"Our ability to think is one of our most puzzling characteristics. What it would be like to be unable to think? What would it be like to lack self-awareness? The complexity of this activity is striking. Thinking involves the interaction of a range of mental processes - attention, emotion, memory, planning, self-consciousness, free will, and language. So where did these processes arise? What evolutionary advantages were bestowed upon those with an ability to deceive, to plan, to empathize, or to understand the intentions of others? In this compelling work, Peter Gärdenfors embarks on an evolutionary detective story to try and solve one of the big mysteries surrounding human existence - how has the modern human being's way of thinking come into existence. He starts by taking in turn the more basic cognitive processes, such as attention and memory, then builds upon these to explore more complex behaviours, such as self-consciousness, mindreading, and imitation. Having done this, he examines the consequences of ""putting thought into the world"", using external media like cave paintings, drawings and writing.
Immensely readable and humorous, the book will be valuable for students in psychology and biology, whilst remaining accessible to readers of popular science."
By:
Peter Gärdenfors ( Professor of Cognitive Science University of Lund Sweden)
Imprint: Oxford Trade (not OTO)
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions:
Height: 233mm,
Width: 156mm,
Spine: 20mm
Weight: 397g
ISBN: 9780198528517
ISBN 10: 0198528515
Pages: 256
Publication Date: 01 February 2006
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
1. Thinking from an evolutionary perspective 1.1: The human family tree 1.2: Enter Homo 1.3: What is to be explained: the components of thought 1.4: Four sources of empirical support 1.5: Early stages in the evolution of thought 1.6: Skinnerian beings 2. Sensation, perception and imagination 2.1: Sensations: being aware of the world 2.2: The art of aiming - why chimpanzees cannot throw darts 2.3: Perceptions: seeing the world 2.4: Categorical perception: sorting the world into boxes 2.5: Object permanence: the world outside our sensations 2.6: The art of chasing a mouse 2.7: Going between the senses 2.8: Causal reasoning: finding the invisible threads 2.9: A room with a view 2.10: Imagination: detaching the senses 3. The World Within 3.1: Popperian beings 3.2: Representations and the brain 3.3: Pretense: playing in the inner world 3.4: Directing thought: intentionality 3.5: Imitation - why apes cannot ape 3.6: Planning - why the squirrel does not plan for the winter 3.7: Ockham's razor 3.8: Thinking about tomorrow 3.9: Making tools 3.10: The human dilemma 4. Reading other people's minds 4.1: Levels of theory of mind 4.2: Understanding emotions 4.3: Understanding attention 4.4: Understanding intentions 4.5: Understanding what others know 4.6: Deception 4.7: Machiavellian intelligence 4.8: Autism: when there are gaps in the inner world 5. Self-consciousness 5.1: What is self-consciousness? 5,2: Animals for themselves: Why baboons do not wear lipstick 5.3: Communication, attention, and consciousness 5.4: It's not rude to point 5.5: You and I 5.6: The mirror of the soul 5.7: Free will 5.8: Consciousness and morality - why vervets are incapacitated 6. The dawn of language 6.1: Signals and symbols 6.2: ... and icons 6.3: Linguistic communication and higher-order intentions 6.4: Animals' linguistic capacity 6.5: Kanzi - at the brink of language 6.6: How children learn language 6.7: Miming as intentional communication 6.8: Keeping time - why chimps do not play in the circus orchestra 7. The origin of speech 7.1: Why just humans? 7.2: Consciousness and language 7.3: The gossip theory 7.4: Sharing visions for the future - co-operation begets language 7.5: Language as a social marker 7.6: Motherese 7.7: Proto-language 7.8: The role of grammar 7.9: Myths and narratives 7.10: Language in the brain 7.11: Where are the meanings of words? 8. Externalising the inner world 8.1: External memories 8.2: The development of writing 8.3: The influence of writing on thought 8.4: Science: the world of theories 8.5: Drifting thought - and the selfish meme 8.6: Detached identity 8.7: The open person Epilogue
Reviews for How Homo Became Sapiens: On the evolution of thinking
`. . . provides a clearly written and engaging text worth recommending to undergraduates in the fields of cognitive science, psychology, and biology as well as to a general audience' Evolutionary Psychology `... an excellent introduction ... admirably level-headed' New Scientist
