The Philosophical Baby: What Children's Minds Tell Us About Truth, Love, and the Meaning of Life [Paperback]

Alison Gopnik (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 6, 2010

In the last decade there has been a revolution in our understanding of the minds of infants and young children. We used to believe that babies were irrational, and that their thinking and experience were limited. Now Alison Gopnik — a leading psychologist and philosopher, as well as a mother — explains the cutting-edge scientific and psychological research that has revealed that babies learn more, create more, care more, and experience more than we could ever have imagined. And there is good reason to believe that babies are actually smarter, more thoughtful, and more conscious than adults. In a lively and accessible tour of the groundbreaking new psychological, neuroscientific, and philosophical developments, Gopnik offers new insight into how babies see the world, and in turn promotes a deeper appreciation for the role of parents in shaping the lives of their children.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Psychologist Gopnik (The Scientist in the Crib) points out that babies have long been excluded from the philosophical literature, and in this absorbing text, she argues that if anything, babies are more conscious than grownups. While adults often function on autopilot, getting through their busy days as functional zombies, babies, with their malleable, complex minds and penchant for discovery, approach life like little travelers, enthralled by every nuance of their exciting and novel environment. Gopnik compares babies to the research and development department of the human species, while adults take care of production and marketing. Like little scientists, babies draw accurate conclusions from data and statistical analysis, conduct clever experiments and figure out everything from how to get mom to smile at them to how to make a hanging mobile spin. Like adults, the author claims, babies are even capable of counterfactual thinking (the ability to imagine different outcomes that might happen in the future or might have happened in the past). As she tackles philosophical questions regarding love, truth and the meaning of life, Gopnik reveals that babies and children are keys not only to how the mind works but also to our understanding of the human condition and the nature of love. (Aug.)
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Review

“Gopnik makes a good, and sometimes impassioned, case . . . [She] offers the captivating idea that children are more conscious than adults but also less unconscious, because they have fewer automatic behaviors . . . The Philosophical Baby is both a scientific and romantic book, a result of Gopnik’s charming willingness to imagine herself inside the consciousness of young children.” —Michael Greenberg, The New York Review of Books

“Gopnik’s description of what psychological research reveals about babies’ surprisingly sophisticated thinking is fascinating.” —Drew DeSilver, The Seattle Times

“Gopnik is a fine writer, and her wit enlivens a subject that could easily veer into the overly abstract . . . She is also passionate about her subject. The Philosophical Baby isn’t simply a summary of recent research on young minds. Rather, Gopnik seeks to place early childhood in the context of 2,500 years of Western philosophy.” —Mark Sloan, San Francisco Chronicle

“[Gopnik’s] account of what the science of recent decades has had to say about infants’ minds tells a fascinating story of how we become the grown-ups that we are.” —The New York Times

“Gopnik incisively and compassionately highlights the extraordinary range of mental capabilities of even the youngest child. What makes Gopnik’s book stand out from the myriad recent books on consciousness is her overarching insight into the sophisticated ways that even infants think and scheme.” —Robert Burton, Salon

“Gopnik is at her most persuasive when she turns her attention to the nature of infant consciousness . . . As a guide to the field of cognitive development, there can be few people better qualified than Gopnik. This eminent developmental scientist writes with wit, erudition and an admirable aversion to jargon, and her book provides an intriguing perspective on some philosophical questions.” —Charles Fernyhough, Financial Times

“[A] fascinating and thought-provoking new book . . . For all the heavy subject matter, The Philosophical Baby is never ponderous. In fact, Gopnik explores the subject of how children think with a fresh, enthusiastic and wry voice . . . Fun and fascinating, The Philosophical Baby is a must-read for anyone who wants to better understand child development and what it means to be human.”—Amy Scribner, Bookpage

“One of the most prominent researchers in the field, Gopnik is also one of the finest writers, with a special gift for relating scientific research to the questions that parents and others most want answered. This is where to go if you want to get into the head of a baby.” —Paul Bloom, Slate

“The Philosophical Baby offers a refreshing alternative to the current dominance of an evolutionary perspective in popular books on cognitive science, such as those of Steven Pinker. Not that Gopnik doubts that evolution has shaped our brains, but she places less emphasis on hardwired cognitive modules that evolved for a Stone Age environment and more on the cognitive capacities that allow us to transcend our biological predispositions and create completely new environments.” —Ethan Remmel, American Scientist

“Inspiring . . . Gopnik writes with a nicely personal touch . . . She uses a clear and very readable prose, squarely aimed at the general reader and sensibly divided into short sections, ideal for anyone burdened by babies or toddlers. Her pages are packed with provocative observations and cunning insights. I’d highly recommend this fascinating book to any parent of a young child—and, indeed, anyone who has ever been a baby.” —Josh Lacey, The Guardian

“The writing is engaging and accessible . . . a good choice for anyone interested in the workings of the human mind and may appeal to those who like Stephen Pinker’s books.” —Mary Ann Hughes, Library Journal

“Psychologist Gopnik points out that babies have long been excluded from the philosophical literature, and in this absorbing text, she argues that if anything, babies are more conscious than grownups . . . As she tackles philosophical questions regarding love, truth and the meaning of life, Gopnik reveals that babies and children are keys not only to how the mind works but also to our understanding of the human condition and the nature of love.” —Publishers Weekly

“The great American psychologist William James described the infant’s worldview as a ‘blooming, buzzing confusion.’ Gopnik’s book is a challenge to this notion. Based partly on her own pioneering studies, she brings to life the sophisticated mental capacities of infants. A great read.” —V. S. Ramachandran, author of Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind

“One of our best writers, Alison Gopnik reveals the inner workings of those minds that have been wrapped in mystery for all of human time: our children’s.” —Daniel Levitin, author of This Is Your Brain on Music

“In The Philosophical Baby, Alison Gopnik reveals the latest scientific discoveries - many of them quite surprising - about the developing minds of young children. She also presents a richly provocative and endlessly insightful story that unites the endearing other-worldliness of children’s imaginations with some of the oldest and most profound questions in philosophy. This book is at once touching, eloquent, and masterful in its fascinating revelations about what makes us human.” —Frank J. Suloway, author of Born to Rebel

“Alison Gopnik’s absorbing, smart, and enjoyable book might be better titled The Philosophical Developmental Psychologist. Her remarkably thoughtful and carefully reasoned studies into how babies learn and think give intriguing insights and invite new ways of reflecting on consciousness and creativity in adults as well. In a refreshing counterpoint to speculations in evolutionary psychology, her lucid and engaging descriptions of experiments with babies demonstrate how much can be understood simply by asking the right questions with an open and critical mind. Parents and scientists will enjoy the insights, but so will anyone who has thought about the question of what it means to be human.” —Lisa Randall, Professor of Physics, Harvard University, and author of Warped Passages

“What is it like to be a baby? In this astonishingly interesting book, Alison Gopnik reminds us about what we can’t remember. In the process, she teaches us a tremendous amount about the human condition and how the mind is made.” —Jonah Lehrer, author of How We Decide

“This book really makes you think about consciousness. The mind of a child is a strange and wonderful world.” —Temple Grandin, author of Thinking in Pictures

“After convincing us that the seemingly familiar human child is actually wrapped in mystery, Alison Gopnik offers a compelling and convincing portrait of the opening years of life. This is scientific writing of the highest order.” —Howard Gardner, author of Five Minds for the Future

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Picador; First Edition edition (July 6, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312429843
• ISBN-13: 978-0312429843
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 6.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #75,556 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Alison Gopnik is a professor of psychology and affiliate professor of philosophy at the University of California at Berkeley. She received her BA from McGill University and her PhD. from Oxford University. Her honors include a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada University Research Fellowship, an Osher Visiting Scientist Fellowship at the Exploratorium, a Center for the Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences Fellowship, and a Moore Fellowship at the California Institute of Technology, and a fellow of the Association for Psychological Science. She is an internationally recognized leader in the study of children's learning and development and was the first to argue that children's minds could help us understand deep philosophical questions. She was one of the founders of the study of "theory of mind", illuminating how children come to understand the minds of others, and she formulated the "theory theory", the idea that children learn in the same way that scientists do.

She is the author of over 100 articles and several books including "Words, thoughts and theories" (coauthored with Andrew Meltzoff), MIT Press, 1997, "The Scientist in the Crib" (coauthored with Andrew Meltzoff and Patricia Kuhl) William Morrow, 1999, and "The Philosophical Baby; What children's minds tell us about love, truth and the meaning of life" Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2009. "The Scientist in the Crib" was a San Francisco Chronicle bestseller, was translated into 20 languages and was enthusiastically reviewed in Science, The New Yorker, the Washington Post and The New York Review of Books (among others). She has also written for Science, The Times Literary Supplement, The New York Review of Books, The New York Times, New Scientist, and Slate.

She has spoken extensively on children's minds including speeches to political organizations such as the World Economic Forum and the Organization for Economic Development, children's advocacy organizations including Parents as Teachers and Zero to Three, museums including The Exploratorium, The Chicago Children's Museum, and the Bay Area Discovery Museum, and science organizations including the American Association for the Advancement of Science, The American Psychological Association, the Association of Psychological Science, and the American Philosophical Association. She has also appeared on many TV and radio programs. She has three sons and lives in Berkeley, California. For more see www.alisongopnik.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

55 of 57 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Every parent should read this!, August 23, 2009

By 

M. Jones (Baltimore, MD United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Philosophical Baby: What Children's Minds Tell Us About Truth, Love, and the Meaning of Life (Hardcover)

Don't be swayed by the austere title, what this book does best is corral and explain recent studies on what babies and toddlers understand and when: When do they start to feel empathy? When are they able to understand that hitting hurts? When can they be expected to understand rules? What's the deal with invisible friends? It's given me a new perspective and a lot more sympathy for my into-everything son.

It's also a page-turning easy read and utterly fascinating-- you'll want to go through with a highlighter to pick out all of the brilliant points.

Would make a great gifts for parents & parents-to-be!

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Insight into the inner life of children, November 8, 2009

By 

Israel Ramirez (Springfield, PA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Philosophical Baby: What Children's Minds Tell Us About Truth, Love, and the Meaning of Life (Hardcover)

Have you ever wondered about the inner life of children, how they understand things, what their stream of consciousness is like, how they perceive the world, what their feelings are really like? I watched my own children grow up, talked with them daily, fed them, played with them, but always felt that I was missing a lot about their inner world. Gopnik answered some of my questions and showed me other questions that I hadn't thought of asking.

Gopnick argues, for example, that young children don't have the same self narrative adults have. I remember being appalled by my daughter's inability to describe what happened on her recent trip to the zoo. Gopnick argues that this happens because very young children haven't developed the story about themselves that allows them to go back and fetch prior events the way adults do. When I return from a trip to the zoo, I retain a story about finding a parking spot, paying admission, watching the monkeys near the entrance, etc. With very young children, there is no such narrative, only a series of events. These events are remembered. So if I ask a more direct question, like did you enjoy the monkeys in the big cage, she tells me about the big monkey chasing the smaller monkey.

Gopnik emphasizes the sophistication of children who can easily distinguish between imaginary, possible, and real objects. She tells us about how children can make sophisticated judgments about causal relationships after having seen only a few relevant events. She tells us how children can distinguish acts which are wrong because they hurt someone as opposed to things which are wrong because they are against the rules

Gopnik frames her discussion around philosophical themes such as reality versus fiction, discovery of reliable truth from messy observations, consciousness, nature of the self, love, morality, etc. She rightly argues that although topics such as these have long been important to philosophers, potential insights that could be provided by studying children have not been considered by philosophers.

Specialists will find this book unsatisfactory. There isn't a single graph. There are no statistics or numbers of any kind. There are no literature reviews describing areas where researchers get conflicting results. When experiments are reported at all, they are mentioned briefly with no detail. Gopnik is more interested in the big picture, discussing the main themes using mostly informal language. Just the same, she takes you through some of the toughest concepts in the field and isn't afraid to bring up technical terms, like lantern consciousness, whenever it is helpful to do so.

Finally, Gopnik's wit, graceful writing, and genuine feeling for children make her book a pleasure to read.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A new pespective on raising kids, September 20, 2009

By 

R. Lyubovitzky (NJ) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Philosophical Baby: What Children's Minds Tell Us About Truth, Love, and the Meaning of Life (Hardcover)

The book is a little dry but it provides great insights (backed up by the actual research) into understanding what is going on inside kids' heads. As opposed to what many past generations had thought, babies and kids actually posess tremendous capacity for the information processing, they are very smart and intuitive. And they are also much more empathetic, creative, and imaginitive than most adults. The book provides lots of actual examples of what you might have been observing in your kids but not understanding fully what it means. I liked the chapter about role-playing and imaginary friends. It is helpful to know that that child is capable of making a very clear distinction between what is imaginary and what is real. Some parents worry that their kids would wander off "too far" into imaginary world. The book provides ideas for the easy to do reality checks for the parents :) Great idea to read the book even before you become a parent.