The Freedom of Words: Abstractness and the Power of Language

The Freedom of Words is for anyone interested in understanding the role of body and language in cognition and how humans developed the sophisticated ability to use abstract concepts like 'freedom' and 'thinking'. This volume adopts a transdisciplinary perspective, including philosophy, semiotics, psychology, and neuroscience, to show how language, as a tool, shapes our minds and influences our interaction with the physical and social environment. It develops a theory showing how abstract concepts in their different varieties enhance cognition and profoundly influence our social and affective life. It addresses how children learn such abstract concepts, details how they vary across languages and cultures, and outlines the link between abstractness and the capability to detect inner bodily signals. Overall, the book shows how words – abstract words in particular, because of their indeterminate and open character – grant us freedom.

Anna M. Borghi is Associate Professor of Psychology at Sapienza University of Rome and Associate Researcher at the Institue of Cognitive Sciences and Technology, Italian Research Council, Italy. She is interested in how language and body influence how we think and interact with the physical and social environment. She has published on affordances, imitation, categorization and concepts, and language. She co-authored Words as Social Tools: An Embodied View on Abstract Concepts (2014).