Tom Wolfe, The Kingdom of Speech (New York: Little, Brown, 2016) (From the book jacket: "In The Kingdom of Speech, Wolfe makes the captivating paradigm-shifting argument that speech--not evolution--is responsible for humanity's complex societies and achievements." Also see Caitlin Flanagan, "The Gift of Language," NYT Book Review, Sunday, 9/4/2016.).
Peter Unger, Philosophical Relativity (Minneapolis: U. of Minnesota Press, 1984) ("Our use of language allows us to modify each other's behavior so that, typically, we all have a somewhat better time of things; our goals are attained; at least certain desires are satisfied. Adaptive behavior, we theorize, proceeds from adaptive, contextually relevant thinking and belief." Id. at 7.).
