| Abstract: | Reviews the book, Names for Things: A Study of Human Learning by John Macnamara (1982). The reviewer commends Macnamara for writing a convincing book that undermines most of the popular psychological and philosophical approaches to meaning, reference, language learning and cognitive development. The major subject matter of this book is how children learn the names for things. Macnamara dismisses the view that children are unable to arrange related ideas into adult-like hierarchical orders, as Piaget claims. The reviewer feels the weakest part of the book is the author's chapter on the definition of "meaning", but does admit to having a much richer concept of what meaning is not. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved) |
