Review of 'The prehistory of the mind' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
I first discovered Steven Mithen’s The Prehistory of the Mind in 2007 when doing work on the philosophy of mind and philosophy of language. I found Mithen’s interdisciplinary approach as an archaeologist refreshing and new.
Revisiting the book after 15 years (and 26 years after it was originally published) I noticed that some of what we know about prehistoric humans has seen significant advancement and change in recent years and the new discoveries we have made in archaeology, psychology, and linguistics needs to be taken into account when reading this book decades later.
Additionally, Mithen himself has continued to evolve his thinking on this matter in such books as The Singing Neanderthals (where he emphasizes music as a fundamental component of human cognition).
All that being said, I think the book is still useful in its organization, writing, and large number of diagrams and illustrations that liven up and inform …
I first discovered Steven Mithen’s The Prehistory of the Mind in 2007 when doing work on the philosophy of mind and philosophy of language. I found Mithen’s interdisciplinary approach as an archaeologist refreshing and new.
Revisiting the book after 15 years (and 26 years after it was originally published) I noticed that some of what we know about prehistoric humans has seen significant advancement and change in recent years and the new discoveries we have made in archaeology, psychology, and linguistics needs to be taken into account when reading this book decades later.
Additionally, Mithen himself has continued to evolve his thinking on this matter in such books as The Singing Neanderthals (where he emphasizes music as a fundamental component of human cognition).
All that being said, I think the book is still useful in its organization, writing, and large number of diagrams and illustrations that liven up and inform the ideas presented. This book is clearly a product of mid-90s thinking, but its interdisciplinary nature and the useful ideas and illustrations are still useful for the reader to ponder and re-evaluate when consulting more recent and modern sources. Even as my research on this continues to grow beyond what is presented in this book, I plan to continue to look back on this book simply due to its scope, imagination, and clearly presented concepts.