Neuroscience
This post, and all others on BrainBlog, are written by Anthony Risser for his blog BrainBlog. The appearance of this entry, and others, on different websites, framed under different websites, or not at the BrainBlog URL do not have my permission. All rights retained.
Michael C. Corballis
The Recursive Mind: The Origins of Human Language, Thought, and Civilization
Princeton: Princeton University Press (2011)
ISBN 978-0-691-14547-1
This is the first time I have read any of the several philosophical books that Michael Corballis has written. I am more familiar with his scientific publications, some of which are core “must reads” for any budding neuropsychological researcher. In “The Recursive Mind,” he outlines his approach to placing the relationship between language and thought. This is an issue that has compelled thinking in neurophilosophy for many decades and remains hotly debated and discussed. In this new book, he explores the landscape of this relationship in a manner different than the somewhat predominant “language centric” philosophical approaches – giving primacy to thought.
Contrary to individuals like Chomsky, he sees thought and other cognitive functions (specifically memory) as the key holder to the human species and our civilization. It is not thought that bent to language, but language that has adapted itself to the vastness of human thought. Corballis presents an argument that language has evolved to the form we know it today to allow individuals to share their memories and plans and, as such, to bring to the present events that are not present in the immediate environment and, indeed, are imaginary, hoped for, or fictional. His description of the roles of different types of memory functioning is written in a very understandable manner.
The book provides a broader framework for understanding language in human evolution aside the far more reported and known Chomsky-based models.
It is recursion, in this perspective, that underlies this vast cognitive capacity. Recursion has expressed itself in several key human mental faculties: language, theory of mind, and what he refers to as “mental time travel” to the past and the future. Recursion developed in the human neuropsychological toolkit. It required advances in the central nervous system’s memory systems and in our neuropsychological capacity for hierarchical organization, both of which are consequences of the human brain, rather than the brains of other animals.
You might ask yourself, ‘What is recursion and what is it doing here?’ I did. That’s one reason why you might want to take on this book.
He has an accessible writing style for individuals like myself who are definitely not fluent in these philosophical approaches. Insightful and with humor, he brings the reader along through a fairly complex landscape. Readers who pay attention to footnotes will enjoy and find additional meaning from them in this book.
- Dear Reader
Dear Reader, If you are reading this blog and find that there are pop-up ads or framed ads around the edges or in a different format than you see if you were to use the blog's direct URL, then you might be viewing the blog through some cookie-directed...
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This post, and all others on BrainBlog, are written by Anthony Risser for his blog BrainBlog. The appearance of this entry, and others, on different websites, framed under different websites, or not at the BrainBlog URL do not have my permission. All...
- Uconn Cog Sci Colloquium -- Friday, Oct. 14
Sorry I’m going to miss this one … Speaker: Herbert Terrace, Columbia University Title: "Thought without Language" Time: 4pm, Friday, October 14, 2005 Place: Class of '47 Room, Babbidge Library, University of Connecticut / Storrs In recent years,...
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LING 449E Biology of Language Course Fall 2015 TTH 2:00 pm-3:15 pm Instructor: Chris Heffner What defines human language? Are other animals capable of using language in the same ways that humans can? These questions and more will be discussed in...
Neuroscience
New Books: "The Recursive Mind" by Michael Corballis
This post, and all others on BrainBlog, are written by Anthony Risser for his blog BrainBlog. The appearance of this entry, and others, on different websites, framed under different websites, or not at the BrainBlog URL do not have my permission. All rights retained.
Michael C. Corballis
The Recursive Mind: The Origins of Human Language, Thought, and Civilization
Princeton: Princeton University Press (2011)
ISBN 978-0-691-14547-1
This is the first time I have read any of the several philosophical books that Michael Corballis has written. I am more familiar with his scientific publications, some of which are core “must reads” for any budding neuropsychological researcher. In “The Recursive Mind,” he outlines his approach to placing the relationship between language and thought. This is an issue that has compelled thinking in neurophilosophy for many decades and remains hotly debated and discussed. In this new book, he explores the landscape of this relationship in a manner different than the somewhat predominant “language centric” philosophical approaches – giving primacy to thought.
Contrary to individuals like Chomsky, he sees thought and other cognitive functions (specifically memory) as the key holder to the human species and our civilization. It is not thought that bent to language, but language that has adapted itself to the vastness of human thought. Corballis presents an argument that language has evolved to the form we know it today to allow individuals to share their memories and plans and, as such, to bring to the present events that are not present in the immediate environment and, indeed, are imaginary, hoped for, or fictional. His description of the roles of different types of memory functioning is written in a very understandable manner.
The book provides a broader framework for understanding language in human evolution aside the far more reported and known Chomsky-based models.
It is recursion, in this perspective, that underlies this vast cognitive capacity. Recursion has expressed itself in several key human mental faculties: language, theory of mind, and what he refers to as “mental time travel” to the past and the future. Recursion developed in the human neuropsychological toolkit. It required advances in the central nervous system’s memory systems and in our neuropsychological capacity for hierarchical organization, both of which are consequences of the human brain, rather than the brains of other animals.
You might ask yourself, ‘What is recursion and what is it doing here?’ I did. That’s one reason why you might want to take on this book.
He has an accessible writing style for individuals like myself who are definitely not fluent in these philosophical approaches. Insightful and with humor, he brings the reader along through a fairly complex landscape. Readers who pay attention to footnotes will enjoy and find additional meaning from them in this book.
- Dear Reader
Dear Reader, If you are reading this blog and find that there are pop-up ads or framed ads around the edges or in a different format than you see if you were to use the blog's direct URL, then you might be viewing the blog through some cookie-directed...
- Book Review: "kraken" By Wendy Williams
This post, and all others on BrainBlog, are written by Anthony Risser for his blog BrainBlog. The appearance of this entry, and others, on different websites, framed under different websites, or not at the BrainBlog URL do not have my permission. All...
- Uconn Cog Sci Colloquium -- Friday, Oct. 14
Sorry I’m going to miss this one … Speaker: Herbert Terrace, Columbia University Title: "Thought without Language" Time: 4pm, Friday, October 14, 2005 Place: Class of '47 Room, Babbidge Library, University of Connecticut / Storrs In recent years,...
- Even More New Books!
Arranged by subject, then alphabetically by title ... Animal Behavior The metaphysics of apes : negotiating the animal-human boundary; by Raymond Corbey. publisher: Cambridge, 2005. for more info. Nature's music: the science of birdsong; by ed....
- New "ling 449e Biology Of Language" Course!
LING 449E Biology of Language Course Fall 2015 TTH 2:00 pm-3:15 pm Instructor: Chris Heffner What defines human language? Are other animals capable of using language in the same ways that humans can? These questions and more will be discussed in...