A Natural History of Human Thinking

ISBN-10: 0674727568
ISBN-13: 9780674727564
Category: Psychology
Pages: 192
Language: English
Published: 2014-02-17
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Author: Michael Tomasello

Description

Tool-making or culture, language or religious belief: ever since Darwin, thinkers have struggled to identify what fundamentally differentiates human beings from other animals. Michael Tomasello weaves his twenty years of comparative studies of humans and great apes into a compelling argument that cooperative social interaction is the key to our cognitive uniqueness. Tomasello maintains that our prehuman ancestors, like today's great apes, were social beings who could solve problems by thinking. But they were almost entirely competitive, aiming only at their individual goals. As ecological changes forced them into more cooperative living arrangements, early humans had to coordinate their actions and communicate their thoughts with collaborative partners. Tomasello's "shared intentionality hypothesis" captures how these more socially complex forms of life led to more conceptually complex forms of thinking. In order to survive, humans had to learn to see the world from multiple social perspectives, to draw socially recursive inferences, and to monitor their own thinking via the normative standards of the group. Even language and culture arose from the preexisting need to work together and coordinate thoughts. A Natural History of Human Thinking is the most detailed scientific analysis to date of the connection between human sociality and cognition.

Get the book

Other editions

A Natural History of Human Thinking
- 2018-04-09
- 192 pages
- Paperback
- Harvard University Press

Similar books

Designing Preschool Interventions: A Practitioner's Guide
By David W. Barnett, Susan H. Bell, Karen T. Carey
... 165 Thomson , C. , 52 , 59 Thurman , S. K. , 230 Thyer , B. A. , 308 Timberlake , W. , 165 Webster - Stratton , 237 , 251 , 253 , 366 Author Index.
Assessing and Treating Low Incidence/High Severity Psychological Disorders of Childhood
By Stefan C. Dombrowski, Karen L. Gischlar, Martin Mrazik
Haberstick, B.C., Lessem, J. M., Hopfer, C. J., Smolen, A., Ehringer, M.A., Timberlake, D., et al. (2005). Monoamine oxidase A (MAOA) and antisocial ...
The War Between Mentalism and Behaviorism: On the Accessibility of Mental Processes
By William R. Uttal
Some, like the “behavior systems” approach of Timberlake(1994)assume thatbehavior can be explained by a system of interactingmodules thatareeither built ...
The Psychology of B F Skinner
By William O'Donohue, Kyle E. Ferguson
However, there is clear evidence that this constant ratio does not always produce reinforcement (Timberlake & Allison, 1974). Second and, as we shall see ...
Finishing Well: Aging And Reparation In The Intergenerational Family
By Terry D. Hargrave, William T. Anderson
... 30, 32 Thomae, H., 40 Thompson, L., 23-24 Timberlake, E. M., 16 Tobin, S. S., ... E, 33 Wolfe, S. M., 81 Wolinsky, M. A., 85 Zarit, J., 11, 30, 31, 32, ...
The Social Insects: Their Origin and Evolution
By William Morton Wheeler
La Crisi Mondiale e Saggi Critici di Marxiano e Socialismo. Bologna, N. Zanichelli. ... TIMBERLAKE (P. H.): 1912. Experimental Parasitism, a Study of the ...
Principles and Practice of Behavioral Assessment
By Stephen N. Haynes, William Hayes O'Brien
... 143 Tharp, R. G., 80 Thompson, R. H., 250 Timberlake, W., 308,309 Tingey, ... B. W., 70 Ries, B.J., 268 Robins, E.,298 Robinson, S. L., 91,244 Roper, ...
Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief Approaches to a Science of Life: Word Pictures and Correlations Versus Working Models
By William T. Powers, Philip J. Runkel
... R.L., McGrath, Joseph E. McKeachie McPhail, Clark Miller, J.G. Mitchell, ... Jerry 469 Taylor 39 Timberlake, William 464 Tolman 72, 140, 142 Tucker, ...
Discovering Psychology: The Science of Mind
By John T. Cacioppo, Laura Freberg
... 247 Fromme, H., 523 Frost, P., 106 Frost, R., 161 Fryer, R., 291 Fuhrer, D., 4 Fukuyama, H., 408 Fulbright, R. K., 486 Fulero, S., 440 Fuligni, A. J., ...
Psychology: From Inquiry to Understanding
By Scott Lilienfeld, Steven Jay Lynn, Laura Namy
... C. 638 Ernst, D. 704 Ernst, E. 278 Esch, T. 110 Eslinger, P.J. 448 Esposito-Smythers, ... E. 197 Frontera, W. R. 408 Frost, J. 332 Frost, R. 699 Frost, ...