Language, Cognition, and Human Nature

Language, Cognition, and Human Nature collects together for the first time much of Steven Pinker's most influential scholarly work on language and cognition. Pinker's seminal research explores the workings of language and its connections to cognition, perception, social relationships, child development, human evolution, and theories of human nature.

This eclectic collection spans Pinker's thirty-year career, exploring his favorite themes in greater depth and scientific detail. It includes thirteen of Pinker's classic articles, ranging over topics such as language development in children, mental imagery, the recognition of shapes, the computational architecture of the mind, the meaning and uses of verbs, the evolution of language and cognition, the nature-nurture debate, and the logic of innuendo and euphemism. Each outlines a major theory or takes up an argument with another prominent scholar, such as Stephen Jay Gould, Noam Chomsky, or Richard Dawkins. Featuring a new introduction by Pinker that discusses his books and scholarly work, this collection reflects essential contributions to cognitive science by one of our leading thinkers and public intellectuals.

• Words and Rules: The Ingredients Of Language (Science Masters Series)
• The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language (P.S.)
• How the Mind Works
• The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature
• The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature
• The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person's Guide to Writing in the 21st Century
• The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined
• Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress
• On Language: Chomsky's Classic Works Language and Responsibility and Reflections on Language in One Volume
• Learnability and Cognition: The Acquisition of Argument Structure (Learning, Development, and Conceptual Change)