Comprising lectures on distinctly separate topics, this short volume skims the surface of the diversity and complexity of...
Chomsky (Emeritus, Linguistics and Philosophy/MIT; Because We Say So, 2015, etc.) reflects broadly on the nature of language, the limits of human cognition, and our role as social creatures in furthering the common good.
This book collects lectures delivered by the author at Columbia University, spanning the fields of theoretical linguistics, cognitive science, political philosophy, and more. In the first chapter, Chomsky proposes that, despite a general feeling to the contrary, language evolved primarily as an instrument of thought, and he labels its externalization in speech and sign language as ancillary. Reframing language as a part of our biology, much like the eye, the author touches on generative grammar concepts that he developed in the 1950s. Chomsky delves next into philosophy of mind, specifically “the new mysterianism,” a philosophy that proposes the existence of “problems,” questions human beings are able to solve, and “mysteries,” the solutions to which lie outside the bounds of human cognition. He uncovers examples in scientific history, returning repeatedly to Isaac Newton’s unwillingness to speculate on the specific nature of gravity, the mysterious force with which objects appear to act upon one another at a distance. Turning his attention to social matters, Chomsky indicts the systems that profess social truisms in theory but reject them in practice. He cites American participation in the repression, torture, and execution of political dissenters in Latin America during the late 20th century before locating the seeds of American plutocracy in the intentions of the Founding Fathers and ending this chapter with a discussion of libertarian ideals. The writing is academic in its tenor, referencing throughout the work of philosophical luminaries such as David Hume, John Locke, Joseph Priestley, and many more. As such, general readers may find the text opaque and the narrative flow disconnected.
Comprising lectures on distinctly separate topics, this short volume skims the surface of the diversity and complexity of Chomsky’s expertise.Pub Date: Dec. 15, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-231-17596-8
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Columbia Univ.
Review Posted Online: Sept. 2, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2015
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This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955
ISBN: 0679733736
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.
The authors have created a sort of anti-Book of Virtues in this encyclopedic compendium of the ways and means of power.
Everyone wants power and everyone is in a constant duplicitous game to gain more power at the expense of others, according to Greene, a screenwriter and former editor at Esquire (Elffers, a book packager, designed the volume, with its attractive marginalia). We live today as courtiers once did in royal courts: we must appear civil while attempting to crush all those around us. This power game can be played well or poorly, and in these 48 laws culled from the history and wisdom of the world’s greatest power players are the rules that must be followed to win. These laws boil down to being as ruthless, selfish, manipulative, and deceitful as possible. Each law, however, gets its own chapter: “Conceal Your Intentions,” “Always Say Less Than Necessary,” “Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy,” and so on. Each chapter is conveniently broken down into sections on what happened to those who transgressed or observed the particular law, the key elements in this law, and ways to defensively reverse this law when it’s used against you. Quotations in the margins amplify the lesson being taught. While compelling in the way an auto accident might be, the book is simply nonsense. Rules often contradict each other. We are told, for instance, to “be conspicuous at all cost,” then told to “behave like others.” More seriously, Greene never really defines “power,” and he merely asserts, rather than offers evidence for, the Hobbesian world of all against all in which he insists we live. The world may be like this at times, but often it isn’t. To ask why this is so would be a far more useful project.
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-670-88146-5
Page Count: 430
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1998
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