my mind on books

Words and Images: An Essay on the Origin of Ideas by Christopher Gauker (Oxford University Press, USA, 2011)

(amazon.co.uk)

Product description from the publisher:

At least since Locke, philosophers and psychologists have usually held that concepts arise out of sensory perceptions, thoughts are built from concepts, and language enables speakers to convey their thoughts to hearers. Christopher Gauker holds that this tradition is mistaken about both concepts and language. The mind cannot abstract the building blocks of thoughts from perceptual representations. More generally, we have no account of the origin of concepts that grants them the requisite independence from language. Gauker’s alternative is to show that much of cognition consists in thinking by means of mental imagery, without the help of concepts, and that language is a tool by which interlocutors coordinate their actions in pursuit of shared goals. Imagistic cognition supports the acquisition and use of this tool, and when the use of this tool is internalized, it becomes the very medium of conceptual thought.

See also: Author’s website, philosophy.tv – Christopher Gauker and Kathrin Glüer on the contents of perception

Somehow I missed this book when it came out last February: I Is an Other: The Secret Life of Metaphor and How It Shapes the Way We See the World by James Geary (Harper, 2011)

(kindle ed.), (amazon.co.uk)

Product description from the publisher:

From President Obama’s political rhetoric to the housing bubble bust, James Geary proves in this fascinating and entertaining book that every aspect of our experience is molded by metaphor.

“It is the East, and Juliet is the sun!” This is one of Shakespeare’s most famous lines and one of the most well-known metaphors in literature. But metaphor is much more than a mere literary device employed by love-struck poets when they refer to their girlfriends as interstellar masses of incandescent gas. It is also intensely yet inconspicuously present in everything from ordinary conversation and commercial messaging to news reports and political speeches. Metaphor is at work in all fields of human endeavor, including economics, business, science, and psychology.

In I Is an Other, James Geary takes readers from Aristotle’s investigation of metaphor right up to the latest neuroscientific insights into how metaphor works in the brain. Along the way, he demonstrates how metaphor affects financial decision making, how metaphor lurks behind effective advertisements, how metaphor inspires learning and discovery, and how metaphor can be used as a tool to achieve emotional insight and psychological change. Geary also explores how a life without metaphor, as experienced by some people with autism spectrum disorders, significantly changes the way a person interacts with the world. As Geary demonstrates, metaphor has leaped off the page and landed with a mighty splash right in the middle of our stream of consciousness.

Witty, persuasive, and original, I Is an Other showcases how a simple way with words, which in the past was considered a tool only for poets, is really a driving force in our society. This book will open your eyes to the secret life of metaphor and its role in swinging elections, moving markets, and powerfully influencing daily life.

Preview of Kindle edition:

See also: Author’s website, TED talk:

The Recursive Mind: The Origins of Human Language, Thought, and Civilization by Michael C. Corballis (Princeton University Press, 2011)

(kindle ed.), (amazon.co.uk)

Product description from the publisher:

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.

Through the Language Glass: Why the World Looks Different in Other Languages by Guy Deutscher (Metropolitan Books, 2010)

(link for amazon.co.uk)

Product description from the publisher:

A masterpiece of linguistics scholarship, at once erudite and entertaining, confronts the thorny question of how—and whether—culture shapes language and language, culture

Linguistics has long shied away from claiming any link between a language and the culture of its speakers: too much simplistic (even bigoted) chatter about the romance of Italian and the goose-stepping orderliness of German has made serious thinkers wary of the entire subject. But now, acclaimed linguist Guy Deutscher has dared to reopen the issue. Can culture influence language—and vice versa? Can different languages lead their speakers to different thoughts? Could our experience of the world depend on whether our language has a word for “blue”?

Challenging the consensus that the fundaments of language are hard-wired in our genes and thus universal, Deutscher argues that the answer to all these questions is—yes. In thrilling fashion, he takes us from Homer to Darwin, from Yale to the Amazon, from how to name the rainbow to why Russian water—a “she”—becomes a “he” once you dip a tea bag into her, demonstrating that language does in fact reflect culture in ways that are anything but trivial. Audacious, delightful, and field-changing, Through the Language Glass is a classic of intellectual discovery.

See also: recent New York Times article based on this book, Neuroanthropology.net response to NY Times article, Guy Deutscher’s website

The Language of Pain: Finding Words, Compassion, and Relief by David Biro (W.W. Norton & Co, 2010)

(link for amazon.co.uk)

“…pain, and stories of pain, provide us with an extraordinary opportunity to witness the way language and meaning come into being.” p 139

To counter the isolation and silence that are often experienced by people in pain, physician Biro draws on literary accounts, memoirs and works of art to explore metaphor as a way of developing a language of pain. The three types of metaphor he discusses are agency (an external force causing pain), mirror (feelings projected into external objects) and X-ray (metaphors to picture interior of body).

Product description from the publisher:

David Biro breaks through the wall of silence in this impassioned, hopeful work. Pain regularly accompanies illness, as David Biro knows only too well. Faced with a bone marrow transplant, the young doctor was determined to study his pain but found himself unable to articulate its depths, even to his doctors and wife. He has now discovered a way to break through the silent wall of suffering—physical and psychological—and wants to share it with others. In his new book, the critically acclaimed author expertly weaves together compelling stories and artwork from patients along with insights from some of our greatest thinkers, writers, and artists.

In the tradition of Susan Sontag’s Illness as Metaphor, Biro’s groundbreaking book is sure to transform our understanding of and ability to communicate pain. Language can alleviate the loneliness of pain and improve the chances that other people—family, friends, and doctors—empathize and respond most effectively. 10 illustrations

excerpt from p. 206-7

Pain is difficult to express because it isn’t necessarily connected to objects or referents in the shared, outer world. To overcome this obstacle, a person might imaginatively create a referent through metaphor. The material we have looked at during the course of the book, from the actual words of patients to works of fiction and art, offers three strategies for the creation of such referents. First, an agent in the outside world can be identified as acting against a person and causing pain. Next, the world can be remade to experience pain and empathize with a sufferer. And finally, the body can be opened up, enabling the sufferer to picture the internal source of pain.

Related works:

Biro cites Elaine Scarry’s The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World as a prime inspiration for his book.

Perceptions of Pain grew out of artist Deborah Padfield’s work with pain clinic patients. Some images from the book are reproduced in Chapter 9 of Biro’s book.