Download pfd

This book has a direct implication for our understanding of human values – particularly the value of cooperation in preserving our civilization. Tomasello is one of the most well known researchers and theorists on the origins of human interactions and culture.

This book emphasizes how evolutionary processes intensified as the ability of human beings to use language and symbols starting perhaps 200,000 years ago, after 2 million years of slow evolutionary development. “…there is only one biological mechanism that could bring about these kinds of changes in behaviors and cognition in so short a time…social or cultural transmission, which works on time scales many orders of magnitude faster than those of organic evolution…enables individual organisms to save much time and effort, not to mention risk, by exploiting already existing knowledge and skills...” (Pp 3-4) Once language developed, learning exploded via what he calls imitative, instructed and collaborative means. Communication – and thus cultural development – rests on our ability to recognize others as beings like ourselves, but also being able to realize that others can hold different views of reality. This is accomplished through language. The ability to communicate is both stabilizing, in that it allows us to create sustainable cultural institutions – such as agriculture and trades – but also is an essential element in the creativity that allows cultures to move forward.

Because of a lack of language, nonhuman primates “do not show the kind of flexible behavior and understanding of general causal principles characteristic of human children, from a fairly young age, as they try to solve physical problems.” (P 22) Tonasello discusses the importance of the “rachet effect” which is the “simultaneous collaboration of two or more individuals as they work on a problem together.” (P 41) Like all evolution, the evolution of culture is unpredictable: “…religions or governments or economic systems result from many people ‘cooperating’ both simultaneously and successively over generations in a way that no one person or group of people intended or could have foreseen.” (P 42) Tomasello believes that the debate over whether we are shaped by nature or nurture misses the point: “The search for the innate aspects of human cognition is scientifically fruitful only to the extent that it helps us to understand the developmental processes at work during human ontogeny…” (P 51) Other species also lack “the simple act of pointing to an object or someone else for the sole purpose of sharing attention to it...” (P 63) At “…nine months…infants begin to engage in joint attentional interactions when they begin to understand other persons as intentional agents like the self.” (P 68)

“Organisms inherit their environments as much as they inherit their genomes…fish are designed to function in water…” (P 78) “Engaging in the normal practices of the people with whom she grows up…means that the child has certain experiences and not others.” (P 79) Our self-concept also is very much what we adopt from how others view us, but part of our development at about age four is being able to view others as independent agents. We also learn to adopt our communication as we watch others to see if they seem to understand us. How those around us see the world greatly affects our own view, as what we can learn from simple observation of the world is greatly limited. One of the most important points the author makes sheds direct light on the development of values: “To comprehend the linguistic communications of others, children must in some sense simulate the perspective of others…discourse involves the child in a constant shifting of perspectives from her own to those of others and back again.” (P 176) However, “Moral reasoning derives from children’s empathetic engagement with others…” (P 180) Tomasello states that this ability is limited in individuals with autism.

As we get older, we are able to understand concepts devoid of objects. “…it is only from four to five years of age that children can understand that a quantity, including a number, is something that is conserved across various physical transformations.” (P 185) Purposeful reasoning happens when we are able to “internalize dialogue.” (P 193) This leads to the possibility of goal-orientated behavior. “After a person has reached a certain level of mastery of a task, she begins to reflect on the reasons for this success and so to isolate features of her performance relevant to that success…” (P 195) Then we become capable of being “…guided by a mental representation of some desired outcome, that is, a goal.” (P 205)

When most self-aware we understand that our thoughts and words are only representative of objects, which means that we are able to acknowledge our limitations. The perspectives that we inherit as a part of our culture – and thus our values – are based on our ability to comprehend the importance and potential of those values that we share. “The [word] ‘tree’ stands for what it does because, and only because, we think it does…The fact that culture is a product of evolution does not mean that each one of its specific features has its own dedicated genetic underpinnings…all cultural institutions rest on the biologically inherited social-cognitive ability of all human individuals to create and use social conventions and symbols.” (P 216) More simply put, we have not evolved to fit in a specific culture, but we have evolved the ability to become products of a culture which provides us advantages over other species (all others that is) who have not evolved this possibility.