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The Blank Slate

The Modern Denial of Human Nature

By Steven Pinker

(27)

| Paperback | 9780142003343

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Book Description

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-Continue

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.

Critics

  • Hoist by his own polemic

    The Blank Slate by Steven Pinker Allen Lane £25, pp509 Here is an intriguing question. Who wrote the following words? 'A child's mind is a blank book. During the first years of his life, much will be written on the pages. The quality of that writing ... (read full critics)

    guardian.co.uk published on Sat, 25 Sep 2010

  • It's all in the mind

    The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature by Steven Pinker 434pp, Allen Lane, £25 This is really two books in one, which may be why it is rather long. "Pinker One" lays out convincingly the reasons why we cannot possibly do without a concept ... (read full critics)

    guardian.co.uk published on Sat, 25 Sep 2010

1 Review

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  • He shows his political cards here. His thesis is surely right, and there really is a lot of silly hostility to Darwinism in the way that he describes. Dennett touches on this too.

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    Leebeck said on Feb 29, 2008 about the Hardcover edition | Add your feedback

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