How the Mind Works

Front Cover
Penguin Adult, 1999 - Philosophy - 672 pages

Why do we laugh? What makes memories fade? Why do fools fall in love? Why do people believed in ghosts? How do we recognize a face? How the Mind Worksexplores every aspect of our brains, showing that our minds are not a mystery, but rather a system designed by natural selection over years of human evolution. Whether looking at optical illusions or religion, Mozart or films, Steven Pinker offers us a new way of understanding ourselves.

'Powerful and gripping . . . To have read it is to have consulted a first draft of the structural plan of the human psyche . . . a glittering tour de force.' Spectator

'Witty popular science that you enjoy reading for the writing as well as for the science . . . He is a top-rate writer, and deserve the superlatives that are lavished on him.' The New York Times

'Pinker has a remarkable capacity to explain difficult ideas and he writes with the comic verve of Martin Amis or Woody Allen . . . How the Mind Workswill change the way your mind works.' The Times

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About the author (1999)

Steven Pinker is one of the world's leading authorities on language and the mind. His popular and highly praised books include Words and Rules, How the Mind Works, and The Language Instinct. The recipient of several major awards for his teaching and scientific research, Pinker is Peter de Florez professor of psychology in the department of brain and cognitive sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. http-//stevenpinker.com