How History Made the Mind: The Cultural Origins of Objective Thinking

by David Martel Johnson

How History Made the Mind, David Martel Johnson argues that what we now think of as "reason" or "objective thinking" is not a natural product of the existence of an enlarged brain or culmination of innate biological tendencies. Rather, it is a way of learning to use the brain that runs counter to the natural characteristics involved in being an animal, a mammal, and a primate. Johnson defends his theory of mind as a cultural artifact against objections, and uses it to question a number of currently fashionable positions in philosophy of mind, known theories of Julian Jaynes, which Johnson argues go too far in the direction of emphasizing the dissimilarities between ancient and modern ways of thinking.

192 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2003

Reviews

[Franz · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have long believed that while the brain is obviously necessary for the existence of the mind, that can not be the whole story. Johnson agrees and he provides a plausible cultural explanation for reason as the invention (discovery?) of the ancient Greeks. Reason as we exercise he believes did not exist before the Greeks. An advantage of this book is its multidisciplinary breadth in supporting Johnson's arguments. The main discipline he mines is anthropology. Whether he is right or not I don't know, but his views are certainly worth considering.

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating book about the discovery of the mind, in the tradition of (but less fringy than) Julian Jaynes. His thesis: that the Greeks created what we would call reasonable thought, and therefore the mind as we understand it. His interpretation of Egyptian thought will change the way you think about pre-Greek societies.