Reading Lakoff ...

It is really amazing, but by some sort of luck I started to read George's Lakoff „The Political Mind”.

(It was while reading Les Miserables when my player went astray and I had to switch to an older one and I could not continue on Hugo (for some another strange reason). So I switched to Lakoff — don't ask me why :-) )

George Lakoff is one of greatest living linguists. Pupil of Noam Chomsky, he first tried to extend Chomsky's theory of grammar by unification with formal logic. But later, he started to build his alternative theory. He developed or elaborated on several important concepts like „embodied mind”, „conceptual metaphor” or „strict father model” (the later in relation to political science).
He was also in a fierce dispute with Steven Pinker — the another linguists I admire ...

The Political Mind has significant subtitle: „You can't understand 21-st century American politics with 18th-century brain ...”

This is not a review yet, this just a harbinger of, I believe, one of the most important books of the beginning of XXI century....

This is what I see just from the first chapters....

Steven Pinker's "The Stuff of Thought"

Steven's Pinker work "The Stuff of Thought" is about language. That's one side of the coin. The other is that it is not just about the language. It's a deep philosophical tractate about the very nature of mind, its interaction with the world, and the world itself...

"Language is a window into human nature, exposing deep and universal features of our thoughts and feelings. The thoughts and feelings cannot be equated with the words themselves"

The central theme of the book is an attempt to uncover the abstract layer, "the stuff" that our mind uses to think, to perceive, to be conscious. Going from the concepts of innate words and ideas, through polysemy, metaphors, names, dirty words, double speech, framing of expressions and language games we play - Steven slowly uncovers and makes evident the existence of deeper, more abstract, but also more precise layer of the human mind. There are numerous examples that illustrate the specific reflection of this abstract "stuff" in our language (my favorite was the analysis of various popular metaphors). Equally amazing is to find reflections of concepts of space, time and causality in the forms of our language.

When we read toward the end of the book, the other mysterious features of the language are revealed:

"Language is not just a window into human nature, but a fistula, an open wound through which our inerts are exposed to an infectious world"

I'm glad to notice that Pinker goes far beyond the biological interpretation of our mind. When you read "The stuff of thought" you have the impression that this author finally writes about the software our brain runs. To me - this software is the "stuff", although Pinker does not formulate such thesis. Here is a small weakness of the book though - while Pinker convinces the reader to his main argument - and the reader expects to learn more about "the stuff of thought" - he suddenly comes short on this subject. The book ends with fantastic chapter "Escaping the Cave" where the cave is Platon's metaphorical cave. The language is our cave, but it also can help us to escape this cave. Here lies its strength, beauty and power...

"Though language exposes the walls of our cave, it also shows us how we venture out of it, at least part way"

The harbinger of new review....

After reading "The Brain" I switched to less popular "The Stuff of Thought" by Steven Pinker. For me it is revolutionary book. I must admit - I never had appreciation to linguistic approach to philosophical problems. However, this book slowly changes my prejudice into admiration.
Too soon for the full review, but I already can say that it shows how important and fundamental and not-just-formal are linguistic studies. As one of the reviewers wrote: "Pikner probes the mystery of human nature by examining how we use words"....

More to come, I will continue reading (listening to) while travelling across Paris & London ...