Against theory of mind

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Peter Carruthers, Stephen Laurence, Stephen Stich

Vol. 1-2 deal with the fundamental architecture of the mind, addressing such questions as: what capacities, processes, representations, biases, & connections are innate? How do these innate elements feed into a story about the development of our mature cognitive capacities, & which are shared with other members of the animal kingdom? Vol. 3: Concerned with the fundamental architecture of the mind, this text addresses questions about the existence & extent of human innate abilities, how these inate abilities affect the development of the mature mind, & which of them is shared with other species.

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Dorothy Holland ... [et al

This book addresses the central problem in anthropological theory today: the paradox that humans are products of social discipline yet producers of remarkable improvisation. Synthesizing theoretical contributions by Vygotsky, Bakhtin, and Bourdieu, Dorothy Holland and her co-authors examine the processes by which people are constituted as agents as well as subjects of culturally constructed, socially imposed worlds. Ethnographic illumination of this complex theoretical construction comes from vividly described fieldwork in vastly different microcultures: American college women "caught" in romance; patients in U.S. institutions of mental health care; members of Alcoholics Anonymous, and girls and women in patriarchal Hindu villages in central Nepal. Identity and Agency in Cultural Worlds offers a liberating yet tempered understanding of agency, as it shows how, despite the force of cultural and social traditions, people improvise, redescribe themselves, and re-create their cultural worlds.

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James V. Schall

In The Life of the Mind, Georgetown University’s James V. Schall takes up the task of reminding us that, as human beings, we naturally take a special delight and pleasure in simply knowing. Because we have not only bodies but also minds, we are built to know what is. In this volume, Schall, author of On the Unseriousness of Human Affairs (ISI Books), among many other volumes of philosophical and political reflection, discusses the various ways of approaching the delight of thinking and the way that this delight begins in seeing and hearing and even in making and walking. We must be attentive to and cultivate the needs of the mind, argues Schall, for it is through our intellect that all that is not ourselves is finally returned to us, allowing us to live in the light of truth.

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Carolyn Merchant

An examination of the Scientific Revolution that shows how the mechanistic world view of modern science has sanctioned the exploitation of nature, unrestrained commercial expansion, and a new socioeconomic order that subordinates women.