The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature
by Steven Pinker
List Price:
Our Price: $11.38
You Save: $6.62 (37%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $6.19 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Steven PinkerEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2003-08-26
ISBN: 0142003344
Number of pages: 528
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Product features:
- ISBN13: 9780142003343
- Condition: New
- Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
Book Reviews of The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature
Book Review: Liberating Blueprint for Reform
Summary: 5 Stars
The Blank Slate - Steven Pinker
Steven Pinker's profound and thought provoking work "The Blank Slate" is both a guided tour through the cognitive neurosciences (sociobiology, behavioral genetics, evolutionary psychology among others); as well as a blueprint for social & political reform. This is despite the fact that much of the book is a detailed attack on the ideological doctrines that underpin traditional reformist agendas. He calls these the "holy trinity" of "a blank slate" (that human minds are totally plastic and formed for good or ill, success or failure, solely by environment, including education etc); of "the noble savage" (that culture and society are to blame for evils such as violence, discrimination etc); and of the "ghost in the machine" (that personality and agency do not reside in our brain but exists essentially as pure spirit outside the realms of biology or physics)
This is not to say Pinker advocates some sort of biological determinism or that there is a gene for every behavior. He explicitly and repeatedly denies such a stance. Heritability is not an "all or nothing" subject but a realm of seemingly limitless subtlety and complexity, but it is also decidedly not a realm of infinite plasticity.
A large part of the early chapters is spent explaining why such a work is needed - to justify the place of these sciences in the face of some very unscientific attacks on the works and persons of the pioneers in these fields.
We are then taken through a wonderful survey of the findings uncovered by the neurosciences that provide inescapable evidence of our common human nature.
I was personally captivated by the implications of an evolutionary understanding of the faculties of learning, and the alternative vision of school education as a place to acquire skills for living in a modern world, things for which evolution has not yet had time to select and produce instincts (in contrast to our instinctive and unschooled abilities to walk, to acquire language, to perceive intention behind other people's behavior etc). A whole new curriculum could be based on an understanding of what our brain can do easily and how to use these abilities to learn new and unintuitive skills such as mathematics and economics.
I was also particularly struck by a section in which he redefined the contrasting traditional political tendancies "left" and "right" into novel descriptors: "Utopian Vision" and "Tragic Vision", reflecting different underlying attitudes to human nature. Pinker himself says the neurosciences are coming down on the side of the Tragic Vision - an inherent and hence constrained human nature, but denies this means the "right" is necessarily right, or that the leftist impulse must be abandoned. He quotes numerous left-leaning philosophers and activists striving to realign the egalitarian agenda to the reality of a human nature whose millenia-old impulses have guided our species to survive and are impossible to eradicate. He then proceeds to analyse a series of "hot button" social topics (politics; violence, including crime and war; gender and rape; childhood and personality development; and art). In each topic his discussion discomforts the prevailing orthodoxy but his explanation of the science supporting his case is always prefixed by a careful statement and affirmation of liberal and progressive goals and principles and repudiation of injustice, discrimination or oppression. In each case his aim is to show how genuine progress might be achievable and constructive if account is taken of scientifically demonstrated and ineradicable human tendencies rather than holding dogmas or utopian theories based on the blank slate and its fellows. This is not merely a matter of theory but of great social import and potentially lifesaving. For instance his insistence that the dogma of "rape not being about sex but about power" is biologically unsustainable and effectively shuts even the consideration of alternative biologically-grounded approaches to its eradication, instead of the current hopeless attempts to reprogram the brain of offenders. Likewise his analysis of violence as an evolutionary strategy rather than a cultural artefact that could be wished away by cultural re-engineering offers policy-makers promising and practical lines of approach to reduce violent crime in our communities and reduce wars between nations.
The practicality of his analysis offers a ready made political program for any party brave enough to defy both the anti-cognitive scientific intelligentia of the left and the religious fundamentalists of the right, and to pitch a new course appealing to the common sense and common nature of ordinary concerned citizens.
I found this to be a liberating book, freeing me to trust my own instincts for instance in childraising and art, rather than be bound by the controlling doctrines of a supposed expert class.
After reading it I am convinced a course in cognative neurosciences should be an essential prerequisite for students of humanities, especially philosophy, politics and law.
Summary of The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature
In The Blank Slate, Steven Pinker, one of the world's leading experts on language and the mind, explores the idea of human nature and its moral, emotional, and political colorings. With characteristic wit, lucidity, and insight, Pinker argues that the dogma that the mind has no innate traits-a doctrine held by many intellectuals during the past century-denies our common humanity and our individual preferences, replaces objective analyses of social problems with feel-good slogans, and distorts our understanding of politics, violence, parenting, and the arts. Injecting calm and rationality into debates that are notorious for ax-grinding and mud-slinging, Pinker shows the importance of an honest acknowledgment of human nature based on science and common sense.Psychology & Counseling Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Psychology & Counseling Books
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Valuesby Robert M. Pirsig
Harper Perennial; Published: 2000-10-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.25
Price in other shops:
Surviving Schizophrenia: A Manual for Families, Consumers, and Providers (4th Edition)by E. Fuller Torrey
Harper Paperbacks; Published: 2001-05-08; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.95
Price in other shops:
Surviving Schizophrenia: A Manual for Families, Consumers and Providersby E. Fuller Torrey
Perennial; Published: 1995-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.68
Price in other shops:
The Evolving Self: A Psychology for the Third Millenniumby Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Harper Perennial; Published: 1994-06-03; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.75
Price in other shops:
How People Changeby Allen Wheelis
William Morrow Paperbacks; Published: 1975-07-10; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.47
Price in other shops:
Sleeping Through the Night, Revised Edition: How Infants, Toddlers, and Their Parents Can Get a Good Night's Sleepby Jodi A. Mindell
William Morrow Paperbacks; Published: 2005-03-15; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.45
Price in other shops:
Emotional Blackmail: When the People in Your Life Use Fear, Obligation and Guilt to Manipulate Youby Susan Forward, Donna Frazier, Susan Frazier
Harpercollins; Published: 1997-05; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $9.95
Price in other shops:
Obedience to Authority: An Experimental Viewby Stanley Milgram
Harpercollins; Published: 1974-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $532.97
My Life Among the Serial Killers: Inside the Minds of the World's Most Notorious Murderersby Helen Morrison, Harold Goldberg
William Morrow; Published: 2004-05-04; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $5.97
Price in other shops:
The Complete Idiot's Guide to Managing Stressby Jeffrey P.; Davidson, Jeff Davidson
Macmillan Distribution; Published: 1996; Paperback; Book
Best price: $1.33
Similar Books and other products
The Mating Mind: How Sexual Choice Shaped the Evolution of Human Natureby Geoffrey Miller
Anchor; Published: 2001-04-17; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.15
Price in other shops:
The Moral Animal: Why We Are, the Way We Are: The New Science of Evolutionary Psychologyby Robert Wright
Vintage; Published: 1995-08-29; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.03
Price in other shops:
The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother (10th Anniverary Edition)by James McBride
Riverhead Trade; Published: 2006-02-07; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.00
Price in other shops:
The Daodejing of Laoziby Laozi
Hackett Publishing; Published: 2003-08-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $10.45
Price in other shops:
The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Natureby Steven Pinker
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 2008-08-26; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.50
Price in other shops:
Gilgamesh: A New English Versionby Stephen Mitchell
Free Press; Published: 2006-01-24; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.00
Price in other shops:
The Power and the Glory (Penguin Classics)by Graham Greene
Penguin Classics; Published: 2003-02-25; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.00
Price in other shops:
The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language (P.S.)by Steven Pinker
Harper Perennial Modern Classics; Published: 2007-09-04; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.12
Price in other shops:
How the Mind Worksby Steven Pinker
Baker and Taylor; W. W. Norton & Company; Published: 2009-06-22; Paperback; Book
Best price: $12.48
Price in other shops:
The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declinedby Steven Pinker
Viking Adult; Published: 2011-10-04; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $19.16
Price in other shops: