Language, Consciousness, Culture: Essays on Mental StructureMIT Press, 2009 M01 23 - 432 pages An integrative approach to human cognition that encompasses the domains of language, consciousness, action, social cognition, and theory of mind that will foster cross-disciplinary conversation among linguists, philosophers, psycholinguists, neuroscientists, cognitive anthropologists, and evolutionary psychologists. Ray Jackendoff's Language, Consciousness, Culture represents a breakthrough in developing an integrated theory of human cognition. It will be of interest to a broad spectrum of cognitive scientists, including linguists, philosophers, psycholinguists, neuroscientists, cognitive anthropologists, and evolutionary psychologists. Jackendoff argues that linguistics has become isolated from the other cognitive sciences at least partly because of the syntax-based architecture assumed by mainstream generative grammar. He proposes an alternative parallel architecture for the language faculty that permits a greater internal integration of the components of language and connects far more naturally to such larger issues in cognitive neuroscience as language processing, the connection of language to vision, and the evolution of language. Extending this approach beyond the language capacity, Jackendoff proposes sharper criteria for a satisfactory theory of consciousness, examines the structure of complex everyday actions, and investigates the concepts involved in an individual's grasp of society and culture. Each of these domains is used to reflect back on the question of what is unique about human language and what follows from more general properties of the mind. Language, Consciousness, Culture extends Jackendoff's pioneering theory of conceptual semantics to two of the most important domains of human thought: social cognition and theory of mind. Jackendoff's formal framework allows him to draw new connections among a large variety of literatures and to uncover new distinctions and generalizations not previously recognized. The breadth of the approach will foster cross-disciplinary conversation; the vision is to develop a richer understanding of human nature. |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 85
... Hands and Making Co¤ee: The Structure of Complex Actions 111 4.1 Introduction 111 4.2 Shaking Hands 113 4.3 Making Co¤ee 123 4.4 Building Structure 130 4.5 Summing Up 139 Chapter 5 Cognition of Society and Culture 145 5.1 Social ...
... hand that answers to larger issues in cognitive neuroscience, we are poised to extend the fundamental questions of mental structure beyond the language capacity. Chapter 3 updates the inquiry into consciousness undertaken in my 1987 ...
... hand, connections among the chapters keep cropping up, especially in part II, and not by accident. In particular, chapter 7 builds on chapter 6, and chapter 10 builds on chapter 9. Still, to make this into a fully unified volume would ...
... hand, there is a ''vertical'' division more or less by subject matter: vision, audition, proprioception (the sense of body position and movement), motor control, language, and so forth. And on the other hand, cutting across this is a ...
... hand, it depends on a promissory note to the e¤ect that someday all the problems associated with intentionality will be worked out. But of course we adopt such promissory notes all the time in science. In particular, any sort of ...