In my explorations, the most captivating mind I’ve come across belongs to Cognitive Psychologist, Steven Pinker. Besides his scientific papers, he is the author of 4 bestselling books for laymen, with another due later. His primary interest is language: we have an evolved instinct to acquire the rules of language, but we have to learn the specific execptions to the rules of any particular language.
His next to last book, The Blank Slate, is a tour de force, defending the thesis that we are born with an evolved nature, contrary to the views of, among others, behaviourists, who believe we come as a blank slate and acquire everything, including language, through stimulus and response. Pinker reviews all the disciples in exploring where the biases in respect of innate human nature or blankk slate lie. This is maybe one of best 5 books I’ve ever read and I strongly recommend it to anyone interested in human nature.
Why don’t you make a case for the the positions he opposes: that we have no evolved nature at birth (the blank slate); that untouched by civilization and in his natural state, man is good (the noble savage); that persons are vessicles run by inner intelligence (the Ghost in the Machine). Pinker substantiates his claims and covers an amazingly broad ground. As far as books for laymen go, The Blank Slate is a seminal work.
If you find it unfoundedly biased, please suggest to me a book the addresses his biases and takes opposing views. Cognitive science is my current obsession and I’m prepping to enter a Grad program in it once I have the undergrad foundation.
For starters most people forget about John Locke’s theory of there being no innate ideas in his book that describes human understanding.
He practically has almost two chapters devoted to the subject and noone that I know of has publically debunked it yet over the centuries meaning it still has a standing today.
Also I consider my own philosophy as one that supports the Tabula Rasa.
People will argue that every newer generation always shows the same acquisitions and practices in which I will reply, of course they do considering the replication of knowledge through writing or cultural oral conditions.
Imagine a world where there is no writing or complex language structures to pass along complex human motives, would your anti-thesis to the blank state still hold up then in such a scenario?
People who rally against the blank state utilize poor science with half truths at best and as of yet I haven’t seen any credible theories that debunks the tabula rasa.
I know of no book that criticizes him.
I am only expressing my own personal distaste of him.
Locke’s tabula rasa has long been discredited before Pinker. In the mid 60s Chomsky put forward the process of language acquisition. The basic strategy is to compare input and output. If there is a significant amount of information in the output that cannot be found in the input, then the only plausible explanation is that the excess information is innate. The are scores of other examples that substantiate the view that we come into the world with an evolved nature, and Pinker’s presentation is convincing and a pleasure to read.As long as you accept that our brains, which enbody our minds, are the product of natural selection and are adapted to undertake the tasks they are met with as they mature and interact with nature, you are committed to admitting that there is an innate human nature.
