A nativist manifesto

Reviews the book, The Innate Mind: Structure and Content edited by P. Carruthers, S. Laurence, and S. Stich (see record 2005-15188-000). The Innate Mind: Structure and Content is the first of three volumes that will collectively comprise a detailed manifesto for the new nativist program in cognitive science. It is the result of a year-long conference held at the University of Sheffield from 2001 to 2002. The level of chapters is uniformly high, because they were culled from presentations at the conference or later commissioned from authors whose work seemed central to the project's goals. Following an introductory chapter by the editors and T. Simpson (the project research associate), the book is divided into four parts: architecture, language and concepts, theory of mind, and motivation. Although, as remarked, the quality of the chapters in The Innate Mind is high, the book cannot be recommended as an introduction to the new nativism. As a manifesto for nativism, there are no chapters representing the other side of the debate, although nativism's opponents are argued with at length and well referenced. Perhaps a more serious problem is that many of the chapters are quite technical and require that the reader be well-versed in the theories, methodologies, and findings in the diverse areas represented in the volume. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved)