Give me that juicy bit over there 
Jerry Fodor
- The Singing Neanderthals: The Origins of Music, Language, Mind and Body by Steven Mithen
I’m in a pout about this book; I’m conflicted. On the one hand, there are several respects in which it seems to me to be very good. Mithen knows a great deal and he writes well by the received standards of cognitive science (which are not daunting). So his book is both edifying and a pleasure to read. If you’re in the market for a summary of what’s known (a little) and what’s surmised (a lot) about the evolutionary history of our species, I’d be hard put to think of a better one to recommend. Also, and more to the point, the question to which the book wants to address itself is thoroughly fascinating to, as Mithen says, ‘anyone who has an interest in the human condition’. Namely: ‘Why should we be so compelled to make and listen to music?’ And if all that’s not enough, there’s a theory of the origin of language (that again!) thrown in for free.
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Jerry Fodor teaches philosophy and psychology at Rutgers University
Other articles by this contributor:
A Science of Tuesdays · Jerry Fodor writes about the Threefold Cord: Mind, Body and World by Hilary Putnam
Neither Egypt, nor Italy, nor Broadway, nor Theatre · Jerry Fodor sees the Elton John and Tim Rice reworking of Aida
Why Pigs Don’t Have Wings · The Case against Natural Selection
Who ate the salted peanuts? · Michael Frayn
Let your brain alone · why the brain?
Look! · Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge by Edward O. Wilson
Water’s water everywhere · Kripke
Headaches have themselves · Panpsychism
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