Actual Minds, Possible Worlds Book

Bruner identifies extremely interesting questions. There is the question of the nature of language, and the question of the relation between science and art. The two turn out to be deeply interrelated. The answers he delivers are on-point and set out an exciting research agenda for future psychologists and philosophers. Moreover, his writing is extremely lucid and readable; and he has a masterful grasp of a broad range of philosophers, and connects particular psychologists and psychological theories up with philosophical traditions. This book will be equally interesting for the student of psychology who wants to understand and perhaps challenge the fundamental assumptions of their field; and for the student of philosophy who yearns for contemporary philosophy that actually deals with the human condition and makes progress on that.

The guiding question is this. Bruner analyzes language in terms of two distinct modes by which we use it. There is the "logico-scientific mode" and the "narrative mode". The former is exemplified in science and certain strands of contemporary philosophy; it consists in formulating verifiable hypotheses about the world. In doing so, it cares only for generalized, universal concepts of phenomena, and aims to abstract away from any particularities of phenomena that are rooted in our observations and experiences of them. The formulations of and associations drawn between such concepts are guided by principles of formal logic. The well-formedness of a hypothesis drawn in this mode is epistemic in nature; a hypothesis is well-formed if it is true (i.e., corresponds to states of affairs or facts of the world).

The narrative mode stands in stark contrast. This mode is exemplified in storytelling, including our everyday thoughts about what has happened, or what might happen; or our everyday experiences of noticing what others are thinking about, who they are, etc. Both literature and narrative-based approaches in history rely on this mode. This mode deals with concrete instances of human intentionality: particular thoughts, feelings, and actions. The well-formedness of a story (i.e., explanation or description of one's own or anther's intentional state) is a matter of whether the story is believable; that is, whether it offers a coherent, intelligible perspective that a real or potential person/character might have.

Bruner argues that these two modes are distinct and irreducible to one another. This is contrary to the assumption in science and philosophy that the logico-scientific mode is more fundamentally correct, and the narrative mode ought to be, and can be, reduced to this mode. Bruner's argument consists in appealing to Kantian transcendental idealism and Nelson Goodman's work on world-making. There is no single, objective world that we can access. Any world is already formed from a perspective and is constructed on the basis of presumed concepts.

Science and art are identical with respect to creating and re-creating possible worlds. For example, science has created the world of sub-atomic particles, which we cannot perceive but can imagine as existing beneath the surface of our experienced reality. Art (let's say Oedipus Rex) has created the world of human tragedy, the framework of organizing our experiences that consists in the insights that there is much that is beyond our control, and we must accept and be responsible for our actions that are not fully our own. Bruner understands that the reality that we take for granted and see everyday has been shaped by both science and art. The works produced in each domain offer maps or principles of organization that re-structure our experience.

Bruner investigates how it is possible for science and art to have this power. He locates this power in our immersion in language. Bruner argues that any case of language use implies a particular perspective upon the world. Even uttering a seemingly totally factual, evaluation-free statement (e.g, "the cat is on the mat") implies a perspective that locates the cat and the mat as important or salient objects, as opposed to all the objects that are less important and so are not named; and depending on the context of this utterance, there is a greater discourse, which would contribute to this perspective's offering particular shades of meaning of a cat and a mat (e.g., if the discourse is one between friends in the U.S. who have been exposed to the crazy-cat-lady stereotype, perhaps the notion of the cat involves meanings pertaining to that; hence, the seemingly factual utterance actually puts us into a particular, evaluative perspective).

So in using language, we transport ourselves into particular perspectives that can be possibly had onto the world. Bruner examines the psychological theories of Vygotsky, Piaget, and Freud to provide a bit more empirical detail on how language exactly performs this function (my only dissatisfaction with this book is that there is not much empirical detail; the explanations remain at a very general, sketchy level; but this is not Bruner's fault, since there are just no nuanced theories about this subject matter available at this time; it's an ongoing topic of study). The pursuits of both science and art lead people to discover new perspectives on the world; and these get encoded in language. Then, when we use language, we can embody these perspectives; in doing so, the world shows up anew for us, and we can become familiarized with these new aspects of the world to a sufficient enough extent that these aspects will show up regularly or habitually. Our worlds are transformed.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in (1) a critical perspective on science, or in ways to challenge the assumption that there's a single, absolute physical world that is the bar of measurement of the truthfulness of any of our beliefs, (2) the relationship between science and art, (3) the nature of language, from an embodied, pragmatic angle, or (4) a humanistic and plausible paradigm shifter from certain traditional ways of doing psychology and philosophy. Bruner remarkably satisfies all of these interests in this elegant, enjoyable book.