Fridays Footprint: How Society Shapes the Human Mind Book:
Fridays Footprint: How Society Shapes the Human MindLeslie
Brothers, ?Fridays Footprint: How Society Shapes the Human Mind?
Oxford University Press| ISBN: 0195147049 | Sept 17, 2001) | 208
pages | PDF | 10.9 M One of the standard thought experiments in
philosophy involves a "congenital Crusoe," a human being growing
up in complete isolation, like Robinson Crusoe before he meets
Friday. In Fridays Footprint, psychiatrist Leslie Brothers
argues that there is no Crusoe without Friday: we are evolved to
be social animals, and our minds can only be said to function in
a social context. "Just as golds value derives not from its
chemical composition but from public agreement, the essence of
thought is not its isolated neural basis, but its social use."
Brothers provides a thorough (though somewhat jargon-laden) tour
of current research on the social functions of the brain. She
has a particularly interesting discussion of psychoanalysis,
which she uses as an