What kind of creatures are we?

167 pages

English language

Published Jan. 18, 2015

ISBN:
978-0-231-17596-8
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OCLC Number:
945684889

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5 stars (1 review)

3 editions

reviewed What kind of creatures are we? by Noam Chomsky (Columbia Themes in Philosophy)

Review of 'What kind of creatures are we?' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

It was a long and challenging read, partly because I am new to most topics of the book (linguistics, mind-body-problem), partly because it is not self-contained. For me, it was a book to work with -- googling, reading the footnotes, googling again, making notes -- and so on.

Here are some highlights of what I learned. First, what is the difference between humans and (other) animals? Our language. It allows to generate "unbounded arrays of [...] expressions" of what happens in our head. Animals may have languages, too, but are limited in what they can express, mainly because the elements of their language have a direct link to what happens outside them. The "atomic concepts" of human language, on the other hand, can be seen as linked to mental activities, "though there are of course actions of refering and denoting." To me, this distinction is quite sophisticated and makes a …

Subjects

  • Philosophy
  • Language and languages