My main area of interest... — 2 years ago
Tomasello has just won the Jean Nicod Prize !
I think this branch of evolutionary cognitive psychology is the best contemporary research program on the problem of the development of human cognitions…
Tomasello (with many other ‘anthropologists’ close to cognitive science, such as Tim Ingold, having an appropriate education which is a combination of scientific and humanistic bases) invites us to consider the most important aspects of modern-day human cognition as “cultural evolved”, rather than biological (through changes in our genetic makeup caused by the mechanisms of biological evolution, most notably natural selection). This means that we are born with a fairly plastic mind that is shaped through experience, and the experiences that modern humans have benefit from the experiences of the humans who have come before us in the form of cumulative culture (interaction between each other and between them and the environment). This position is particularly interesting because it is the modern result of contributions coming at the same time from a group of psychologists, anthropologists, philosophers and neuroscientists, and of course because it may clear up the whole matter in a way never seen before…
