I read it many years ago, when it first came out, as did people in all sorts of humanities, and everyone’s reaction was exactly the same: “Of course he doesn’t know what he’s talking about in my particular subfield, but all the rest of it seems plausible.” What that means is that Jaynes is a very good writer.
I’ve read Jaynes’s book, and my impressions confirm this view. Jaynes is certainly an excellent writer. The book is well worth reading even if just for entertainment value, and there is certainly much worthwhile about its creative and interesting theoretical speculations, as well as many gems of erudition that are strewn throughout it.
However, I don’t think Jaynes’s arguments ultimately hold water. The evidence he presents is sparse and far-fetched, and overwhelmingly limited to the ancient Mediterranean and Near East civilizations. He says very little to nothing about other human societies. There is no clear and unambiguous historical account of encountering a bicameral-minded society, even among peoples who were below the development level of the old civilizations discussed by Jaynes when first contacted by Westerners and other literate civilizations who have left extensive and clear histories. This seems to require a lot of special pleading to explain away, so I’d say it’s a decisive argument against his theories.
Also, I remember several claims made by Jaynes that, to my knowledge, contradict well established findings in various fields. However, I would have to re-read the book to write down a precise critique; my memory of it isn’t reliable enough to talk about the specifics right now.
Dennett has written that he sees Jaynes’s theory as a modular theory, and that the historical hallucinations part is one part that he would like to discard, but that his ideas about consciousness coming from “talking to yourself” are spot on.
In any case, Jaynes is careful to say that he doesn’t take any of it too literally and his thoughts are only suggestions and musings on how consciousness might have originated. Some of his critics seem to miss the larger picture and get caught up on factual details. Jaynes’s book is really about large philosophical ideas, not historical facts.
The prominent linguist and writing systems scholar Peter T. Daniels once made the following comment about Jaynes’s book:
I’ve read Jaynes’s book, and my impressions confirm this view. Jaynes is certainly an excellent writer. The book is well worth reading even if just for entertainment value, and there is certainly much worthwhile about its creative and interesting theoretical speculations, as well as many gems of erudition that are strewn throughout it.
However, I don’t think Jaynes’s arguments ultimately hold water. The evidence he presents is sparse and far-fetched, and overwhelmingly limited to the ancient Mediterranean and Near East civilizations. He says very little to nothing about other human societies. There is no clear and unambiguous historical account of encountering a bicameral-minded society, even among peoples who were below the development level of the old civilizations discussed by Jaynes when first contacted by Westerners and other literate civilizations who have left extensive and clear histories. This seems to require a lot of special pleading to explain away, so I’d say it’s a decisive argument against his theories.
Also, I remember several claims made by Jaynes that, to my knowledge, contradict well established findings in various fields. However, I would have to re-read the book to write down a precise critique; my memory of it isn’t reliable enough to talk about the specifics right now.
Dennett has written that he sees Jaynes’s theory as a modular theory, and that the historical hallucinations part is one part that he would like to discard, but that his ideas about consciousness coming from “talking to yourself” are spot on.
In any case, Jaynes is careful to say that he doesn’t take any of it too literally and his thoughts are only suggestions and musings on how consciousness might have originated. Some of his critics seem to miss the larger picture and get caught up on factual details. Jaynes’s book is really about large philosophical ideas, not historical facts.