Actual Minds, Possible Worlds
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A brilliant synthesis of contemporary anthropology, sociology, literary theory, and philosophy as well as psychology. -- Michael Stern San Francisco Chronicle This delightful volume invites the reader into dialogue with one of the most imaginative, articulate, and broadly sophisticated scholars of the present era. Bruner...draws on his wealth of knowledge in psychology, linguistics, literary theory, and other domains to weave a rich tapestry of interrelated themes. The essays treat such topics as narrative thought, transactional theory of child development, constructivism, education, and literary criticism. What will surely be the most controversial proposal of the volume is that the human mind is equipped with two modes of cognitive processing, the one paradigmatic (designed to develop propositions subject to empirical test) and the other narrative (designed to comprehend and develop stories). The essays themselves are finely honed narratives, engaging and personal. -- K. J. Gergen Choice It is perhaps possible to describe Bruner as being an intellectual by inclination, a cognitive psychologist eminent in his trade and an ardent academic who has spent his life questing for problems to solve and questions to pose. Actual Minds, Possible Worlds reflects all these interests and approaches as he debates how we create reality, possible worlds from actual minds. It is a book that raises many important problems and pertinent questions...[and] these essays will provide the reader with a stimulating journey...Bruner, as well as being an eclectic intellectual, is an indefatigable psychologist with many facets to his lifetime involvement in exploring the mind...[He] has a prose style that is elegant, professional and delightful...For those interested in liberal approaches to the development of mind and the mind's creative capacity for constructing imaginative acts it provides a provocative and stimulating discussion. -- Margaret Martlew British Journal of Psychology Remarkably ambitious...[Bruner] necessarily takes cognitive psychology into the realms of philosophy, narrative, and literary theory, and to the largest questions about knowledge and mind...Admirable and moving. -- Nancy Mergler and Ronald Schleifer, Modern Language Notes The human mind is everywhere at work, in daily life, in myth, in art, in science, in politics, showing a diversity and depth that cannot be reproduced in laboratory experiments. In order to get a comprehensive picture, the rigorous but narrow experimental approach must be supplemented by the breadth of the humanistic disciplines. This is what Bruner argues and what he exemplifies in Actual Minds, Possible Worlds. -- Dan Sperber Times Literary Supplement Bruner has combined his own academic gregariousness with a drive to fit his work into the canon of current Western thought... The mysteries of structuralism, deconstruction and pragmatism are unraveled here in the light of Bruner's lifelong efforts to make sense of the way we make sense of things...He makes culture here like a master. -- Christina Robb Boston Globe
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Offers a psychological approach to literature, examines the connection between language and reality, and discusses education and intellectual development.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Written in a style that combines supreme scholarship with lucidity, this book was a considerable help to me in some recent research. This collection of lectures and papers written over a period of years covers a range of issues linking psychology with education in its broadest sense, language and literature.
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30 of 45 people found the following review helpful
Rounding Out The Picture Of Bruner's Work
9 July 2000
Format:Paperback
Reading Bruner is as easy as putting on a wet suit just out of the drier. Many times, he obfuscates his language such that it is a struggle to capture the meaning. And he is an addicted name-dropper.
But he is still worth reading, and this collection adds to the portrait of his thinking, so in that sense, I warmly recommend it. I particularly enjoyed his chapter on Vygotsky's influence on psychology and education--enough so that I will begin to go down that road and pursue some of his books.
What I like most of Bruner's work is his regard for the cultural influences working in tandem with the individual's cognitive self--he respects both aspects.
Whoever heard of putting a wetsuit in a drier?
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