The way language as a human faculty has evolved is a question that preoccupies researchers from a wide spread of disciplines. In this book, a team of writers has been brought together to examine the evolution of language from a variety of such standpoints, including language's genetic basis, the anthropological context of its appearance, its formal structure, its relation to systems of cognition and thought, as well as its possible evolutionary antecedents. The book includes Hauser, Chomsky, and Fitch's seminal and (...) provocative essay on the subject, 'The Faculty of Language,' and charts the progress of research in this active and highly controversial field since its publication in 2002. This timely volume will be welcomed by researchers and students in a number of disciplines, including linguistics, evolutionary biology, psychology, and cognitive science. (shrink)

How is consciousness possible? What biological purpose does it serve? And why do we value it so highly? In Soul Dust, the psychologist Nicholas Humphrey, a leading figure in consciousness research, proposes a startling new theory. Consciousness, he argues, is nothing less than a magical-mystery show that we stage for ourselves inside our own heads. This self-made show lights up the world for us and makes us feel special and transcendent. Thus consciousness paves the way for spirituality, and allows us, (...) as human beings, to reap the rewards, and anxieties, of living in what Humphrey calls the "soul niche." Tightly argued, intellectually gripping, and a joy to read, Soul Dust provides answers to the deepest questions. It shows how the problem of consciousness merges with questions that obsess us all--how life should be lived and the fear of death. Resting firmly on neuroscience and evolutionary theory, and drawing a wealth of insights from philosophy and literature..."--Jacket. (shrink)

In Supersizing the Mind, Andy Clark argues that the human mind is not bound inside the head but extends into body and environment.

The question has long confounded philosophers and scientists, and it is this so-called explanatory gap between biological life and consciousness that Evan ...

The Embodied Mind provides a unique, sophisticated treatment of the spontaneous and reflective dimension of human experience.

I argue that an evolutionary adaptation for bodily mimesis, the volitional use of the body as a representational devise, is the “small difference” that gave rise to unique and yet pre-linguistic features of humanity such as imitation, pedagogy, intentional communication and the possibility of a cumulative, representational culture. Furthermore, it is this that made the evolution of language possible. In support for the thesis that speech evolved atop bodily mimesis and a transitional multimodal protolanguage, I review evidence for the extensive (...) presence of sound-symbolism in modern languages, for its psychological reality in adults, and for its contribution to language acquisition in children. On a meta-level, the argument is that dividing human cognitive-semiotic evolution into a sequence of stages is crucial for resolving classical dichotomies concerning human nature and language, which are both natural and cultural, both continuous with and discontinuous from those of animals. (shrink)

Contents: Barend van Heusden: A bandwidth model of semiotic evolution – Guido Ipsen: Evolution of culture and the history of the media – Edwina Taborsky: The evolution of semiosic dynamics – Dirk Siefkes: Semiosis as evolution in the development of mind and culture: Computer science as technical semiotics – Martina Plümacher: Dealing with the diversity of sign systems in human culture – J. Raymond Zimmer: Semiotic questions raised by the evolution of talk and the emergence of complex society – Wolfgang (...) Wildgen: The Paleolithic origins of art, its dynamic and topological aspects, and the transition to writing – Marcel Bax: Out of ritual. A semiolinguistic account of the origin and development of indirect language behavior – Valérie Bonnet: From alchemy to chemistry. A chapter in the evolution of chemical symbol systems – Bernhard Ridderbos: Mythic - religious - esthetic. Experiencing Bellini’s Brera-Pietà – Anne Magnussen: (Re)construction of the past as constitution of the present: The representation of francoism in Spain, 2000 – Elizabeth J. Brouwer: License to kill. Epistemological frames and animal consciousness – Michael Boyden: Culture is/as code? Semiotic and systemic perspectives – Marcel Bax/Barend van Heusden: Controversial issues in evolutionary semiotics: Epilogue. (shrink)

Based on recent articles, essays, and lectures of the author.

In this original and provocative account of the evolutionary origins of human communication, Michael Tomasello connects the fundamentally cooperative structure of human communication (initially discovered by Paul Grice) to the especially ...

In addition to recognizing the connection between aesthetic judgment and mindfulness to better understand the continuity between humans and nonhuman animals, a shift of the discussion of the origins of mind to the origins of mindfulness ...

This book explores issues at the core of modern linguistics and cognitive science. Why are all languages similar in some ways and in others utterly different? Why do languages change and change variably? How did the human capacity for language evolve, and how far did it do so as an innate ability? Simon Kirby looks at these questions from a broad perspective, arguing that they can be studied together. The author begins by examining how far the universal properties of language (...) may be explained by examining the way it is used, and how far by the way it is structured. He then considers what insights may be gained by combining functional and formal approaches. In doing so he develops a way of treating language as an adaptive system, in which its communicative and formal roles are both crucial and complementary. In order to test the effectiveness of competing theories and explanations, Simon Kirby develops computational models to show what universals emerge given a particular theory of language use or acquisition. He presents here both the methodology and the results. Function, Selection, and Innateness is important for its argument, its methodology, and its conclusions. It is a powerful demonstration of the value of looking at language as an adaptive system and goes to the heart of current debates on the evolution and nature of language. (shrink)

Ideas about heredity and evolution are undergoing a revolutionary change. New findings in molecular biology challenge the gene-centered version of Darwinian theory according to which adaptation occurs only through natural selection of chance DNA variations. In Evolution in Four Dimensions, Eva Jablonka and Marion Lamb argue that there is more to heredity than genes. They trace four "dimensions" in evolution -- four inheritance systems that play a role in evolution: genetic, epigenetic, behavioral, and symbolic. These systems, they argue, can all (...) provide variations on which natural selection can act. Evolution in Four Dimensions offers a richer, more complex view of evolution than the gene-based, one-dimensional view held by many today. The new synthesis advanced by Jablonka and Lamb makes clear that induced and acquired changes also play a role in evolution.After discussing each of the four inheritance systems in detail, Jablonka and Lamb "put Humpty Dumpty together again" by showing how all of these systems interact. They consider how each may have originated and guided evolutionary history and they discuss the social and philosophical implications of the four-dimensional view of evolution. Each chapter ends with a dialogue in which the authors engage the contrarieties of the fictional "I.M.," or Ifcha Mistabra -- Aramaic for "the opposite conjecture" -- refining their arguments against I.M.'s vigorous counterarguments. The lucid and accessible text is accompanied by artist-physician Anna Zeligowski's lively drawings, which humorously and effectively illustrate the authors' points. (shrink)

How is consciousness possible? What biological purpose does it serve? And why do we value it so highly? In Soul Dust, the psychologist Nicholas Humphrey, a leading figure in consciousness research, proposes a startling new theory. Consciousness, he argues, is nothing less than a magical-mystery show that we stage for ourselves inside our own heads. This self-made show lights up the world for us and makes us feel special and transcendent. Thus consciousness paves the way for spirituality, and allows us, (...) as human beings, to reap the rewards, and anxieties, of living in what Humphrey calls the "soul niche." Tightly argued, intellectually gripping, and a joy to read, Soul Dust provides answers to the deepest questions. It shows how the problem of consciousness merges with questions that obsess us all--how life should be lived and the fear of death. Resting firmly on neuroscience and evolutionary theory, and drawing a wealth of insights from philosophy and literature, Soul Dust is an uncompromising yet life-affirming work--one that never loses sight of the majesty and wonder of consciousness. (shrink)

"... serious scholars of Vico as well as glottogeneticists will find much of value in this excellent monograph." -- New Vico Studies "... a provocative, well-researched argument which might find reapplication in the fields of anthropology, semiotics, archeology, psychology or even philosophy." -- Theological Book Review Danesi returns to the work of the 18th-century Italian philosopher Giambattista Vico to create a persuasive, original account of the evolution and development of language, one of the deep mysteries of human existence. The Vichian (...) reconstruction of the origin of language is described at length, then evaluated in light of contemporary research in the cognitive, social, and biological sciences. (shrink)

Thomas Sebeok and Noam Chomsky are the acknowledged founding fathers of two research fields which are known respectively as Biosemiotics and Biolinguistics and which have been developed in parallel during the past 50 years. Both fields claim that language has biological roots and must be studied as a natural phenomenon, thus bringing to an end the old divide between nature and culture. In addition to this common goal, there are many other important similarities between them. Their definitions of language, for (...) example, have much in common, despite the use of different terminologies. They both regard language as a faculty, or a modelling system, that appeared rapidly in the history of life and probably evolved as an exaptation from previous animal systems. Both accept that the fundamental characteristic of language is recursion, the ability to generate an unlimited number of structures from a finite set of elements (the property of ‘discrete infinity’). Both accept that human beings are born with a predisposition to acquire language in a few years and without apparent efforts (the innate component of language). In addition to similarities, however, there are also substantial differences between the two fields, and it is an historical fact that Sebeok and Chomsky made no attempt at resolving them. Biosemiotics and Biolinguistics have become two separate disciplines, and yet in the case of language they are studying the same phenomenon, so it should be possible to bring them together. Here it is shown that this is indeed the case. A convergence of the two fields does require a few basic readjustments in each of them, but leads to a unified framework that keeps the best of both disciplines and is in agreement with the experimental evidence. What is particularly important is that such a framework suggests immediately a new approach to the origin of language. More precisely, it suggests that the brain wiring processes that take place in all phases of human ontogenesis (embryonic, foetal, infant and child development) are based on organic codes, and it is the step-by-step appearance of these brain-wiring codes, in a condition that is referred to as cerebra bifida, that holds the key to the origin of language. (shrink)

In this, the first of two ground-breaking volumes on the nature of language in the light of the way it evolved, James Hurford looks at how the world first came ...

Although ontogeny cannot recapitulate phylogeny, a two-level model of the acquisition of language will be here proposed and its implication for the evolution of the faculty of language will be discussed. It is here proposed that the identification of the cognitive requirements of language during ontogeny could help us in the task of identifying the phylogenetic achievements that concurred, at some point, to the acquisition of language during phylogeny. In this model speaking will be considered as a complex ability that (...) arises in two different steps. The first step of competence widely relies on a bodily-based format of knowledge. The second step relies on more abstract meta-representations and implies high-level socio-cognitive skills. It is hypothesized that in order to reach the second level of language competence, symbolic communication and interaction with a cultural community are needed. Hence, the origins of species-specific human complex language and cognition are in both the brain and culture. Moreover, in this model, data from the embodied language research will be discussed in the light of a usage-based account of language. (shrink)

The question of language development and origin is a subject that is vital to our understanding of what it means to be human. This is reflected in the large range of academic disciplines that are dedicated to the subject. Language development has in particular been related to studies in cognitive capacity and the ability for mind reading, often termed a theory of mind. The Social Brain Hypothesis has been the only attempt to correlate a cognitive scale of complexity incorporating a (...) theory of mind and intentionality orders to the archaeological record and hominin phylogeny. However, a method is still lacking that allows a correlation of the orders of intentionality (and by inference a theory of mind and language development) to the archaeological signatures that represent the physical expression of hominin behaviour. This paper is primarily concerned with introducing a new theoretical perspective – termed the identity model – which facilitates such a correlation between a scale of cognitive acuity, hominin behaviour through the archaeological record and subsequently language development within an evolutionary context. (shrink)