Reviewed by Kleanthes K. Grohmann, University of Cyprus
As the preface to this eclectic collection clarifies, this volume is the product of a Mind-Brain Circle organized at Aarhus University (which the editors were affiliated with at the time). The articles reach considerably beyond language and linguistics, as becomes evident from Anjum P. Saleemi’s ‘Introduction: The enigma of unification’. The volume is a mix of reprinted articles by some of the world’s leading voices in mind-brain studies and original contributions from other, mostly local, researchers.
The articles can be categorized into two groups. The first group of contributions includes articles by authors who are already well known. Noam Chomsky contributes two articles ‘Language and mind: Current thoughts on ancient problems’, which originally appeared in 1997, and ‘Language and the brain’, from 2001. The article on ‘Consciousness’ by John R. Searle dates from 2000, and Steven Pinker’s article ‘Reverse-engineering the psyche’, from his 1997 book How the mind works (New York: W. W. Norton & Company), is reprinted here as well. Martin Atkinson expresses his ‘Minimalist visions’ to a (possibly) larger audience than the original 2000 edition (Essex working papers 34, Colchester, UK: University of Essex).
The second group of contributions includes work by the editors and local contributors. ‘On pain of irrationality: Refuting relativistic challenges to the unifiability of knowledge’ by Anjum P. Saleemi builds on the theme of his introduction: unification across multiple levels of reality. Ocke-Schwen Bohn (whose paper is mysteriously not included in the table of contents) wishes ‘A fond farewell to the critical period hypothesis for non-primary language acquisition’. Albert Gjedde’s contribution ‘Subjectivity and the self: The neurobiology of consciousness’ enriches John R. Searle’s philosophical concerns on the study of consciousness in addition to some neurobiological considerations.
Dominic Rainsford, a local contributor and the former general editor of the Aarhus Dolphin-series, discusses ‘Literary language and the scientific description of consciousness’. In his ‘Biology, culture and the emergence and elaboration of symbolization’, Chris Sinha advocates the contribution of culture to human cognition. Finally, considering intricacies of the economic part of social complexity, Jamsheed Shorish, provides ‘A simple vocabulary for planning and deliberation: Risk, complexity and Knightian uncertainty’.
In sum, this is at first glance perhaps a strange collection of articles dealing with quite different themes ranging from consciousness and language to complex social structures. That said, in its totality, the volume turns out to be a quite interesting contribution to the study of the human mind/brain and beyond. The articles nicely connect philosophical, economical, psychological, and literary perspectives on issues many linguists have been concerned with for some time.