. A great deal could have been added on how we learn second languages because I can say that speaking two languages is something worth looking at and explaining.

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