Wilkins & Wakefield's intriguing model of language evolution is deficient in evidence of human uniqueness in metaphorical matching, amodal representation, reference, conceptual structure, hierarchical organization, linguistic comprehension, sign use, laterality, and handedness. Primates show communicative reference, laterality, and handedness, and apes in particular show hierarchical organization, conceptual structure, cross-modal abilities, sign use, and displaced reference.

Shanker & King (S&K) rightly stress that recent ape language research has important implications for language development and origins. But the evidence does not warrant their conclusion that we can dispense with representations. Indeed, their own discussion of the nature of communication highlights the central role that representations must play in our models of communicative competence, in and out of language.

Michael Tomasello ( 2016 ) prominently defends the view that there are uniquely human capacities required for shared intentions, therefore great apes do not share intentions. I show that these uniquely human capacities for abstraction are not necessary for shared intentionality. Excluding great apes from shared intentions because they lack certain capacities for abstraction assumes a specific interpretation of shared intentionality, which I call the Roleplaying Model. I undermine the necessity of abstraction for shared intentionality by presenting an alternative (...) model of shared intentionality, which I call the Normative Model. It is a modification of Margaret Gilbert’s ( 2013 ) Plural Subject theory, which I modify such that it is, in principle, compatible with nonhuman shared intentionality. To do this, I substitute Gilbert’s account of obligation for Kristin Andrews’ ( 2020 ) account of animal social norms. In this Normative Model, uniquely human capacities for abstraction are not required for shared intentionality. By undermining the necessity of uniquely human abstraction, I make cases of prima-facie cooperation in chimpanzees plausible instances of shared intentionality. The Roleplaying Model’s denial of nonhuman shared intentionality creates a problem insofar as apparent shared intentional activity cannot be fully analyzed. The Normative Model resolves this problem. (shrink)

Several language experiments have been carried out on apes and other animals aiming to narrow down the presumed qualitative gap that separates humans from other animals. These experiments, however, have been driven by the understanding of language as a purely symbolic sign system, often connected to a profound disinterest for language use in real situations and a propensity to perceive grammatical and syntactic information as the only fundamental aspects of human language. For these reasons, the language taught to apes tends (...) to discard iconic and indexical elements in favour of symbolic signs. This paper sheds light on the iconic components of human language, with close attention to the iconic properties of language as present in the ape language experiments. We emphasise the role of the body in the interpretation and production of iconic signs, while demonstrating the need to take into account the Umwelt theory in the research paradigm of the experiments. Uexküll’s Umwelt theory is used to exemplify the methodological problems connected to the teaching of human language to other animal species; furthermore, we discuss how the modelling capacities of language affect the biological layer that constitutes the animal Umwelt. Language is analysed as a particular case of Umwelt transition, and as such its implications are further discussed in the article. With this paper, we enrich the discussion surrounding the human-ape pidgin language by advocating for the need to include iconic components as vital parts of this research area. With this inclusion, we uncover the inter-dependency of iconic, indexical and symbolic signs in human language, aiming to further develop the research paradigm of the ape language experiments. (shrink)

The evolutionary model of moral progress developed in A Better Ape is nuanced and illuminating. Kumar and Campbell use their view of the evolved moral mind to analyze clear cases of increased inclusivity and equality (at least in Western society). Their analyses elucidate the psychological and social mechanisms that can drive moral progress (or regress). In this commentary, I raise three main concerns about their model: that factors other than social integration are more central to progress; that their (...) model isn’t inherently progressive; and that inclusivity and equality conflict with other forms of progress. (shrink)

A Better Ape covers the evolution of morality from the birth of our ape family through the evolution of human species and all the way up to the development of modern societies. In this summary, we highlight several main elements of this account: the co-evolution of morality with intelligence and complex sociality; the role of social institutions and religious morality in the cultural evolution of behaviorally modern humans in prehistory; the increasing complexity of the moral mind through biological evolution in (...) apes, gene-culture co-evolution in various human species, cultural evolution in Homo sapiens, and rational-cultural evolution in recent centuries; and, finally, a cultural evolutionary model of progressive and regressive moral change on which a key factor driving moral progress is social and democratic integration. (shrink)

In recent years we have seen a dramatic shift, in several different areas of communication studies, from an information-theoretic to a dynamic systems paradigm. In an information processing system, communication, whether between cells, mammals, apes, or humans, is said to occur when one organism encodes information into a signal that is transmitted to another organism that decodes the signal. In a dynamic system, all of the elements are continuously interacting with and changing in respect to one another, and an aggregate (...) pattern emerges from this mutual co-action. Whereas the information-processing paradigm looks at communication as a linear, binary sequence of events, the dynamic systems paradigm looks at the relation between behaviors and how the whole configuration changes over time. One of the most dramatic examples of the significance of shifting from an information processing to a dynamic systems paradigm can be found in the debate over the interpretation of recent advances in ape language research (ALR). To some extent, many of the early ALR studies reinforced the stereotype that animal communication is functional and stimulus bound, precisely because they were based on an information-processing paradigm that promoted a static model of communicative development. But Savage-Rumbaugh's recent results with bonobos has introduced an entirely new dimension into this debate. Shifting the terms of the discussion from an information-processing to a dynamic systems paradigm not only highlights the striking differences between Savage-Rumbaugh's research and earlier ALR studies, but further, it sheds illuminating light on the factors that underpin the development of communication skills in great apes and humans, and the relationship between communicative development and the development of language. Key Words: apes; ape language research (ALR); brain development; co-regulation; communication; dynamic systems; language development; symbols. (shrink)

this paper focuses on animal issues—specifically relating to the animal beings we eat—using the perspective of American pragmatism. This essay grows out of my earlier work that used American pragmatism, specifically the work of John Dewey, to argue that we can develop a productive process model of utopia. In this model, it becomes important for us to critically examine the goals we choose to pursue because what we choose to pursue in the present sets the limits and possibilities (...) of what we will be able to pursue in the future. Utopian visions are future-focused. We need goals, or ends-in-view, to help direct our present actions. If we give up on the idea of perfection often connected with utopian visions, such thinking can be an important way to realistically examine present action in light of future hopes and desires. Rather than seek perfection, the process model of utopia seeks to create and sustain people willing to take on responsibility and participate in directing their present toward a better, more desirable future. This is an ongoing task. (shrink)

Chapter 1 (To know in order to survive) & Chapter 2 (A critique of evolved reason) explain human knowledge and its limits from an evolutionary point of view. Chapter 3 (Captured in our Cockpits) explains the evolution of consciousness, using value driven decision theory. Chapter 4-6 (Chapter 4 Sociobiology, Chapter 5 Culture: the Human Arena), Chapter 6, Genes, Memes, and the Environment) show that to understand culture you have at least to deal with 4 levels: genes, brains, the environment, culture. (...) Chapter 7-8 (Why some apes became humans) give a model of human evolution in which Alexander's concept of 'ecological dominace' plays a crucial role. (shrink)

Computational approaches based on autonomous agents share with new ape language research the same principles of dynamical system paradigms. A recent model for the evolution of symbolization and language in autonomous agents is briefly described in order to highlight the similarities between these two methodologies. The additional benefits of autonomous agent modeling in the field of language origin research are highlighted.

This paper assesses great apes’ abilities for pantomime and action imitation, two communicative abilities proposed as key contributors to language evolution. Modern great apes, the only surviving nonhuman hominids, are important living models of the communicative platform upon which language evolved. This assessment is based on 62 great ape pantomimes identified via data mining plus published reports of great ape action imitation. Most pantomimes were simple, imperative, and scaffolded by partners’ relationship and scripts; some resemble declaratives, some were sequences of (...) several inter-related elements. Imitation research consistently shows great apes perform action imitation at low fidelity, but also that action imitation may not represent a distinct process or function. Discussion focuses on how findings may advance reconstruction of the evolution of language, including what great apes may contribute to understanding ‘primitive’ forms of pantomime and imitation and how to improve their study. (shrink)

Great apes show behavioural evidence for secondary representation similar to that of children of about two years of age. However, there is no convincing evidence for metarepresentation in apes. A good evolutionary interpretation should be parsimonious and must bring developmental and comparative data in accord. I propose a model based on the work of Perner (1991) and close by pointing out a logical flaw in Heyes’ second proposed experiment.

: The purpose of this paper and its sister paper (Farrell and Hooker, b) is to present, evaluate and elaborate a proposed new model for the process of scientific development: self-directed anticipative learning (SDAL). The vehicle for its evaluation is a new analysis of a well-known historical episode: the development of ape-language research. In this first paper we outline five prominent features of SDAL that will need to be realized in applying SDAL to science: 1) interactive exploration of possibility (...) space; 2) self-directedness; 3) localization of success and error; 4) Synergistic increase in learning capacity; and 5) continuity of SDAL process across scientific change. In this paper we examine the first three features of SDAL in relation to the early history of ape-language research. We show that this history is readily explicated as a self-directed, ever-finer, delineation of possibility space that enables the localization of both success and error. Paper II examines the last two features against this history. (shrink)

The Noble Ape Simulation offers an account of the mind as something that can be observed, measured, and ultimately simulated through external effects. This version of the applied mind is not created through a single method but through layering three simulations relating to information chemistry, social constraints, and evolving narrative. As examples, additional simulation elements in Noble Ape are presented to offer the simulation methodology of Noble Ape. This chapter, rather than being a theoretical critique, is intended as a project (...) report relating to three distinct yet interoperating simulated models of the mind. These are presented both as individual simulations and also the simulations’ interactions. This produces a novel account of the applied mind. The methods used in creating such an applied mind provide an interesting insight into the possible origin of mind through pragmatic application rather than conjecture. (shrink)

: The purpose of this paper and its sister paper I (Farrell and Hooker, a) is to present, evaluate and elaborate a proposed new model for the process of scientific development: self-directed anticipative learning. The vehicle for its evaluation is a new analysis of a well-known historical episode: the development of ape language research. Paper I examined the basic features of SDAL in relation to the early history of ape-language research. In this second paper we examine the reconceptualization of (...) ape-language research following what many conceived to be Terrace's refutation of ape-language. We show that the apparent 'revolution' in our understanding of ape linguistic capacities was not based upon 'revolutionary' research different in kind from 'normal' research. The same processes of self-directed interactive exploration of possibility space, that enables a homing-in upon both error and success, is present in all phases of productive science. Moreover, conceiving science as an SDAL process explains how scientists learn how to learn about their research domain. (shrink)

The Noble Ape Simulation offers an account of the mind as something that can be observed, measured, and ultimately simulated through external effects. This version of the applied mind is not created through a single method but through layering three simulations relating to information chemistry, social constraints, and evolving narrative. As examples, additional simulation elements in Noble Ape are presented to offer the simulation methodology of Noble Ape. This chapter, rather than being a theoretical critique, is intended as a project (...) report relating to three distinct yet interoperating simulated models of the mind. These are presented both as individual simulations and also the simulations’ interactions. This produces a novel account of the applied mind. The methods used in creating such an applied mind provide an interesting insight into the possible origin of mind through pragmatic application rather than conjecture. (shrink)

The article discusses certain limitations of the “McDowellian language game” and its approach to naturalism, arguing that it remains too detached from contemporary scientific insights on mind and life. I question the relevance of McDowell’s conceptual framework—focusing on concepts like “second nature”, “Bildung”, and “reason” — for addressing empirical, scientifically grounded theories about human nature. As an alternative, I discuss my own interdisciplinary approach, which seeks (among others) to integrate findings from primate studies on gaze following and proto-referential gestures to (...) shed light on the evolution of reason-giving capacities. This approach, situated at the intersection of philosophy and cognitive science, provides a more empirically grounded model for understanding responsiveness to reasons as well as other McDowellian themes. (shrink)

Robert Yerkes is a pivotal figure in American psychology and primatology in the first half of the twentieth century. As is well known, Yerkes first studied ape intelligence in 1915, on a visit to the private California laboratory of the psychiatrist Gilbert Hamilton, a former student. Less widely appreciated is how far the work done at the Hamilton lab, in its aims and ambitions as well as its techniques, served as a template for much of Yerkes’s research thereafter. This paper (...) uses the Hamilton–Yerkes relationship to re-examine Yerkes’s career and, more generally, that of American psychology in the early twentieth century. Three points especially are emphasized: first, the role of Freudian psychoanalysis as a spur to Hamilton’s experimental studies of ape intelligence; second, the importance of Hamilton’s laboratory, with its semi-wild population of monkeys and ape, as a model for Yerkes’s efforts to create a laboratory of his own; and third, the influence on Yerkes of Hamilton’s optimism about experimental psychological studies of nonhuman primates as a source of lessons beneficial to a troubled human world. (shrink)

Many philosophers as well as psychologists hold that implicit biases are due to unconscious attitudes. The justification for this unconscious-claim seems to be an inference to the best explanation of the mismatch between explicit and implicit attitudes, which is characteristic for implicit biases. The unconscious-claim has recently come under attack based on its inconsistency with empirical data. Instead, Gawronski et al. (2006) analyze implicit biases based on the so-called Associative-Propositional Evaluation (APE) model, according to which implicit attitudes are phenomenally (...) conscious and accessible. The mismatch between the explicit and the implicit attitude is explained by the Cognitive Inconsistency Approach (CIA) (as I will call it): implicit attitudes are conscious but rejected as basis for explicit judgments because the latter lead to cognitive inconsistency with respect to other beliefs held by the subject. In this paper, I will argue that the CIA is problematic since it cannot account for the fact that implicit attitudes underlying implicit biases typically are unconscious. I will argue that a better explanation of the attitude-mismatch can be given in terms of a Neo-Freudian account of repression. I will develop such an account, and I will show how it can accommodate the merits of the APE model while avoiding the problems of the CIA. (shrink)

If we focus on current debates on how creatures revise or correct their beliefs, we can identify two opposing approaches that we propose to call “intellectualism” and “minimalism.” In this paper, we outline a new account of doxastic revision — “the first-order model”— that is neither as cognitively demanding as intellectualism nor as deflationary as minimalism. First-order doxastic revision, we argue, is a personal-level process in which a creature rejects some beliefs and accepts others based on reasons. However, it (...) does not involve second-order thinking or sophisticated semantic and epistemic concepts. Besides defending that there is conceptual space for this alternative, we explore the possibility of extending it to some non-human animals. Based on our interpretation of some empirical evidence, we conclude that there are initial reasons to think that some animals — i.e., great apes— might be able to correct their beliefs in the way that our first-order model suggests. (shrink)

The paper argues that the rich cognitive abilities of humans are the result of a unique functional system in the human brain which is absent in the nonhuman brain. This "frontal feedback system" is suggested to have evolved in the transition from the great apes to humans and is a product of a reversal in the preferred direction of information flow in the human cortex due to the phylogenetic enlargement of the human frontal lobe. The frontal feedback system forms an (...) autonomous functional unit in the cortex whereby action-schemes in frontal cortices continually create fictitious sensory scenarios in posterior sensory cortices by manipulating the release of sensory representations there. These internal scenarios are created free of environmental constraints and reflect the human's internal cognitive and language processes. Nonhumans do not have a frontal feedback system and their internal cognitive processes are stimulus-bound. Evidence in support of the proposal is presented and some implications of the frontal feedback model for human experience are discussed. (shrink)

In the context of the motor skill literature on observational learning and hierarchical skill structuring, Byrne & Russon's findings call into question their standpoint that great apes imitate the behaviour of role models at the programme level. The authors impose a hierarchical model on their observations without properly considering alternative explanations. One such possibility, which stems from a constraints perspective that they dismiss, is put forward.

This paper aims to contribute to the existing literature on normative cognition by providing a lineage explanation of human social norm psychology. This approach builds upon theories of goal-directed behavioral control in the reinforcement learning and control literature, arguing that this form of control defines an important class of intentional normative mental states that are instrumental in nature. I defend the view that great ape capacities for instrumental reasoning and our capacity (or family of capacities) for shared intentionality coadapted to (...) each other and argue that the evolution of this capacity has allowed the representation of social norms and the emergence of our capacity for normative guidance. (shrink)

The large, ancient ape population of the Miocene reached across Eurasia and down into Africa. From this genetically diverse group, the chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and humans evolved from populations of successively reduced size. Using the findings of genomics, population genetics, cognitive science, neuroscience, and archaeology, the authors construct a theoretical framework of evolutionary innovations without which religious capacity could not have emerged as it did. They begin with primate sociality and strength from a basic ape model, and then explore (...) how the human line came to be the most adaptive and flexible of all, while coming from populations with reduced genetic variability. Their analysis then delves into the importance of neurological plasticity and a lengthening developmental trajectory, and points to their following article and the last building block: the expansion of the parietal areas, which allowed visuospatial reckoning, and imagined spaces and beings essential to human theologies. Approximate times for the major cognitive building blocks of religious capacity are given. (shrink)

Drawing on our Associative-Propositional Evaluation (APE) Model, we argue for the usefulness of distinguishing between basic operating principles of learning processes (associative linking vs. propositional reasoning) and secondary features pertaining to the conditions of their operation (automatic vs. controlled). We review empirical evidence that supports the joint operation of associative and propositional processes in the formation of new associations.

Language does not fossilize but this does not mean that the language's evolutionary timeline is lost forever. Great apes provide a window back in time on our last prelinguistic ancestor's communication and cognition. Phylogeny and cladistics implicitly conjure Pan (chimpanzees, bonobos) as a superior (often the only) model for language evolution compared with earlier diverging lineages, Gorilla and Pongo (orangutans). Here, in reviewing the literature, it is shown that Pan do not surpass other great apes along genetic, cognitive, ecologic, (...) or vocal traits that are putatively paramount for language onset and evolution. Instead, revived herein is the idea that only by abandoning single‐species models and learning about the variation among great apes, there might be a chance to retrieve lost fragments of the evolutionary timeline of language. (shrink)

I selectively and critically review the state of knowledge about human evolution and the place of humans vis-à-vis living apes, with emphasis on bipedal posture and locomotion, expansion of the brain and associated cognitive capacities, speech, tool behavior, culture, and society. I end with a personal perspective on God and Heaven.

An important question about moral progress is what causes it. One of the most popular proposed mechanisms is moral reasoning: moral progress often happens because lots of people reason their way to improved moral beliefs. Authors who defend moral reasoning as a cause of moral progress have relied on two broad lines of argument: the general and the specific line. The general line presents evidence that moral reasoning is in general a powerful mechanism of moral belief change, while the specific (...) line tries to establish that moral reasoning can explain specific historical examples of moral progress. In this paper, we examine these lines in detail, using Kumar and Campbell’s (2022, A Better Ape: The Evolution of the Moral Mind and How It Made Us Human. Oxford University Press) model of rational moral progress to sharpen our focus. For each line, we explain the empirical assumptions it makes; we then argue that the available evidence supports none of these assumptions. We conclude that at this point, we have no idea if moral reasoning causes moral progress. (shrink)

Abstract: I address the issue of how pretence emerged in evolution by reviewing the (mostly negative) evidence about pretend behaviour in non-human primates, and proposing a model of the type of information processing abilities that humans had to evolve in order to be able to pretend. Non-human primates do not typically pretend: there are just a few examples of potential pretend actions mostly produced by apes. The best, but still rare, examples are produced by so-called 'enculturated' apes (reared by (...) humans) and among them specially those that have been systematically trained to use symbols (so-called 'linguistic' apes). A hypothesis that would explain the lack of pretence in apes is that they lack the mentalistic ability of theory of mind. However, in the last years apes have been demonstrated to possess relatively sophisticated social cognitive skills, some of them ontogenetically appearing in humans alongside with or even after pretend play. As a solution to the paradox, I discuss a model according to which pretence is supported by a mechanism capable of computing intentional relations with non-existing objects or properties (Intentional non-existence), as opposed to mechanisms computing intentional relations with existing, although not necessarily currently perceived, objects (Intentional availability). Apes possess the latter, which allows them to solve a variety of theory of mind tasks, but not the former, which typically prevents them from developing pretence. (shrink)

The taste for classical art that induced museums in the West to acquire masterpieces from ancient Greece and Rome for their collections was stimulated largely by the writings of Johann Joachim Winckelmann. In the past decade, a number of articles have claimed that Winckelmann’s glorification of marble statues representing the white, male body promotes notions of white supremacy. The present article challenges this view by examining theories prevalent in the eighteenth century that affected Winckelmann’s views on race. Through an examination (...) of different types of classicism, the article also seeks to demonstrate that Winckelmann’s aesthetics were opposed to the eclectic use of ancient models typical of the fascist regimes of the twentieth century. (shrink)

Studies of primate cognition have conclusively shown that humans and apes share a range of basic cognitive abilities. As a corollary, these same studies have also focussed attention on what makes humans unique, and on when and how specifically human cognitive skills evolved. There is widespread agreement that a major distinguishing feature of the human mind is its capacity for causal reasoning. This paper argues that causal cognition originated with the use made of indirect natural signs by early hominins forced (...) to adapt to variable late Miocene and early Pliocene environments; that early hominins evolved an innate tendency to search for such signs and infer their causes; that causal inference required the existence of incipient working memory; and that causal relationships were stored through being integrated into spatial maps to create increasingly complex causal models of the world. (shrink)

Experimental studies show that some corvids, apes, and rodents possess a common long-term memory system that allows them to take goal-directed actions on the basis of absent spatiotemporal contexts. In other words, evidence supports the hypothesis that Episodic Memory —far from being uniquely human— has evolved as a cross-species meaning making system. However, within this zoosemiotic breakthrough, neurocognitive studies now struggle characterizing the relations between teleological factors and phenomenological factors that would account for the episodic behavior displayed by these living (...) beings. Within such field, this paper identifies four epistemological gaps —the ‘Nagelian’, ‘de Waalian’, ‘Chomskyan’, and ‘semiotic’ gaps—, making a case for the need of a future biosemiotic model of Alloanimal Episodic Memory to come into the equation. As a whole, I conclude that experimental developments in AEM research, and philosophical advancements in biosemiotics could converge through the concept of semiosis. Introducing the latter would account for animal episodic agency as a causal influence and continuity between the above relations, outclassing the reductionist and Cartesian separation between ‘external’ bodily behavior and ‘internal’ computational operations. (shrink)

The existence of social learning has been confirmed in diverse taxa, from apes to guppies. In order to advance our understanding of the consequences of social transmission and evolution of behavior, however, we require statistical tools that can distinguish among diverse social learning strategies. In this paper, we advance two main ideas. First, social learning is diverse, in the sense that individuals can take advantage of different kinds of information and combine them in different ways. Examining learning strategies for different (...) information conditions illuminates the more detailed design of social learning. We construct and analyze an evolutionary model of diverse social learning heuristics, in order to generate predictions and illustrate the impact of design differences on an organism’s fitness. Second, in order to eventually escape the laboratory and apply social learning models to natural behavior, we require statistical methods that do not depend upon tight experimental control. Therefore we examine strategic social learning in an experimental setting.. (shrink)

During the first decades of the 20th century, many anthropologists who had previously adhered to a linear view of human evolution, from an ape via Pithecanthropus erectus and Neanderthal to modern humans, began to change their outlook. A shift towards a branching model of human evolution began to take hold. Among the scientific factors motivating this trend was the insight that mammalian evolution in general was best represented by a branching tree, rather than by a straight line, and that (...) several new fossil hominids were discovered that differed significantly in their morphology but seemed to date from about the same period. The ideological and practical implications of imperialism and WWI have also been identified as formative of the new evolutionary scenarios in which racial conflict played a crucial role. The paper will illustrate this general shift in anthropological theory for one particular scientist, William Sollas. Sollas achieved a synthesis of human morphological and cultural evolution in what I will refer to as an imperialist model. In this theoretical framework, migration, conflict, and replacement became the main mechanisms for progress spurred by 'nature's tyrant,' natural selection. (shrink)

A Darwinian theory of the evolution of language must be incremental: to explain the transition from a hominin baseline with great ape grade communicative capacities to language-equipped hominins as a series of small steps. This paper takes up that project for the special case of words, giving an incremental model of the call to word transition. The model is embedded in a general conception of human social evolution with independent empirical support, but it also depends on some more (...) specific assumptions about language and about the earlier forms of hominin communication. Given these assumptions, the paper can be no more than a working draft of a more complete theory. (shrink)

As a social psychologist addressing mainly the topics of social facilitation (motivation) and attitudinal effects of mere exposure (affect), between 1965 and 1975 Robert B. Zajonc authored prominent works that relied on or led to observations of the actions of nonhuman animals. Zajonc pointed to insects, worms, fish, fowl, birds, mice, rats, cats, dogs, monkeys, and apes as animal models whereby responses of beasts were used as evidential substitutes (with apparently equal weight) for responses of man. These efforts notwithstanding, animal-based (...) research no longer has visibility in mainstream social psychology. Reasons for this absence include general historical trends in the field’s development. (shrink)

There is a central concern in contemporary cognitive science with the validity of the use of epistemic and intentional terms to interpret the communication patterns of non-human animals. Here I argue that the human developmental transition to intentional communication is a well-described phenomenon, from an empirical standpoint; that the behavioural patterns that characterise intentional communication in our own species are also well-described in the communication of our nearest living relatives, the great apes; that the presence of the behavioural markers for (...) intentional communication in non-human primates does not unambiguously implicate any particular one of a large number of often mutually contradictory hypothetical psychological process models; and that intentional communication by young humans is also consistent with hypothetical process models that are, themselves, mutually contradictory. Intentional communication is a class of behaviour that is open to public, objective measurement. In contrast, the hypothetical cognitive processes supporting intentional communication in both human and non-human animals are not specified by the fact that intentional communication has occurred—they could not be, except when there is an unambiguous behavioural index of invisible psychological processes, which is a contradiction in terms. In this chapter, I will examine a number of contemporary scientific practices that purportedly reveal aspects of psychological processes underlying intentional communication and demonstrate the deficiencies of these protocols. In general, these methodological infelicities support a systematic, discipline-wide double standard of interpretation of the communication of animals and humans. I will conclude that there is no convincing evidence extant of different psychological processes in the intentional communication of apes and preverbal humans. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 25.2 (2001) 278-294 [Access article in PDF] Homer's Human Animal: Ritual Combat in the Iliad Jonathan Gottschall I Freud called Darwin's revelation of man's animality a blow to human narcissism on par with Copernicus's finding that Earth is not the center of the solar system. While Darwin hinted at our bestiality in the Origin of Species, in later publications he conveyed the disturbing and fantastic news (...) that our ancestors were, as he playfully wrote in private notebooks, "monkey men." 1 Adam and Eve were not lovingly molded from the clay; they were the rude grandchildren of a "hairy, tailed quadruped, probably arboreal in its habits, and an inhabitant of the Old World." 2 Darwin's news was greeted by his contemporaries with a range of responses, from hooting derision to holy indignation, to resigned acceptance. Yet his hypothesis has been amply verified by the work of geneticists, primatologists, biologists, archaeologists, paleoanthropologists, and others. Nowadays we are not too chagrined to hear that we share a common ancestor with the other apes; it is orthodox evolutionary theory.But perhaps we give Darwin rather too much credit for this discovery. Surely he deserves esteem for deciphering the mechanism of evolution in natural selection, for helping demonstrate our kinship with other primates, and for providing subsequent scientists a head start for their research. He also deserves the less technical distinctions of giving human self-regard a terrific bloody nose and of helping to sire the modern existential crisis. But while Darwin may be responsible for giving scientific credibility to the notion that humans do not stand aloof from the rest of the animal kingdom, he was far from the first to come to this realization. [End Page 278]The artists of every age and the builders of mythology have come, with wondrous unity of conception, to similar conclusions. In fact, the world's earliest known pictorial art conveys this message. The hundreds of paintings and etchings adorning the walls of the Chauvet Cave in France, though over thirty thousand years old, include depictions of human-animal compounds, including a figure that is half-human and half-bison. 3 This ancient suggestion that the human and animal realms overlap is likewise indicated in the common mythological figure of the human-animal hybrid. As Dorothy Dinnerstein says: "Myth images of half-human beasts like the mermaid and the Minotaur express an old, fundamental, very slowly clarifying communal insight: that our species' nature is internally inconsistent; that our continuities with, and our differences from, the earth's other animals are mysterious and profound." 4 So Darwin did not invent the concept of the human animal. Rather, he marshaled the evidence and developed the theoretical model that established scientific credence for an ancient belief.The Ancient Greeks were particularly fascinated by hybrids blending human and animal morphology. Their mythology abounds with queer, conflicted, compound creatures. And so does their literature. Their first and greatest poet, Homer, was characteristically Greek in his attention to half-human creatures. The sirens, the centaurs, the minotaur, the chimera, Scylla, "Ox-eyed" Hera, and "Owl-eyed" Athena are all present or alluded to in his work. All of these figures symbolically insinuate that beasts dwell under every human skin.But Homer's suggestions of human animality do not cease with these compound creatures. In the Iliad, he presses this theme with depictions of warriors who are, physically, fully human. Homer suggests, however, that their dispositions and behavior patterns are, often, fully brutish. For Homer, the human animal is the most incongruous crossbreed of all: he is queer, conflicted, inconsistent, godlike, and brute. It is the "in-betweenness" of the human animal that makes him tragic. His soul would gravitate toward the empyrean, but his body roots him steadfastly in the blood and filth of animal life. The father Zeus, perhaps recognizing this, says: "In truth there is nothing more wretched on earth than man, of all things that breathe and move." 5The Iliad suggests human animality in a variety of ways. First, we are aligned with... (shrink)

Grice’s analysis of human communication has proven to be highly influential among many philosophers and cognitive scientists, both past and present. At the same time, it has long been recognized that his analysis faces some difficult objections. In particular, a number of theorists have objected to the account Grice provides of the mental states and processes of those engaged in communication. For these theorists, communication as conceived of by Grice has seemed too mentally demanding and complex to be a good (...) general model of human communication. In this article, I consider this challenge afresh from the perspective of Dan Dennett’s intentional stance theory. More specifically, I consider some recent remarks Dennett has made in this area, seeking to pin down and clarify his view. I then argue that while Dennett’s thinking is on the right track, his view stands in need of both a substantive adjustment and more positive detail. I seek to provide such improvements here. Finally, I consider some of the implications of this improved Dennettian account of Gricean communication for how great ape and human communication are related. (shrink)

A new take on our bio-cultural evolution explores how the "inner theatre" of the brain and its "animal-human stages" are reflected in and shaped by the mirror of cinema. Vampire, werewolf, and ape-planet films are perennial favorites—perhaps because they speak to something primal in human nature. This intriguing volume examines such films in light of the latest developments in neuroscience, revealing ways in which animal-human monster movies reflect and affect what we naturally imagine in our minds. Examining specific films as (...) well as early cave images, the book discusses how certain creatures on rock walls and movie screens express animal-to-human evolution and the structures of our brains. The book presents a new model of the human brain with its theatrical, cinematic, and animal elements. It also develops a theory of "rasa-catharsis" as the clarifying of emotions within and between spectators of the stage or screen, drawing on Eastern and Western aesthetics as well as current neuroscience. It focuses on the "inner movie theater" of memories, dreams, and reality representations, involving developmental stages, as well as the "hall of mirrors," ape-egos, and body-swapping identifications between human beings. Finally, the book shows how ironic twists onscreen—especially of contradictory emotions—might evoke a reappraisal of feelings, helping spectators to be more attentive to their own impulses. Through this interdisciplinary study, scholars, artists, and general readers will find a fresh way to understand the potential for interactive mindfulness and yet cathartic backfire between human brains—in cinema, in theater, and in daily life. (shrink)

We focus on the evolution of action capabilities which set the stage for language, rather than analyzing how further brain evolution built on these capabilities to yield a language-ready brain. Our framework is given by the Mirror System Hypothesis, which charts a progression from a monkey-like mirror neuron system (MNS) to a chimpanzee-like mirror system that supports simple imitation and thence to a human-like mirror system that supports complex imitation and language. We present the MNS2 model, a new (...) class='Hi'>model of action recognition learning by mirror neurons of the macaque brain and augmented competitive queuing, a model of opportunistic scheduling of action sequences as background for analysis of modeling strategies for simple imitation as seen in the great apes and complex/goal-directed imitation as seen in humans. Implications for the study of language are briefly noted. (shrink)

A common view of politics is that it is reducible to applied ethics. If politics, in a classic phrase, is about “who gets what, when, and how,” then the task of normative political theory would simply be to tell us who is morally entitled to get whatever the “what” is in that statement.This view, however, can easily reduce politics to a dizzying vortex of actions to assess from an ethical perspective. And while the task of moral philosophy may be precisely (...) to articulate principles by which to pass such judgment, the focus of political theory lies elsewhere.To study and assess politics means attending to the institutional frameworks and structural conditions that enable or constrain human action to begin with. The question for normative political theory, in other words, is whether the organizational structure of a given society—embodied in its decision-making procedures, its distribution of power, and its defining patterns of production, reproduction, and distribution—is defensible or not.This question of justice in the institutional makeup of society has not been entirely ignored in animal rights literature. Animal advocates have always been clear about the massive societal ramifications of dismantling the speciesist order. Likewise, rights theorists and activists have often proposed concrete legal measures for improving the protection of animals, be it by piecemeal welfare reform in animal agriculture, by the abolition of specific practices in biomedical research, or by seeking the equivalent of human rights for select species like great apes or dolphins. The field has also seen fierce debate among animal advocates about the appropriate strategies for engaging with the state and the legal system.Nonetheless, most discussions have been about what it means to treat individual animals with respect, and not about what is required of a political order aspiring to just treatment of all species. In fact, it is only in the last decade that the issue of political justice has taken up a place at the center of animal ethics.Though the field is still developing, we may take it as a sign of maturity that it can now sport its first “short introduction” book: Alasdair Cochrane's Should Animals Have Political Rights? (2020). Its appearing as part of the Polity Press series Political Theory Today further attests to the book's timeliness.The starting point of Cochrane's book—and of political animal studies in general—is that political relations between humans and other animals are not optional but inevitable. Other animals live among us, and the way we organize our societies has a massive impact on the lives of other sentient animals both inside and outside the borders of our human communities. Assuming that these creatures possess intrinsic value as experiencing individuals with morally relevant interests, the question seems inescapable: What kind of polity can accommodate for the multispecies character of our communities and embody justice for all sentients? Cochrane's answer is largely the same as the one he offered in his previous book, Sentientist Politics: A Theory of Global Inter-Species Justice (Oxford University Press, 2018), where he laid out his full vision of a postnational and species-neutral “cosmozoopolis.”The present book is much more concentrated and written as an accessible introduction for readers new to the field. Over seven short chapters, Cochrane reconstructs his argument for an interspecies democracy by assessing a series of arguments and propositions drawn from previous literature on the topic.The first notion to be scrutinized is the popular idea that animal welfare legislation is enough to secure respect for animals. Here, Cochrane acknowledges that welfarism goes some way toward safeguarding animal interests, but he also stresses that its historical record has been disheartening. Welfarism protects animals only insofar as their protection coincides with human interests, and this is far from enough to ensure respect for the animals’ intrinsic value.The second line of argument tries to push beyond welfarism by claiming constitutional protection for animals. By this move, reformers hope to place animal interests on an equal footing with human interests and prevent the overriding of the former in the name of human entitlements (to property, artistic expression, freedom of science, and so forth). Looking at real-world cases, however, Cochrane finds that these constitutional provisions tend to be sidelined when they come into conflict with the interests of big agribusiness.Noting that more than constitutional protection is needed, Cochrane turns to a third set of arguments about legal personhood for animals. Winning personhood for animals would certainly constitute a radical step toward equalizing the interests of different species. Nonetheless, Cochrane argues that personhood alone would be insufficient. Intrinsic value, to him, cannot be fully respected unless animals win the political right to have their interests factor into society's articulation of the public good. As sentient beings, we can all make a claim on the political communities we are part of to not only recognize us as members but furnish us with the means to live well.The fourth and final step for Cochrane is to argue that democratic representation for animals is necessary for realizing these political membership rights. Without representation, he contends, political rights risk being watered down, leaving animals with much less than they are entitled to as sentient beings. Cochrane critically discusses several different models for how this representation could be organized. While he is partial to a system where specially trained human representatives are tasked with voicing the animals’ interests in the legislative process, he leaves many of the practicalities open for future experimentation.Readers familiar with the field of political animal studies will find little new in Should Animals Have Political Rights? For students new to the field, however, Cochrane's book does an excellent job introducing the main issues in a very accessible format. Students of “regular” political science will also benefit from the book's fresh challenge to the discipline's understanding of “the political” as well as its important insights into the relationship between individual and political rights. (shrink)

The staying power of creationist objections to evolution needs explanation. It depends on the use of “blood” language. Both William Jennings Bryan and, a century later, Ken Ham connect evolution with the blood of predation and the blood of apes, and both also connect evolution with the blood of atonement. Drawing on Mary Douglas and Bettina Bildhauer, I suggest that blood becomes important to societies that image the social body on the human body. Blood reveals the body as porous and (...) vulnerable and therefore needing social work to be constructed as whole and bounded. Blood is the place where society conducts this work. I conclude that blood language is ineliminable from Christian discourse and indeed from discourses that model the social on the individual body. The solution, I suggest, is not to avoid the language of blood, but to continue to use it in ways that broaden its focus from human sin to human and animal suffering. (shrink)

Recombination maps of ancestral species can be constructed from comparative analyses of genomes from closely related species, exemplified by a recently published map of the human‐chimpanzee ancestor. Such maps resolve differences in recombination rate between species into changes along individual branches in the speciation tree, and allow identification of associated changes in the genomic sequences. We describe how coalescent hidden Markov models are able to call individual recombination events in ancestral species through inference of incomplete lineage sorting along a genomic (...) alignment. In the great apes, speciation events are sufficiently close in time that a map can be inferred for the ancestral species at each internal branch ‐ allowing evolution of recombination rate to be tracked over evolutionary time scales from speciation event to speciation event. We see this approach as a way of characterizing the evolution of recombination rate and the genomic properties that influence it. (shrink)

In a series of works, different models have shed light on the acoustic properties of air sacs, an organ located in the laryngeal region that is present in all great apes with the exception of humans. These works have shown how the loss of air sacs expands the number of possible digits but not the amount of signals per se. The number of signals in human language increased when the codifying property known as duality of patterning became characteristic of the (...) codifying system, allowing digits to be combined in order for new signals to be codified. A direct relationship between air sacs and duality is presently being plotted, integrating linguistic theory and data from computational models into an evolutionary and developmental perspective of the evolution of modern speech. (shrink)

An eye-opener and a head-scratcher, this set of fifty exercices de style offers an oblique and learned introduction to a great classic of ludic literature dating from the twelfth century, the Maqamat of al-Hariri. Each of the fifty tales of the trickster Abu Zayid, some or perhaps all of which contain or are constituted by one or more formal restrictions, is here presented in the form of a pastiche of some familiar or exotic register of writing in English. We can (...) only admire Cooperson for having taught himself to channel Chaucer, Woolf, and Twain, to parrot Singaporean, Nigerian, and Indian English, to compose in dramatic form and in verse, and to riff off Austen as well as a dictionary of law.... What is frustrating to readers is that our translator-imposter does not let us play the game. He explains each exercise and justifies his approach to it in a prefatory note, then adds footnotes, a bibliography, and a glossary of the “dialect” chosen. We are not even allowed to play guess-the-author! The aim of the elaborate and scholarly apparatus attached to these imitative imitations is to give a hint—a necessarily and unapologetically misleading one—of the pleasure and value of the medieval Arabic for its first and later readers.The problem is that pastiche is not only an entertaining exercise. It typically serves a purpose located somewhere between mockery and homage, and sometimes plays both ends against the middle. Cooperson, however, is not mocking Dickens or Gibbon, even less the al-Hariri he clearly admires beyond all others. Consequently, the nonparticipant reader becomes ever more baffled as to what the game is really for. Surely it cannot be intended only to show us how clever and knowledgeable Mr. Cooperson is? Which he certainly is, but not beyond tripping over his own skipping rope. For example, the prisoner's constraint used in the middle of a pastiche of Dickens, when implemented in the way it was defined by its inventor Paul Fournel, excludes the letter z and also cannot accommodate the tilde of señor—and Dickens would have written bade for the past tense of bid. The more you read, the less you smile, the more you quibble as you are drawn into a surely unintended game of spot-the-blooper.It takes genius to write like someone else, which is why the people who get away with it for real use a battery of extratextual devices to deceive (think of Guilleragues, Ossian, Chatterton, Kuzma Proutkov, Romain Gary... ). Cooperson is not seeking to deceive (yet how can a pastiche not gesture toward deception?), but he is not actually offering fifty linked stories by fifty different hands either. What he has produced with the help of his distinguished préfacier, two editors, and a bevy of consultants is a curiously unidentifiable literary object, and quite possibly the only one of its kind.Two statements made by the translator in his introduction disturb me. He says he avoided using most twentieth-century literary models and references in order not to run into copyright issues. This is a declaration of submission to the Copyright Monster invented and unleashed by publishers in flagrant disregard of the laws of the UK, the US, and the EU, all of which allow parody and pastiche without permission of the copyright holder. Second, he “takes seriously the argument that privileged users of Standard English have no business imitating... the speech varieties associated with less privileged communities.” In all times other than our own, the privileged did not deign to use “less privileged” forms of speech (unless they were Victor Hugo), but if now they do not even dare, we can still guess what will happen. The less privileged will seek to use more privileged forms of speech, just as Anglo-Saxon serfs aped Norman French until they ended up speaking English. More recently, wealthy corporations have sought to own whole programming languages by extending the reach of copyright law; perhaps “less privileged communities” are now about to use similar weapons to protect their linguistic turf. We must object as noisily as we can to attempts to enclose public goods by corporations, by self-defining communities, or by any other entities. We would all be the poorer if they should ever succeed. (shrink)

Denenberg rightly stresses the importance of studying ethologically meaningful species-specific behavior in animals, and makes the interesting distinction between lateralization at an individual and at a population level. However, in the case of man, I believe Denenberg is wrong in arguing that lateralization in the individual increases with maturation. The overall evidence nowadays tends very much to the contrary. Moreover, with respect to a population, why should it become lateralized? If there is indeed an advantage for the individual in hemispheric (...) specialization, why should the direction of such specialization be so consistent across a majority of individuals, whether human or, as Denenberg points out, other members of the phylum? Is there an evolutionary advantage in most animals' sharing the same direction, or is it a necessary consequence of some other preexisting, more fundamental anatomical, biochemical, or physical property of the organism and its constituents? If the former, why are not all members of the species, rather than just a majority, lateralized in the same direction? (Or, to put it another way, what is the evolutionary advantage to the species or individual of dimorphism, of retaining a minority who polarize in theoppositedirection?) If the latter - i.e., if lateralization is a necessary consequence of some prior state - then there should not be any dimorphism, exceptions, or minority members, unless they are somehow disadvantaged in consequence. Indeed, there is some evidence of a cognitive deficit in sinistrals, though it is disputed (see Bradshaw 1980 for review), and others have even suggested that the species as a whole maybenefitin some way from such an uneven dimorphism (Levy 1974), but what evidence is there for such propositions with respect to rats, apes, monkeys, or chicks? This is an issue that should be addressed in any general model that includes laterality in animals. [See Corhallis & Morgan: “On the Biological Basis of Human Laterality”BBS1(2) 1978.]. (shrink)

One of the particular problems in the debate between science and theology regarding human origins seems to be an apparent controversy between the continuous character of evolutionary processes leading to the origin of Homo sapiens and the punctual understanding of the act of creation of man seen as taking place in a moment in time. The paper elaborates scientific arguments for continuity or discontinuity of evolution, and what follows, for the existence or nonexistence of a clear borderline between our species (...) and the rest of the living world. It is argued that, due to the conventional character of the notion of species, anthropology is unable to point to a moment in time or a place on Earth when or where Homo sapiens came into existence as a ‘really new’ species. The argument of the non˗specificity of humans is reinforced by considering emotional homologies between man and apes, “cultural” transmission of the patterns of behaviour in animals, or their mental and communicational abilities. All this is in line with a more general philosophical view of ontological continuity of the world. However, the argument is counterbalanced by pointing to such human characteristics as the ability to use abstract notions, or those forms of human behaviour which do not seem to have their animal analogues. In turn, various possibilities of theological interpretations of the act of creation of man are pointed out and a question is considered as to what extent theology is interested in a "momentary" account of this act. By pointing to theological accounts proposed as early as the 2nd century, it is argued that a vision of God – the craftsman who ‘builds’ its creation step by step, or even less restrictive forms of divine interventionism, are theologically inadequate. The original opposition between the continuity of evolutionary processes and ‘punctual’ character of creation is thus weakened and, from that perspective, a solution to the controversy in question is sought. One of such solutions, an “evolutionary model of creation”, a form of evolutionary creationism, proposed by a Polish philosopher Kazimierz Kloskowski, is presented. This model is based on two assumptions, stemming from process philosophy and evolutionary epistemology. The need to apply them in constructing a coherent view on evolution and creation is critically considered in the paper. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:A Painful Lack of ConnectionChristopher Bailey (bio)Keywordsdepression, detachment (as a defense), empathy, evolution, masculinityI greatly appreciate the incredibly thoughtful responses to my clinical anecdote, “A Painful Lack of Wounds.” There is, in some more than others, a peculiar aura of detachment that, for me, evokes the very abyss (and its lack of an opposing force) that Colin and I found ourselves staring into that day. I realize, of course, (...) that some level of detachment is necessary to allow airspace for intellectual arrivals and departures.Detachment, moreover, is a form of emotional and psychological escape. In contrast with physical escape, detachment makes something that is present seem absent and, in that regard, is more like camouflage than flight. In some of the responses, therefore, I find myself tuning out the intellectual labyrinth and tuning in to how well it obscures its creator. What wounds or weaknesses, I wonder, is the author trying to hide? Insulin-dependent diabetes? An inferiority complex? Cannot climb chain-link fences? Is he or she hiding these problems from him- or herself? Or just the rest of us?This drive to connect, to regain the biological and the personal, was the ultimate point of my anecdote. I am not suggesting that human beings are biologically built for warfare or that all forms of pathology, at one time, must have conferred some evolutionary advantage. But as omnivorous, social primates, we are definitely adapted for engagement (of all varieties).Certainly, we need to avoid overidentification or sweepingly premature conclusions. Still, no doctor would deny his or her nostrils if cued by a foul, fetid odor to examine a patient for bed sores or gangrene. Likewise, we cannot in our clinical efforts recoil from the same instincts for sniffing out pathology that once made us successful predators. To paraphrase Jeffrey Masson and Susan McCarthy, the authors of When Elephants Weep, when one feels, from observing a bear, that the bear is sad, chances are the bear is sad. To call this anthropomorphizing is a much less parsimonious explanation than the possibility that evolutionary cousins can accurately read one another. And if inter-mammalian empathy is not too much of a stretch, we can probably trust what we feel from an animal of our own species.Granted, it is a long way from feeling to formulation. I chose to write about Colin because he expressed a kind of craving I am finding in a lot of men these days. I do not doubt that cultural pressure, heaped on personal issues and genetic prerogatives, can push a man to place heroism at the center of his psychic universe. Nonetheless, I find it odd that ostensibly comprehensive formulations, like the biopsychosocial model, fail to acknowledge the greater ecosystem in which we dwell. The wheelchair-accessible communities we have created to detach from natural selection are [End Page 249] the same frictionless planes on which masculinity, like a grotesque evolutionary artifact, tends to stumble nowadays.In short, were we not so dependent on the very things we call progress, had we not atrophied from a well-adapted ape to one that can die of hypothermia in 50° weather, I doubt if Colin's insecurity (or anyone's) would be so great. Not that I did not challenge Colin on aspects of his self-doubt. But I did not see it as “inappropriate” either. And although I agree a sense of helplessness can be both cause and effect of depression, his self-doubt, to me, was more than just a “cognitive error” unconsciously conceived as cover for a dark mood. Nondepressed people, after all, score higher than their depressed counterparts on measures of self-deception. The same false sense of security that we, as a culture, have coasted on for decades was shattered for Colin in Iraq. And I believe that is a good thing.Related ArticlesFeature Article: Clinical Anecdotes: A Painful Lack of WoundsCommentary: The Nature of Proof in PsychiatryCommentary: Truth and Healing a Veteran's DepressionCommentary: Inappropriate RegretCommentary: The Cultural Context of Post-traumatic Stress DisorderCommentary: Explication or Explanation?Commentary: The Importance of What Psychiatrists Care AboutCommentary: Mourning or MelancholiaResponse: A... (shrink)