Recently, we have witnessed an explosion of studies and discussions claiming that Neanderthals engaged in a range of “symbolic” behaviors, including personal ornament use (Radovčić et al., 2015), funerary practices (Balzeau et al., 2020), visual arts (Hoffmann et al., 2018), body aesthetics (Roebroeks et al., 2012), etc. In Paleolithic archaeology, it has become mainstream to axiomatically infer from these putative behaviors that Neanderthals engaged in symbol use and that Neanderthals thus possessed some form of language. Rudolf Botha's bombastic title (...) "Neanderthal Language: Demystifying the Linguistic Powers of Our Extinct Cousins" provides a detailed and very critical overview of the archaeological hypotheses and speculations about Neanderthal language. (shrink)

Guided by neuroscience, animal behavior, evolution, philosophy, and psychology, Asma burrows deep into the human psyche to look right at the enigmatic but powerful engine that is our improvisational creativity—the source, he argues, of our remarkable imaginational capacity. How is it, he asks, that a story can evoke a whole world inside of us? How are we able to rehearse a skill, a speech, or even an entire scenario simply by thinking about it? How does creativity go beyond experience and (...) help us make something completely new? And how does our moral imagination help us sculpt a better society? As he shows, we live in a world that is only partly happening in reality. Huge swaths of our cognitive experiences are made up by “what-ifs,” “almosts,” and “maybes,” an imagined terrain that churns out one of the most overlooked but necessary resources for our flourishing: possibilities. Considering everything from how imagination works in our physical bodies to the ways we make images, from the mechanics of language and our ability to tell stories to the creative composition of self-consciousness, Asma expands our personal and day-to-day forms of imagination into a grand scale: as one of the decisive evolutionary forces that has guided human development from the Paleolithic era to today. The result is an inspiring look at the rich relationships among improvisation, imagination, and culture, and a privileged glimpse into the unique nature of our evolved minds. (shrink)

According to cultural evolutionary theory in the tradition of Boyd and Richerson, cultural evolution is driven by individuals' learning biases, natural selection, and random forces. Learning biases lead people to preferentially acquire cultural variants with certain contents or in certain contexts. Natural selection favors individuals or groups with fitness-promoting variants. Durham (1991) argued that Boyd and Richerson's approach is based on a "radical individualism" that fails to recognize that cultural variants are often "imposed" on people regardless of their individual decisions. (...) Fracchia and Lewontin (2005) raised a similar challenge, suggesting that the success of a variant is often determined by the degree of power backing it. With power, a ruler can impose beliefs or practices on a whole population by diktat, rendering all of the forces represented in cultural evolutionary models irrelevant. It is argued here, based on work by Boehm (1999, 2012), that, from at least the time of the early Middle Paleolithic, human bands were controlled by powerful coalitions of the majority that deliberately guided the development of moral norms to promote the common good. Cultural evolutionary models of the evolution of morality have been based on false premises. However, Durham (1991) and Fracchia and Lewontin's (2005) challenge does not undermine cultural evolutionary modeling in nonmoral domains. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The philosophical tradition approaches to morals have their grounds predominantly on metaphysical and theological concepts and theories. Among the traditional ethics concepts, the most prominent is the Divine Command Theory (DCT). As per the DCT, God gives moral foundations to the humankind by its creation and through Revelation. Morality and Divinity are inseparable since the most remote civilization. These concepts submerge in a theological framework and are largely accepted by most followers of the three Abrahamic traditions: Judaism, Christianity, and (...) Islam: the greatest part of the human population. Holding faith and Revelation for its grounds, the Divine Command Theories are not strictly subject to the demonstration. The opponents to the Divine Command conception of morals, grounded in the impossibility of demonstration of its metaphysical and religious assumptions, have tried for many centuries (albeit unsuccessfully) to devalue its importance. They held the argument that it does not show material evidence and logical coherence and, for this reason, cannot be taken into account for scientific nor philosophical purposes. It is just a belief and, as so, should be understood. Besides these extreme oppositions, many other concepts contravene the Divine Command theories, in one or another way, in part or in full. Many philosophers and social scientists, from the classic Greek philosophy up to the present date, for instance, sustain that morality is only a construct, and thus culturally relative and culturally determined. However, this brings many other discussions and imposes the challenge to determine what is the meaning of culture, which elements of culture are morally determinant, and finally, what are the boundaries of such relativity. Moral determinists claim that everything related to human behavior, including morality, is determined, once free will does not exist. More recently, modern thinkers argued that there is a strict science of morality. However, the scientific method alone, despite explaining several facts and evidence, cannot enlighten the entire content and full meaning of ethics. Morals’ understanding requires a broader perception, and an agreement among philosophers, which they have never achieved. All of these questions have many different configurations depending on each philosophical strand, and start complex analysis and endless debates, as long as many of them are reciprocally conflictive. The universe and the atmosphere involving this thesis are the dominions of all these conceptual conflicts, observed from an objective and evolutionary standpoint. Irrespective of this circumstance and its intrinsic importance, however, these questions are far distant from the methodological approach of an analytical discussion on objective morals, what is, indeed, the aim and scope of this work. We should briefly revisit these prominent traditional theories because this thesis shelters a comparative study, and its assumptions at least differ profoundly from all traditional theories. Therefore, it becomes necessary offering direct and specific elements of comparison to the reader, for the right criticism, dispensing interruptive researches. However, even revisiting the traditional theories, for this comparative and critical exposure purpose, they will be kept by the side of our main concerns, as “aliena materia.” Irrespective of the validity of any or all of the elements of this discussion, and their meaning as the philosophical universe of this thesis, the purpose of this work is demonstrating and justifying the existence and meaning of prehistoric moral archetypes arisen directly from the very first social needs and efforts for survival. These archetypes are the definition of the essential foundation of ethics, its aggregation to the collective unconscious and corresponding logic organization and transmission to evolutionary stages of the human genome and different relations space-time, irrespective of any contemporary experience of the individuals. The system defined by these archetypes composes an evolutionary human social model. Is this a metaethical position? Yes, it is. Moreover, as in any metaethical reasoning, we should look carefully for the best and coherent routes, as the Analytical Philosophy offers them. Thus, this work should reasonably demonstrate that morals are not a cultural product of the civilized men or modern societies and that despite being subject to several cultural relative aggregations and subtractions, its essential foundations are archetypal and have never structurally changed. This reasoning induces that morality is an original attribute of the “homo sapiens”; it is not a property and nor an accident: it integrates the human essence and belongs to the realm of the ontological human identity. The human phenomena is a continuing process, playing its role between random determination and free will, and we need to question how morality began and how did it come to us in the present. (shrink)

According to some psychological studies, women approaching ovulation feel the increased desire to have short-term sexual affairs with “sexy cads” while they are in long-term relations with “good dads.” I argue that this psychological property is a vestige of our evolutionary history. Early hominid females occasionally acquired good genes from top-ranking males while they were in long-term relations with low-ranking males. The Paleolithic living conditions indicate that women with the foregoing psychological trait were more likely to have viable children (...) than those without it. Sexy cads are the descendents of the top-ranking males, and good dads are the descendents of the low-ranking males. Sexy cads and good dads will continue to coexist in the future, developing better methods to detect cheaters and to escape detection. (shrink)

Since the stone age humankind has created masterworks which possess a mysterious quality of solidity and grandeur or monumentality. A Paleolithic Venus and a still life by Cezanne both share this monumentality. Michelangelo likened monumentality to sculptural relief, Braque called monumentality 'space', and Hans Hoffman, himself one of the masters, called monumentality 'pictorial depth.' The masters agreed on the import of monumentality, but none of them left a clear explanation of it. In 1943 Earl Loran published his classic book (...) on Cezanne's pictorial structure but, as I demonstrate, his explanation was misleading. This book provide a clear explanation, as did an earlier book by Robert Casper. This book also traces some history of monumentality with reproductions. It also explains how some painters achieved monumentality and how a student can attempt it. Pictorial space is created in the tension between pairs of opposing planes. Opposing planes pull against each other, each containing the other, paradoxically, within the flat surface of the canvas. Sculpture also can be 'plastic': opposing masses pull against each other, each containing the other and creating tension in the space which lies between them. Painting has other aspects like subject matter, expression, style and technique but pictorial space does not depend on these. Monumentality moves us profoundly and apparently has done so since the Paleolith. Using patients' vignettes, I show that there are profound parallels between the structure of a monumental work of art and the structure of an evolving personality. In Winnicott's words, such a personality has 'depth ... an interior space to put beliefs in ... an inside ... a space where things can be held ... the capacity to accept paradox [to contain opposites] ... room and strength ... and originality and the acceptance of tradition as the basis for invention'. A monumental painting also meets this description. I argue that monumental art provides a visual portrait of an evolving personality just as myth, as Freud and Jung both showed, provides a narrative portrait of an evolving personality. An evolving personality is perhaps humankind's most important creation; an underlying purpose of both myth and art is to help us achieve it. I demonstrate in this book that monumental art represented the evolving personality since at least 35,000 BC. Thus to understand monumentality is to better understand the personality and its history. (shrink)

The Predynastic Period in Ancient Egypt is the time before recorded history from the Paleolithic to the Neolithic Age and on to the rise of the First Dynasty and is generally recognized as spanning the era from c. 6000-3150 BCE (though physical evidence argues for a longer history). While there are no written records from this period, archaeological excavations throughout Egypt have uncovered artifacts which tell their own story of the development of culture in the Nile River Valley. The (...) periods of the Predynastic Period are named for the regions/ancient city sites in which these artifacts were found and do not reflect the names of the cultures who actually lived in those areas. The Predynastic Period was given its name in the early days of archaeological expeditions in Egypt before many of the most important finds were discovered and catalogued which has led some scholars to argue over when, precisely, the Predynastic Period begins and, more importantly, ends. These scholars suggest the adoption of another designation, 'Protodynastic Period', for that span of time closer to the Early Dynastic Period (c. 3150-2613 BCE) or 'Zero. (shrink)

This article reconsiders the early hominid ‘‘lithic niche’’ by examining the social implications of stone artifact making. I reject the idea that making tools for use is an adequate explanation of the elaborate artifact forms of the Lower Palaeolithic, or a sufficient cause for long-term trends in hominid technology. I then advance an alternative mechanism founded on the claim that competency in making stone artifacts requires extended learning, and that excellence in artifact making is attained only by highly skilled individuals (...) who have been taught and practiced for extensive periods. Consequently both competency and expertise in knapping comes at a high learning cost for both the individual learner and the social group to which they belong. Those high intrinsic costs of learning created contexts in which groups selected cost-reducing forms of social learning and teaching, and in which specialization could develop. Artifacts and their manufacturing processes probably acquired functions as social signals—as honest signals of valuable capacities. The magnification of these signals, through competition between knappers and through inspiring later craftspeople, may account for a substantial amount of the accumulated elaboration visible in the archaeological record. Consequently lithic artifacts operated as material symbols from an early time in hominid evolution. (shrink)

Enneads I: 8.14 poses significant problems for scholars working in the Plotinian secondary literature. In that passage, Plotinus gives the impression that the body and not the soul is causally responsible for vice. The difficulty is that in many other sections of the same text, Plotinus makes it abundantly clear that the body, as matter, is a mere privation of being and therefore represents the lowest rung on the proverbial metaphysical ladder. A crucial aspect to Plotinus’s emanationism, however, is that (...) lower levels of a metaphysical hierarchy cannot causally influence higher ones and, thus, there is an inconsistency in the Egyptian’s magnum opus, or so it would seem. Scholars have sought to work through this paradox by positing that Plotinus is a “paleolithic Platonist” or Socratic. The advantage of this approach is that one may be able to resolve the tension by invoking Socrates’s eliminativist solution to the problem of weakness of will, as found in The Protagoras. In the following article, I argue that such attempts are not wrong-headed just underdetermined. They take up the standard reading of Socratic moral intellectualism, namely the “informational” interpretation and, therefore, fail to render a coherent view of Plotinus’s moral philosophy. The following paper, in contrast, utilizes a new reading of intellectualism advanced by Brickhouse and Smith, which, when subtended with a “powers approach” to causality, resolves the aforementioned, problematic passage of Enneads. (shrink)

Paleontological evidence suggests that human artefacts with intentional markings might have originated already in the Lower Paleolithic, up to 500.000 years ago and well before the advent of ‘behavioural modernity’. These markings apparently did not serve instrumental, tool-like functions, nor do they appear to be forms of figurative art. Instead, they display abstract geometric patterns that potentially testify to an emerging ability of symbol use. In a variation on Ian Hacking’s speculative account of the possible role of “likeness-making” in (...) the evolution of human cognition and language, this essay explores the central role that the embodied processes of making and the collective practices of using such artefacts might have played in early human cognitive evolution. Two paradigmatic findings of Lower Paleolithic artefacts are discussed as tentative evidence of likenesses acting as material scaffolds in the emergence of symbolic reference-making. They might provide the link between basic abilities of mimesis and imitation and the development of modern language and thought. (shrink)

In the present book, the starting line is defined by a morphogenetic perspective on human communication and culture. The focus is on visual communication, music, religion (myth), and language, i.e., on the “symbolic forms” at the heart of human cultures (Ernst Cassirer). The term “morphogenesis” has more precisely the meaning given by René Thom (1923-2002) in his book “Morphogenesis and Structural Stability” (1972) and the notions of “self-organization” and cooperation of subsystems in the “Synergetics” of Hermann Haken (1927- ). The (...) naturalization of communication and cultural phenomena is the favored strategy, but the major results of the involved disciplines (art history, music theory, religious science, and linguistics) are respected. Visual art from the Paleolithic to modernity stands for visual communication. The present book focuses on studies of classical painting and sculpture (e.g., Leonardo da Vinci, William Turner, and Henry Moore) and modern art (e.g., Jackson Pollock and Joseph Beuys). Musical morphogenesis embraces classical music (from J. S. Bach to Arnold Schönberg) and political songwriting (Bob Dylan, Leonhard Cohen). The myths of pre-literary societies show the effects of self-organization in the re-assembly (bricolage) of traditions. Classical polytheistic and monotheistic religions demonstrate the unfolding of basic germs (religious attractors) and their reduction in periods of crisis, the self-organization of complex religious networks, and rationalized macro-structures (in theologies). Significant tendencies are analyzed in the case of Buddhism and Christianism. Eventually, a holistic view of symbolic communication and human culture emerges based on state-of-the-art in evolutionary biology, cognitive science, linguistics, and semiotics (philosophy of symbolic forms). (shrink)

Gli approcci della tradizione filosofica alla morale si fondano prevalentemente su concetti e teorie metafisiche e teologiche. Tra i concetti etici tradizionali, il più importante è la Teoria del Comando Divino (DCT). Secondo la DCT, Dio dà fondamenti morali all’umanità attraverso la sua creazione e attraverso la Rivelazione. Moralità e Divinità sono inseparabili fin dalle civiltà più remote. Questi concetti si inseriscono in un quadro teologico e sono accettati principalmente dalla maggior parte dei seguaci delle tre tradizioni abramitiche: ebraismo, cristianesimo (...) e islam: la parte più considerevole della popolazione umana. Tenendo come fondamento la fede e la Rivelazione, le Teorie del Comando Divino non sono strettamente soggette alla dimostrazione. Gli oppositori alla concezione della morale del Comando Divino, fondata sull'impossibilità di dimostrare i suoi presupposti metafisici e religiosi, hanno tentato per molti secoli (anche se senza successo) di sminuirne l'importanza. Sostenevano che esso non presenta prove materiali e coerenza logica e, per questo motivo, non può essere preso in considerazione per scopi scientifici o filosofici. È solo una convinzione e, come tale, dovrebbe essere intesa. Oltre a queste opposizioni estreme, molti altri concetti contravvengono alle teorie del Comando Divino, in un modo o nell'altro, in parte o del tutto. Dalla filosofia greca classica fino ai giorni nostri, molti filosofi e scienziati sociali sostengono che la moralità è solo un costrutto e quindi culturalmente relativo e culturalmente determinato. Tuttavia, ciò apre la strada a molte altre discussioni e impone la sfida di determinare il significato della cultura, quali elementi della cultura siano moralmente determinanti e, infine, i confini di tale relatività. I deterministi morali affermano che tutto ciò che riguarda il comportamento umano, inclusa la moralità, è determinato una volta che il libero arbitrio non esiste. Più recentemente, i pensatori moderni hanno sostenuto che esiste una scienza rigorosa della moralità. Tuttavia, pur spiegando numerosi fatti e prove, il metodo scientifico da solo non può illuminare l’intero contenuto e il pieno significato dell’etica. La comprensione della morale richiede una percezione più ampia e un accordo tra i filosofi, cosa che essi non hanno mai raggiunto. Queste domande hanno molte configurazioni diverse a seconda di ciascun filone filosofico e danno origine ad analisi complesse e dibattiti infiniti finché molti di essi sono reciprocamente conflittuali. L'universo e l'atmosfera che coinvolgono questa ricerca sono i domini di tutti questi conflitti concettuali, osservati da un punto di vista oggettivo ed evolutivo. Indipendentemente da questa circostanza e dalla sua intrinseca importanza; tuttavia, queste domande sono lontane dall’approccio metodologico di una discussione analitica sulla morale oggettiva, che è, in effetti, lo scopo e la portata di questo lavoro. Dovremmo rivisitare brevemente queste importanti teorie tradizionali perché questo lavoro ospita uno studio comparativo e i suoi presupposti differiscono profondamente da tutte le teorie tradizionali. -/- Diventa quindi necessario offrire al lettore elementi di confronto diretti e specifici per una critica valida, dispensando ricerche interruttive. Tuttavia, anche rivisitando le teorie tradizionali, a questo scopo di esposizione comparativa e critica, esse verranno tenute ai margini delle nostre preoccupazioni primarie come “aliena materia”. Indipendentemente dalla validità di alcuni o tutti gli elementi di questa discussione e dal loro significato come universo filosofico della nostra ricerca, lo scopo di questo lavoro è dimostrare e giustificare l’esistenza e il significato degli archetipi morali preistorici sorti direttamente dal contesto sociale fondamentale e corrispondenti bisogni e sforzi per la sopravvivenza. Tali archetipi sono la definizione del fondamento essenziale dell'etica, la sua aggregazione all'inconscio collettivo e la corrispondente logica di organizzazione e trasmissione agli stadi evolutivi del genoma umano e dei diversi rapporti spazio-temporali, indipendentemente da qualsiasi esperienza contemporanea dei singoli individui. Il sistema definito da questi archetipi compone un modello sociale umano evolutivo. È questa una posizione meta etica? Sì. Inoltre, come in ogni ragionamento meta etico, bisognerebbe cercare attentamente i percorsi migliori e più coerenti, come offre la Filosofia Analitica. Pertanto, questo lavoro dovrebbe ragionevolmente dimostrare che la morale non è un prodotto culturale degli uomini civilizzati o delle società moderne. Pur essendo soggetto a molteplici aggregazioni e sottrazioni culturali, i suoi fondamenti essenziali sono archetipici e non sono mai strutturalmente mutati. Questo ragionamento induce che la moralità sia un primo attributo dell'“homo sapiens”; non è una proprietà né un accidente: integra l'essenza umana e appartiene all'identità ontologica umana. I fenomeni umani sono un processo continuo, che gioca il suo ruolo tra determinazione casuale e libero arbitrio, e dobbiamo chiederci come è iniziata la moralità e come è arrivata a noi nel presente. (shrink)

Usual narratives among prehistoric archaeologists consider typological approaches as part of a past and outdated episode in the history of research, subsequently replaced by technological, functional, chemical, and cognitive approaches. From a historical and conceptual perspective, this paper addresses several limits of these narratives, which (1) assume a linear, exclusive, and additive conception of scientific change, neglecting the persistence of typological problems; (2) reduce collective developments to personal work (e.g. the “Bordes’” and “Laplace’s” methods in France); and (3) presuppose the (...) coherence and identity of these “methods” over time. It explores the case of the “Structural and analytical typology” method, developed in France, Spain, and Italy from the 1950s to the 2000s by Georges Laplace and his collaborators for lithic implements. This paper (1) provides a detailed historical account of the evolving content of this collective endeavour over five decades; (2) it addresses the epistemological question of what makes the identity and unity of a scientific method, demonstrating that the core component of the “analytical typology” lies in its particular way to represent real-world phenomena through its notation system; and (3) it reveals how this little known but significant episode of advances in the methods and theory of archaeology, contemporary but independent of the “New Archaeology” trend in English-speaking archaeology, was instrumental in the continuation of evolutionary perspectives in France and in the development of quantitative and formal methods in archaeology in southwestern Europe, foreseeing crucial knowledge representation issues raised today by digital methods in archaeology and data curation. (shrink)