Pinker, Steven Arthur (1954-…), is a Canadian-born American linguist and cognitive (thinking and awareness) scientist. He is well known for his studies of language and human psychology. Many of Pinker’s insights on the origins of human language are influenced by the work of Noam Chomsky, another American linguist. Like Chomsky, Pinker believes that language is an innate (inborn) human ability. Unlike Chomsky, however, Pinker claims this ability evolved over time.
In his writings, Pinker argues that other aspects of human behavior, such as morality, art, and politics, are also innate and have evolved over time. The idea that evolution has shaped the human mind, as well as the human body, is the central theme of evolutionary psychology. Pinker’s work on human psychology is part of a long-standing debate on whether human behavior is primarily learned or innate.
Pinker was born in Montreal on Sept. 18, 1954. He graduated from McGill University in 1976 and earned a Ph.D. in experimental psychology from Harvard University in 1979. From 1982 to 2003, he served on the faculty of psychology and brain and cognitive sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). In 2003, he returned to Harvard University as professor of psychology.
Pinker’s books include Language Learnability and Language Development (1984), Visual Cognition (1984), Connections and Symbols (1988), The Language Instinct (1994), How the Mind Works (1997), Words and Rules: The Ingredients of Language (1999), and The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature (2002), and The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined (2011).
See also Chomsky, Noam ; Evolutionary psychology .
