The Blank Slate (Magill’s Literary Annual 1991-2005)
At a glance:
- Author: Steven Pinker
- First Published: 2002
- Type of Work: Psychology, science, and sociology
- Genres: Nonfiction, Sociology, Science and technology, Psychology
- Subjects: Children, Parents and children, Philosophy or philosophers, Politics, Nature, Science or scientists, Human race, Ethics, Human behavior, Genetics, Morality or morals, Evolution, Biology or biologists, Bioethics, Brain
With The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature, Steven Pinker picks up an idea he began to describe in The Language Instinct (1994) and How the Mind Works (1997): that there is a set of characteristics hard- wired in all human brains. Pinker proved that language is an instinct because all healthy children learn the logic of language in the same way and because the capacity to use language is found in an identifiable part of the brain. In other words, children do not learn language because adults teach it to them, but because they are genetically wired to do...
[The entire page is 1833 words long]
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