Audiobook4 hours
What Kind of Creatures Are We?
Written by Noam Chomsky
Narrated by John Pruden
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
4/5
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About this audiobook
Noam Chomsky is widely known and deeply admired for being the founder of modern linguistics, one of the founders of the field of cognitive science, and perhaps the most avidly read political theorist and commentator of our time. In these lectures, he presents a lifetime of philosophical reflection on all three of these areas of research to which he has contributed for over half a century.
In clear, precise, and non-technical language, Chomsky elaborates on fifty years of scientific development in the study of language, sketching how his own work has implications for the origins of language, the close relations that language bears to thought, and its eventual biological basis. He expounds and criticizes many alternative theories, such as those that emphasize the social, the communicative, and the referential aspects of language. Chomsky reviews how new discoveries about language overcome what seemed to be highly problematic assumptions in the past. He also investigates the apparent scope and limits of human cognitive capacities and what the human mind can seriously investigate, in the light of history of science and philosophical reflection and current understanding. Moving from language and mind to society and politics, he concludes with a searching exploration and philosophical defense of a position he describes as "libertarian socialism," tracing its links to anarchism and the ideas of John Dewey, and even briefly to the ideas of Marx and Mill, demonstrating its conceptual growth out of our historical past and urgent relation to matters of the present.
In clear, precise, and non-technical language, Chomsky elaborates on fifty years of scientific development in the study of language, sketching how his own work has implications for the origins of language, the close relations that language bears to thought, and its eventual biological basis. He expounds and criticizes many alternative theories, such as those that emphasize the social, the communicative, and the referential aspects of language. Chomsky reviews how new discoveries about language overcome what seemed to be highly problematic assumptions in the past. He also investigates the apparent scope and limits of human cognitive capacities and what the human mind can seriously investigate, in the light of history of science and philosophical reflection and current understanding. Moving from language and mind to society and politics, he concludes with a searching exploration and philosophical defense of a position he describes as "libertarian socialism," tracing its links to anarchism and the ideas of John Dewey, and even briefly to the ideas of Marx and Mill, demonstrating its conceptual growth out of our historical past and urgent relation to matters of the present.
Author
Noam Chomsky
Noam Chomsky is the author of numerous bestselling political works, including Hegemony or Survival and Failed States. A laureate professor at the University of Arizona and professor emeritus of linguistics and philosophy at MIT, he is widely credited with having revolutionized modern linguistics. He lives in Tuscon, Arizona.
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Reviews for What Kind of Creatures Are We?
Rating: 4.050847472881356 out of 5 stars
4/5
118 ratings5 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This is a great book,i love how the writer goes into such depths,In my pursuit of knowledge,i came across a great teacher of language,and in his teachings I became more interested in language,but that came to a Holt do to some unknown entity's whom from what I understood thought language could be found elsewhere,that this wasn't more or less the best place to learn,so from what I understood is it would be a good idea do to my ignorance of language to leave IT,alone so know unnecessary harshness would inflict the world of the teacher,so I went back to a familiar that has been known to me for half a year or so,but that became nothing but stupid language assumptions on there part,smart they aren't,so do to ignorance on sign language and Tech I've stayed in my bounds.Thats it.Happy Birthday sir.?
2 people found this helpful
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5One of the great thinkers of our mind. Though I know his work from when I pursued a degree in international affairs I had always wanted to get a hand in his other work pursuing language and how we interact with the world. I like how he brings about previous discussions from Aristotle, Newton and Russell. His clarity of thinking and how he frames everything it’s just wonderful. At some parts I had to go back a bit or pause (I listened to the audio book). This is one of those reads you’d like to give your full attention
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The narrator is much too fast for how dense the subject matter is. Great content, luckily the app can play back at 0.8x speed.
I now know less than I did before listening, which I think was the point of the book. - Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5This was so boring! How can something about such an interesting topic be that boring?
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5So many words to express almost nothing of value. I had such high expectations from the intro, maybe skip the intro and go into it expecting nothing and it will be better?