The Blank Slate
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Amazon.co.uk Review
In The Blank Slate, the bestselling author Steven Pinker produces his most polemical and convincing attack upon the nurture side of the nature versus nurture debate. Pinker's previous books The Language Instinctand How the Mind Works have already attracted huge praise and controversy in arguing that language and cognition are natural rather than cultural. In The Blank Slate he refines and extends his arguments.
The book is aimed at "people who wonder where the taboo against human nature came from", and promises to explain "the moral, emotional and political colorings of the concept of human nature in modern life". For Pinker, the belief that we are all born as "blank slates" upon which culture places its decisive imprint is not only wrong but dangerous. He persuasively argues that "the conviction that humanity could be reshaped by massive social engineering projects led to some of the greatest atrocities in history". This is all very well, but at over 500 pages it can also be daunting for the general reader, as Pinker takes on all-comers, from biologists and sociologists to a dizzying array of classical thinkers from Calvin and Hobbes to Marx and Dawkins. The sections on gender will undoubtedly inflame many feminist writers (the most persuasive of which Pinker sadly neglects to discuss), and the criticisms of modern art are flimsy, but The Blank Slate is an impressive and sustained broadside that cannot be ignored. -–Jerry Brotton --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
'A magnificent and timely work' Fay Weldon, Daily Telegraph, Books of the Year; 'A passionate defence of the enduring power of human nature... both life-affirming and deeply satisfying' Tim Lott, Daily Telegraph, Books of the Year; "Reading Pinker is one of the biggest favours I've ever done my brain" Richard Dawkins
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
"BLANK SLATE" is a loose translation of the medieval Latin term tabula rasa-literally, "scraped tablet." Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
"BLANK SLATE" is a loose translation of the medieval Latin term tabula rasa-literally, "scraped tablet." Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
54 of 57 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Beautiful & Essential Reading,
This review is from: The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature (Allen Lane Science) (Hardcover)
This profound book examines 3 doctrines: The Blank Slate (no human nature), The Noble Savage (no selfish or evil instincts), and The Ghost in the Machine (independent existence of the mind from the body/brain).Steven Pinker elegantly presents the evidence against these views, sometimes in concise and quite overwhelmingly devastating lists. In a small way this subject matter is similar to J.Diamond's 'The 3rd Chimpanzee' or E.O. Wilson's 'Consilience'- showing that we are imperfect products of evolution, limited in knowledge and wisdom, tempted by status and power, and blinded by self-deception and delusions of moral superiority. If this were all the book was about it would still be fascinating reading. Fortunately however, Pinker has gone two steps further, thus making this book a landmark in the Nature/Nurture debate. Firstly he explains that the reason why so many people (Postmodernists, Marxists, Gender Feminists etc) want to believe in these 3 doctrines is based on fears of inequality, determinism, imperfectability, and nihilism. He examines each of these fears and demonstrates that they are based on a poverty of understanding of human nature (the 3 doctrines), a myriad of fallacies and non sequiturs, a lack of understanding of ethics, and moralistic self-displays. Secondly, in agreement with Chekhov's 'Man will become better when you show him what he is like', Pinker gives powerful and sensible arguments how an accurate understanding of human nature would aid in the reduction of violence & oppression and increase human happiness. They are a real and timely intellectual treat, brimming with positive potential of application. For those new to evolutionary psychology I would recommend that they first read Pinker's 'How the Mind Works' or Robert Wright's 'The Moral Animal'. It would be an understatement to say that this book is eye-opening. I would regard this book as essential reading to those that think that the Greek's advice 'Know thyself' is sage.
47 of 50 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Tabula not so rasa,
By
This review is from: The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature (Penguin Press Science) (Paperback)
The 'blank slate' of the title is the human mind at birth, a view held, often implicitly, by our modern society, which has been conditioned to accept this by religions, progressive educationists, and the left in general. Those who hold the opposing view, that much of our nature is inherited, are subjected to frequent and vicious personal attacks (see the reviews of this book). Pinker, however, is made of stern stuff, and has put a large explosive device under his opponents with this book based, as it is, on carefully documented research and grounded in appropriate theory. He ranges from genetics to computational linguistics via neurology and statistical theory in dazzling fashion. It might seem that the weight of evidence gathered might cause the book to be heavy going, but the writing is sharper, and the touch is lighter and more humorous than anyone has a right to expect. As an example, consider the following, after a discussion on the effects of ageing: "Forget 'As the twig is bent, so the tree grows', think 'Omigod, I'm turning into my parents'". While there are parts to the book which some will question, Pinker has turned the searchlights of reason and common sense on much of the political correctness of our time, showing how ludicrous most of it is, and showing also how science is beginning to give us a better understanding of what is meant by 'human nature'. If 'the proper study of mankind is man' then this is the essential primer.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
This book is a must, but....,
By Søren Nørgaard "Søren Nørgaard" (Odense, Denmark) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature (Paperback)
I'd already read the book, but still I had to buy it. The overwhelmingly thorough documentation presented as to determine the human mind, being not a blank slate but an evolutionarily determined complexity, is not only convincing, it states the evolutionary heritage an inevitable fact. The strentgh of the book, however, also describes its weakness. Apparently determined to change a ruling blank slate paradigm Pinker remains in attack mode and consequently, he fails to disclose,(he may not know?)in which way he and other evolutionary psychologists concider the evolutionary understanding a task enhancing improvement. How does he (they)solve the problem of competing traits? How will he (they)distinguish among trait determinations on the side of the investigating part from occurrences investigated? The fields of social science are among other characteristica characterized by the fact that interventions, whatever they basically refer to science, religion or ideologi, necessarily have to be considered by nature interactive with the object determined and investigated and thus by nature, can be determined to be trait-acts.
Nevertheless, in my opinion the first hundred pages could likely be considered obligatory reading to any student and any other with interests within the fields of social science. Reading "The Blank Slate" certainly will provide broad and knowledgeable insight with related and interconnected fields of science, and will most probably alter previous beleifs.
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