How the Mind Works

This work of popular cognitive science treats the mind as a set of computational organs shaped by natural selection. Pinker explains vision and the construction of a three-dimensional world, reasoning and intelligence, the emotions, kinship and social exchange, and the mental basis of humour, music, and the arts. He argues that many puzzling features of thought make sense as solutions to problems faced by ancestral humans. Later chapters take up what this framework still cannot settle, including consciousness. The book is an explanatory essay for general readers, drawing on psychology, linguistics, and evolutionary biology, not a textbook of experiments and not a memoir of research.

Quarter-bound in buckram with Modigliani paper sides printed with a design by Andy Martin. Dark brown slipcase.