Paul Bloom

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Descartes' Baby: How the Science of Child Development Explains What Makes Us Human

Paul Bloom

All humans see the world in two fundamentally different ways: even babies have a rich understanding of both the physical and social worlds. They expect objects to obey principles of physics, and they're startled when things disappear or defy gravity. Yet they can also read emotions and respond with anger, sympathy, and joy.

In Descartes' Baby, Bloom draws on a wealth of scientific discoveries to show how these two ways of knowing give rise to such uniquely human traits as humor, disgust, religion, art, and morality. How our dualist perspective, developed throughout our lives, profoundly influences our thoughts, feelings, and actions is the subject of this richly rewarding book.

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DESCARTES' BABY: How the Science of Child Development Explains What Makes Us Human

Paul Bloom

A leading cognitive scientist reveals how insights from the study of babies explain the rise of such uniquely human traits as humor, disgust, religion, art, and morality.

"If you really want to understand human nature, you must observe people as they are before they are corrupted by language and culture, by MTV and Hebrew school. You must look at babies."

So contends psychologist Paul Bloom--whom Steven Pinker calls "the wunderkind of cognitive science"--in this fascinating account of how we learn to make sense of reality. All humans see the world in two fundamentally different ways: Even babies have a rich understanding of both the physical and social worlds. They expect objects to obey principles of physics, and they're startled when things disappear or defy gravity. Yet they can also read emotions and respond with anger, sympathy, and joy.

In Descartes' Baby, Bloom draws on a wealth of scientific discoveries to show how these two ways of knowing give rise to such uniquely human traits as humor, disgust, religion, art, and morality. The myriad ways that our dualist perspectives, born in infancy, undergo development throughout our lives and profoundly influence our thoughts, feelings, and actions is the subject of this richly rewarding book.

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Marketing Professional Services: Forward-Thinking Strategies for Boosting Your Business, Your Image, and Your Profits

Paul Bloom; Philip Kotler; Paul N. Bloom; Thomas J. Hayes; Thomas Hayes

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How Children Learn the Meanings of Words

Paul Bloom

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Other editions: Hardcover - 2000