Michael Tomasello [March, 2020]
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Human Nature, Part II
Human Nature, Part II Yom Kippur 2020 Rabbi David J Fine, PhD Besides masks to prevent the spread of covid-19, the other thing that’s hard to spot in ultra- Orthodox neighborhoods are images of Barney the Dinosaur. The fossil record of dinosaurs is hard to explain to children when one is committed to a six-day creation timeline. But children are always fascinated by dinosaurs. There is something about their immense size and power that is irresistible. And there is another thing about dinosaurs that captures the imagination: the fact, and mystery, of their disappearance. How could beings of such strength and such size die out, whereas we were left to inherit the earth. Or we and even smaller beings like ants, as I spoke about on the second day of Rosh Hashanah. The extinction of the dinosaurs seems counterintuitive to what we have been led to understand about nature, that the strong and the mightiest are the ones who survive, the survival of the fittest. Humans grew to “fill the earth and master it,” as the Book of Genesis has God command us, through our intelligence, our ability to build tools and weapons that put us at the top of the food chain. Charles Darwin’s theory that nature favors, or selects, those who help themselves, has been interpreted, or misinterpreted I should say, to support the racist abuses of fellow humans that I talked about on the first day of Rosh Hashanah. The idea that strength prevails has been used to justify the worst acts of hatred and oppression in history. -
Outline of Michael Tomasello, a Natural History of Human Morality (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2016)
Outline of Michael Tomasello, A Natural History of Human Morality (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2016). John Protevi LSU HNRS 2030.2: “Evolution and Biology of Morality” I Chapter 1: The Interdependence Hypothesis A) Parallels of natural and moral cooperation 1) Natural cooperation (a) Altruistic helping (b) Mutualist collaboration 2) Human morality (a) Parallel human morality types: (i) Altruistic helping via compassion, concern, benevolence: ethic of the good / sympathy (ii) Mutualist collaboration via fairness: ethic of right / justice (b) Simplicity vs complexity (i) Sympathetic altruism is simpler and more basic: (i) Pure cooperation (ii) Proximate mechanisms: based in mammalian parental care / kin selection (ii) Fair collaboration is more complex: interactions of multiple individuals w/ different interests (i) “cooperativization of competition” (ii) Proximate mechanisms: moral emotions / judgments 1. Deservingness 2. Punishment: feelings of resentment / indignation toWard Wrong-doers 3. Accountability: judgments of responsibility, obligation, etc B) Goal of the book: evolutionary account of emergence of human morality of sympathy and fairness 1) Morality is “form of cooperation” (a) Emerging via human adaptation to neW social forms required by neW ecological / economic needs (b) Bringing With it “species-unique proximate mechanisms” or psychological processes (i) cognition (ii) social interaction (iii) self-regulation 2) Based on these assumptions, tWo goals: (a) Specify hoW human cooperation differs from other primates -
APA Pacific Division Meeting Program 2017
The American Philosophical Association PACIFIC DIVISION NINETY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING PROGRAM THE WESTIN SEATTLE SEATTLE, WASHINGTON APRIL 12 – 15, 2017 VIVA VOCE ENTANGLEMENTS Conversations with A System of Philosophy Italian Philosophers Crispin Sartwell Silvia Benso CENTERING NEO-CONFUCIAN AND EXTENDING ECOLOGICAL HUMANISM NEW FORMS An Essay on An Interpretive Engage- OF REVOLT Metaphysical Sense ment with Wang Fuzhi Essays on Kristeva’s Steven G. Smith (1619–1692) Intimate Politics Nicholas S. Brasovan Sarah K. Hansen and Available May 2017 Rebecca Tuvel, editors EDGAR ALLAN POE, Available June 2017 EUREKA, AND GOD AND THE SELF SCIENTIFIC IN HEGEL CONFUCIANISM, A IMAGINATION Beyond Subjectivism HABIT OF THE HEART David N. Stamos Paolo Diego Bubbio Bellah, Civil Religion, Available July 2017 and East Asia SELF-REALIZATION Philip J. Ivanhoe and THROUGH CONFUCIAN ZHUANGZI’S CRITIQUE Sungmoon Kim, editors LEARNING OF THE CONFUCIANS A Contemporary Blinded by the Human ESSAYS ON THE FOUN- Reconstruction of Kim-chong Chong DATIONS OF ETHICS Xunzi’s Ethics Siufu Tang WHITEHEAD’S C. I. Lewis RELIGIOUS THOUGHT John Lange, editor From Mechanism to Available June 2017 POETIC FRAGMENTS Organism, From Force Karoline von Günderrode to Persuasion THE VARIETY OF Translated and with Daniel A. Dombrowski INTEGRAL ECOLOGIES Introductory Essays by Nature, Culture, Anna C. Ezekiel CONFUCIANISM AND and Knowledge AMERICAN PHILOSOPHY in the Planetary Era MOUNTAINS, RIVERS, Mathew A. Foust Sam Mickey, Sean Kelly, AND THE GREAT EARTH and Adam Robbert, Reading -
Empathy and Altruism. the Hypothesis of Somasia
A Clinical Perspective on “Theory of Mind”, Empathy and Altruism The Hypothesis of Somasia Jean-Michel Le Bot PhD, University Rennes 2, Rennes doi: 10.7358/rela-2014-001-lebo [email protected] ABSTRACT The article starts by recalling the results of recent experiments that have revealed that, to a certain extent, the “ability to simultaneously distinguish between different possible perspec- tives on the same situation” (Decety and Lamm 2007) exists in chimpanzees. It then describes a case study of spatial and temporal disorientation in a young man following a cerebral lesion in order to introduce the hypothesis that this ability is based on a specific process of somasia. By permitting self-other awareness, this process also provides subjects with anchor points in time and space from which they can perform the mental decentring that enables them to adopt various perspectives. This process seems to be shared by humans and certain animal species and appears to be subdivided into the processing of the identity of experienced situa- tions, on the one hand, and of their unity on the other. The article concludes with a critique of overly reflexive and “representational” conceptions of theory of mind which do not distin- guish adequately between the ability to “theorise” about the mental states of others and the self-other awareness ability (which is automatic and non-reflexive). Keywords: Social cognition, theory of mind, empathy, altruism, neuropsychology, somasia, humans, animals, mental states, decentring. 1. INTRODUCTION In their seminal paper published in 1978, Premack and Woodruff stated that “an individual has a theory of mind [ToM] if he imputes mental states to himself and others” (Premack and Woodruff 1978). -
Tribal Social Instincts and the Cultural Evolution of Institutions to Solve Collective Action Problems
UC Riverside Cliodynamics Title Tribal Social Instincts and the Cultural Evolution of Institutions to Solve Collective Action Problems Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/981121t8 Journal Cliodynamics, 3(1) Authors Richerson, Peter Henrich, Joe Publication Date 2012 DOI 10.21237/C7clio3112453 Peer reviewed eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California Cliodynamics: the Journal of Theoretical and Mathematical History Tribal Social Instincts and the Cultural Evolution of Institutions to Solve Collective Action Problems Peter Richerson University of California-Davis Joseph Henrich University of British Columbia Human social life is uniquely complex and diverse. Much of that complexity and diversity arises from culturally transmitted ideas, values and skills that underpin the operation of social norms and institutions that structure our social life. Considerable theoretical and empirical work has been devoted to the role of cultural evolutionary processes in the evolution of social norms and institutions. The most persistent controversy has been over the role of cultural group selection and gene- culture coevolution in early human populations during Pleistocene. We argue that cultural group selection and related cultural evolutionary processes had an important role in shaping the innate components of our social psychology. By the Upper Paleolithic humans seem to have lived in societies structured by institutions, as do modern populations living in small-scale societies. The most ambitious attempts to test these ideas have been the use of experimental games in field settings to document human similarities and differences on theoretically interesting dimensions. These studies have documented a huge range of behavior across populations, although no societies so far examined follow the expectations of selfish rationality. -
May 2020 CURRICULUM VITAE Ray Jackendoff Center for Cognitive Studies Department of Philosophy Tufts University Medford, MA
May 2020 CURRICULUM VITAE Ray Jackendoff Center for Cognitive Studies Department of Philosophy Tufts University Medford, MA 02155 USA Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge, MA 02139 Telephone: 617-484-5394 E-mail: ray (dot)jackendoff(at)tufts(dot)edu Born: Chicago, IL, 23 January 1945 Academic training 1961-65 Swarthmore College (mathematics honors) B.A. 1965 1965-69 M.I.T. (linguistics) Ph.D. 1969 Thesis advisor: Noam Chomsky Teaching 1969-70 UCLA Lecturer 1971-73 Brandeis University Assistant Professor 1973-78 Brandeis University Associate Professor 1978-2006 Brandeis University Professor (Chair of Linguistics Program, 1972-1981) (Chair of Linguistics and Cognitive Science, 1981-1992, 2002-2006) 2006- Brandeis University Professor Emeritus 2005-2017 Tufts University Seth Merrin Professor of Humanities (Co-director, Center for Cognitive Studies) 2018- Tufts University Seth Merrin Professor Emeritus 1969 (summer) University of Illinois (LSA Linguistic Institute) 1974 (summer) University of Massachusetts, Amherst (LSA Linguistic Institute) 1980 (summer) University of New Mexico (LSA Linguistic Institute) 1987 University of Arizona (Visiting Professor) 1989 (summer) University of Arizona (LSA Linguistic Institute) 1996 (summer) Institute for Research in Cognitive Science, University of Pennsylvania 1999 (summer) University of Illinois (LSA Linguistic Institute) 2003 (summer) Michigan State University (Sapir Professor, LSA Linguistic Institute) 1 Research 1966 (summer) Technical Operations, -
Understanding and Sharing Intentions: the Origins of Cultural Cognition
BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (2005) 28, 000–000 Printed in the United States of America Understanding and sharing intentions: The origins of cultural cognition Michael Tomasello, Malinda Carpenter, Josep Call, Tanya Behne, and Henrike Moll Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, D-04103 Leipzig, Germany [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Abstract: We propose that the crucial difference between human cognition and that of other species is the ability to participate with others in collaborative activities with shared goals and intentions: shared intentionality. Participation in such activities requires not only especially powerful forms of intention reading and cultural learning, but also a unique motivation to share psychological states with oth- ers and unique forms of cognitive representation for doing so. The result of participating in these activities is species-unique forms of cultural cognition and evolution, enabling everything from the creation and use of linguistic symbols to the construction of social norms and individual beliefs to the establishment of social institutions. In support of this proposal we argue and present evidence that great apes (and some children with autism) understand the basics of intentional action, but they still do not participate in activities involving joint intentions and attention (shared intentionality). Human children’s skills of shared intentionality develop gradually during the first 14 months of life as two ontogenetic pathways intertwine: (1) the general ape line of understanding others as animate, goal-directed, and intentional agents; and (2) a species-unique motivation to share emotions, experience, and activities with other persons. -
DISCOVERING the DUKE CANINE COGNITION CENTER October 28-30, 2016
DISCOVERING THE DUKE CANINE COGNITION CENTER October 28-30, 2016 Forever Learning. Forever Duke. oin fellow alumni, family, and friends for an Learn what your dog is thinking when they stare at Jeducational weekend spent unlocking the secrets you, what senses they rely on most, and whether of the canine mind with evolutionary anthropologist they can read your mind. Bring every question and dog cognition expert, Brian Hare, at the Duke you have ever had about Canine Cognition Center (DCCC) on Duke’s campus. your dog and in a series of workshops, learn how Established in 2009, the DCCC is the first dog to develop a game that research center on a college campus in the United might lead to an answer. States and is internationally recognized for the Of course, there will be cutting edge studies investigating what goes on adorable dogs that will inside the minds of man’s best friend. The DCCC has help test your theories tested over two thousand dogs from Durham and and demonstrate their the surrounding communities with non-invasive, abilities. On Sunday, creative skill assessments that measure their Vanessa Woods, co- abilities and aptitudes in a variety of ways. With author of Dr. Hare’s New the highest acceptance rate and cheapest tuition York Times bestselling at Duke, the DCCC offers dog owners work, The Genius of the opportunity to participate in Dogs, will share new Who's here scientific discovery. For the first research from their time, you can also be part of that highly-anticipated for a journey. next book that will leave you belly rub? rethinking domestication and what it means to The weekend begins on Friday be human. -
Five-Year-Olds Understand Fair As Equal in a Mini-Ultimatum Game
Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 116 (2013) 324–337 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Experimental Child Psychology journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jecp Five-year-olds understand fair as equal in a mini-ultimatum game ⇑ Martina Wittig a,b, Keith Jensen a,c, , Michael Tomasello a a Department of Developmental and Comparative Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, D-04103 Leipzig, Germany b Department of Developmental Psychology, Institute for Psychology, University of Kassel, D-34121 Kassel, Germany c School of Psychological Sciences, University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL, UK article info abstract Article history: In studies of children’s resource distribution, it is almost always the Received 14 February 2012 case that ‘‘fair’’ means an equal amount for all. In the mini-ultima- Revised 6 June 2013 tum game, players are confronted with situations in which fair does not always mean equal, and so the recipient of an offer needs to take into account the alternatives the proposer had available to her or Keywords: him. Because of its forced-choice design, the mini-ultimatum game Ultimatum game Fairness measures sensitivity to unfair intentions in addition to unfair out- Inequity aversion comes. In the current study, we gave a mini-ultimatum game to Punishment 5-year-old children, allowing us to determine the nature of fairness Moral development sensitivity at a period after false belief awareness is typically passed Social decision making and before formal schooling begins. The only situation in which Norms responders rejected offers was when the proposer could have made Sharing an equal offer. -
Social Cognitive Evolution in Captive Foxes Is a Correlated By-Product of Experimental Domestication
Current Biology, Vol. 15, 226–230, February 8, 2005, 2005 Elsevier Ltd All rights reserved. DOI 10.1016/j.cub.2005.01.040 Social Cognitive Evolution in Captive Foxes Is a Correlated By-Product of Experimental Domestication Brian Hare,1,2,* Irene Plyusnina,3 Natalie Ignacio,1 test; Figure 1). The ten foxes tested in the control condi- Olesya Schepina,3 Anna Stepika,3 tion were unable to find the hidden food when no visual Richard Wrangham,1 and Lyudmila Trut3 cue was provided (t[9] ϭ 0.318, p ϭ NS, one-sample t 1Department of Anthropology test). In addition, when the foxes’ number of correct Harvard University choices from their first nine trials is compared to that Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138 of their second nine trials, there is no evidence that their 2 Max Plank Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology performance improved with experience during the test D-04103 Leipzig session (t ϭ 0.76, df ϭ 10, p ϭ NS, one-sample t test). Germany Similarly, it has been repeatedly shown that dogs, even 3 Institute of Cytology and Genetics as adults, are unable to find hidden food with olfactory Siberian Division of the Russian Academy cues in this same setting, and there is no evidence that of Science performance improves within a test session [5–8]. 630090 Novosibirsk In experiment two, 13 experimental foxes and 13 con- Russia trol foxes approached the experimenter (E) within the 3 min introduction trial. In addition, 17 experimental foxes and 16 control foxes approached the novel object Summary within the introduction trial. -
Evolution of Wisdom: Major and Minor Keys
EVOLUTION OF WISDOM: MAJOR AND MINOR KEYS AGUSTÍN FUENTES AND CELIA DEANE-DRUMMOND Center for Theology, Science, and Human Flourishing University of Notre Dame Evolution of Wisdom: Major and Minor Keys by Center for Theology, Science, and Human Flourishing is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted. Copyright © 2018 Center for Theology, Science, and Human Flourishing, University of Notre Dame CONTENTS Contents v Acknowledgements vii List of Contributors viii Introduction: Transdisciplinarity, Evolution, and Engaging Wisdom 1 Agustín Fuentes and Celia Deane-Drummond PART I. INTERDISCIPLINARY WISDOM 1. Independent Reason, Faith, and a Distinctively Human Wisdom 7 Angela Carpenter 2. Re-Engaging Theology and Evolutionary Biology: The Nature of True Wisdom 15 Nicola Hoggard Creegan 3. Human Origins and the Emergence of a Distinctively Human Imagination 25 J. Wentzel van Huyssteen PART II. EVOLUTIONARY NARRATIVES 4. Technological Intelligence or Social Wisdom? Promiscuous Sociality, Things, 41 and Networks in Human Evolution Fiona Coward 5. The Palaeolithic Archaeological Record and the Materiality of Imagination: A 57 Response to J. Wentzel van Huyssteen Jennifer French 6. How did Hominins become Human? 64 Marc Kissel PART III. WISDOM AND THE MIND 7. De-Centering Humans within Cognitive Systems 83 Marcus Baynes-Rock 8. Practical Wisdom: Good Reasoning or Good Action? 89 Craig IfGand 9. Concepts of Reason and Wisdom 96 Maureen Junker-Kenny 10. Wisdom and Freedom as Reason - Sensitive Action Control 104 Aku Visala PART IV. WISDOM IN THE MINOR KEY 11. Evolution in the Minor Key 115 Tim Ingold 12. A Response to Tim Ingold: Evolution in the Minor Key 124 Karen Kilby 13. -
Brian Hare’S Deutscher Platz
PERSONAL PORTRAIT EVOLUTIONARY ANTHROPOLOGY Brian BrianHare Hare he clipping from the German ing that fits in well at its location on The Max Planck researcher began Tnewspaper BILD on Brian Hare’s Deutscher Platz. Inside, life is inter- studying at the psychology depart- office door is a real eye-catcher. It national; it is the Max Planck Insti- ment of Emory University in Atlanta shows a photograph of the Ameri- tute with the largest percentage of and was thrilled. There were “cool can researcher with a fox, with a researchers from abroad. The five di- lectures” in psychology and anthro- short text below – “full of mis- rectors alone come from five differ- pology, and the student whose high takes,” as Hare comments. What was ent countries. No one really notices school grades were “not particularly a serious scientist like Hare doing in that Brian Hare speaks only a little outstanding” now garnered only the Germany’s most popular daily German. best marks. At Emory he met his tabloid? The article’s headline re- most important teacher: Michael PRACTICAL TRAINING IN THE veals the reason: “Foxes are the bet- (“Mike”) Tomasello, professor of psy- ECUADORIAN JUNGLE ter dogs,” it says. Brian Hare, born chology. Tomasello is one of the in 1976, investigates the social be- Hare was at the institute earlier, from founding Directors of the institute in havior of dogs, and man’s best 2001 to 2002, to collect data for his Leipzig and, as Director of the De- friend is always a good topic for a Ph.D. In 2004, he returned to Leipzig partment for Developmental Psy- wide audience.