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Origins of Human Communication
A leading expert on evolution and communication presents an empirically based theory of the evolutionary origins of human communication that challenges the dominant Chomskian view. Human communication is grounded in fundamentally cooperative, even shared, intentions. 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 cooperative structure of human (as opposed to other primate) social interaction. Tomasello argues that human cooperative communication rests on a psychological infrastructure of shared intentionality (joint attention, common ground), evolved originally for collaboration and culture more generally. The basic motives of the infrastructure are helping and humans communicate to request help, inform others of things helpfully, and share attitudes as a way of bonding within the cultural group. These cooperative motives each created different functional pressures for conventionalizing grammatical constructions. Requesting help in the immediate you-and-me and here-and-now, for example, required very little grammar, but informing and sharing required increasingly complex grammatical devices. Drawing on empirical research into gestural and vocal communication by great apes and human infants (much of it conducted by his own research team), Tomasello argues further that humans' cooperative communication emerged first in the natural gestures of pointing and pantomiming. Conventional communication, first gestural and then vocal, evolved only after humans already possessed these natural gestures and their shared intentionality infrastructure along with skills of cultural learning for creating and passing along jointly understood communicative conventions. Challenging the Chomskian view that linguistic knowledge is innate, Tomasello proposes instead that the most fundamental aspects of uniquely human communication are biological adaptations for cooperative social interaction in general and that the purely linguistic dimensions of human communication are cultural conventions and constructions created by and passed along within particular cultural groups.
413 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1999
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1160 people want to read
About the author
Michael Tomasello
44 books160 followersMichael Tomasello is an American developmental and comparative psychologist. He is a co-director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany.
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Displaying 1 - 28 of 28 reviews
May 22, 2020
Tomasello lays out a very plausible and radical theory of the phylogenetic origins of language, in this highly readable and absorbing book. This question of language's origins has implications for the essential functions of our natural languages, the nature of semantic meaning, and the social character of our species. His theory can show that we are interconnected in a very deep manner that is not evident, especially in our contemporary individualistic and materialist-scientific culture. I will return to this last point, after summarizing the key points in the chapters of this book.
The basic thesis is that our natural languages evolutionarily originated in hand signing and gesture, and the possibilities of semantic meaning depend on our "common ground," or shared background knowledge and experienced (based in general cultural knowledge or individual shared experiences). For example, we are out on a walk together, and I point to the sky. The semantic meaning of this gesture depends on our common ground. If we had just been talking about how good the weather is today, this gesture might express the meaning 'indeed the weather is great, look how sunny is is'. If instead we had been having an existentialist conversation about how insignificant and fragile humanity is, this gesture might instead have the meaning 'yes, these heavens and the universe are so immense, and we humans are nothing.' This explanation of semantic meaning applies to verbal, linguistic utterances, too, though the full explanation is of course much more complicated than this.
Tomasello lays out this basic account in the first chapter.
In the second chapter, Tomasello reviews scientific findings regarding communication in the great ape species. Apes are able to perform simple 'mind-reading'; they know others have intentional states and can be sensitive to those. So they are capable of intentional communication. Speakers have a sense of the recipient's state and can address them accordingly, and recipients know that the speaker's communicative motions are directed towards them specifically. The majority of communication, and the most sophisticated forms of communication, all happen in their practices of gesturing and signing. Apes can gesture, wait for the recipient's reactions, and modulate their gestures in response. The vast majority of their gestures are used to get attention or to make demands. Vocalizations, in contrast, express only basic emotions and are purely causal consequences of being overtaken by certain emotions (i.e., fear).
Out of their gestural repertoire, certain cases of gestures to get others' attention are the most sophisticated and the likely phylogenetic antecedent for human communication. Apes can direct others' attention to objects in their environment. There is some action the speaker wants from the recipient, and the speaker draws the recipient's attention to the object to get this done; the speaker will adjust and change her gestures if the recipient doesn't respond according to her desires. This communicative move implies a capacity for symbolism; different gestures can be used to symbolize or represent some goal. In contrast, the majority of gestural communication lacks this symbolic dimension. It mostly consists in apes performing the first steps of an action sequence, and the recipient's recognition that this entire action is intended. In that case, there is no symbolization; these steps are a literal part of the action sequence.
From chapters 3-6, Tomasello goes into human communication. Tomasello's thesis is that the singular, major skill that humans gained over apes and that makes all the difference in our language is our human capacity for joint intentionality. When A and B form a joint goal, A knows that B is aware of what A knows, and of the fact that A knows what B is aware of. Joint intentionality is defined by this recursive structure, or 'back-and-forthing', of each other's intentional states. This capacity enables us to be especially sensitive to one another's background and to form greater common ground. This common ground the shared background knowledge and experience that can serve as the communicative context, in which simple gestures and signs can possibly gain complex meaning.
Tomasello tells an evolutionary story for how we became capable of joint intentionality. Apes are capable of collaborative activity, but it is not properly coordinative. They often hunt together as groups, but they never form action plans beforehand, and each ape's behavior is geared solely for the maximization of their individual benefit (not for the benefit of the group). This comes out in the fact that when a group succeeds in attaining its prey, individuals will try their best to secure as much food as they can for solely themselves; there is no motivation or cognitive capacity to distribute foods evenly. Given this inequity, apes are each motivated to be the one who kills the prey first, so they can have the biggest chance to secure the most food for themselves. This makes it impossible for groups to function in the most effective way to secure their goal; they decrease their chances as a group for attaining prey.
Tomasello speculates that our evolutionary ancestors became capable of agreeing on sharing the spoils equally among themselves. If this equal distribution is guaranteed, then individuals in a group would be freed to engage in the actions that would be most effective for the group as a whole. Mutually helpful behaviors become increasingly possible; our ancestors could develop greater motivations to help one another out, since this would benefit the group and thereby themselves as a whole.
Apes are capable only of requesting (or more like demanding) from others. Humans, in contrast, are capable of informing and sharing; we can offer advice and information to help one another, and we enjoy letting others in on the things we appreciate, so we can appreciate these things together. This makes Gricean communicative intent possible: I want you to notice that I purposefully intend to let you know about X. It is not just that I want you to know about X. This is the basis of joint intentionality. It is the starting point for us to form strong coordinative groups, social identities and cultures, and massive common ground; which is all requisite for the rich natural language distinctive of humans.
Parts of the book I have not summarized include Tomasello's review of the empirical literature on language formation in human infants, which amounts to the ontogenetic story of language. That is the focus of chapter 4. Tomasello also gives an account of how our full-blown natural languages might arise from the basic gestural communication that he accounts for in the phylogenetic story. That happens in chapter 6.
I'd highly recommend this book to anymore interested why humans are distinct from other organisms, and what makes our natural language categorically different from the communicative systems of other organisms. The book is very easy to read and presents deep ideas. Its various parts fit systematically together, and the writing is rarely redundant.
I'd like to write a bit on a consequence of all of this, which Tomasello briefly raises in the conclusion. Whenever we apprehend a case of language use (e.g., as I write out this sentence, and it is intelligible to me), the intelligibility and meaning of the language is based in this common ground we share with one another. This common ground consists in all the objects and events that we have jointly attended to; we have had shared experiences of these things, recognize that we share them, and intend for each other to recognize that we each intend for each other to share them. Thus the meaning of this sentence I'm writing is founded in intersubjective experiences; it is not strictly "I" who am speaking, but the possibilities of what I say are given by social groups or partners of which I have been participant. Poetically speaking, it is humans coalesced via joint intentionality who speak through my tongue; it is not any individual person, not I or you, who says my words. I don't know what this means on the literal register yet, and look forward to thinking about it more.
The basic thesis is that our natural languages evolutionarily originated in hand signing and gesture, and the possibilities of semantic meaning depend on our "common ground," or shared background knowledge and experienced (based in general cultural knowledge or individual shared experiences). For example, we are out on a walk together, and I point to the sky. The semantic meaning of this gesture depends on our common ground. If we had just been talking about how good the weather is today, this gesture might express the meaning 'indeed the weather is great, look how sunny is is'. If instead we had been having an existentialist conversation about how insignificant and fragile humanity is, this gesture might instead have the meaning 'yes, these heavens and the universe are so immense, and we humans are nothing.' This explanation of semantic meaning applies to verbal, linguistic utterances, too, though the full explanation is of course much more complicated than this.
Tomasello lays out this basic account in the first chapter.
In the second chapter, Tomasello reviews scientific findings regarding communication in the great ape species. Apes are able to perform simple 'mind-reading'; they know others have intentional states and can be sensitive to those. So they are capable of intentional communication. Speakers have a sense of the recipient's state and can address them accordingly, and recipients know that the speaker's communicative motions are directed towards them specifically. The majority of communication, and the most sophisticated forms of communication, all happen in their practices of gesturing and signing. Apes can gesture, wait for the recipient's reactions, and modulate their gestures in response. The vast majority of their gestures are used to get attention or to make demands. Vocalizations, in contrast, express only basic emotions and are purely causal consequences of being overtaken by certain emotions (i.e., fear).
Out of their gestural repertoire, certain cases of gestures to get others' attention are the most sophisticated and the likely phylogenetic antecedent for human communication. Apes can direct others' attention to objects in their environment. There is some action the speaker wants from the recipient, and the speaker draws the recipient's attention to the object to get this done; the speaker will adjust and change her gestures if the recipient doesn't respond according to her desires. This communicative move implies a capacity for symbolism; different gestures can be used to symbolize or represent some goal. In contrast, the majority of gestural communication lacks this symbolic dimension. It mostly consists in apes performing the first steps of an action sequence, and the recipient's recognition that this entire action is intended. In that case, there is no symbolization; these steps are a literal part of the action sequence.
From chapters 3-6, Tomasello goes into human communication. Tomasello's thesis is that the singular, major skill that humans gained over apes and that makes all the difference in our language is our human capacity for joint intentionality. When A and B form a joint goal, A knows that B is aware of what A knows, and of the fact that A knows what B is aware of. Joint intentionality is defined by this recursive structure, or 'back-and-forthing', of each other's intentional states. This capacity enables us to be especially sensitive to one another's background and to form greater common ground. This common ground the shared background knowledge and experience that can serve as the communicative context, in which simple gestures and signs can possibly gain complex meaning.
Tomasello tells an evolutionary story for how we became capable of joint intentionality. Apes are capable of collaborative activity, but it is not properly coordinative. They often hunt together as groups, but they never form action plans beforehand, and each ape's behavior is geared solely for the maximization of their individual benefit (not for the benefit of the group). This comes out in the fact that when a group succeeds in attaining its prey, individuals will try their best to secure as much food as they can for solely themselves; there is no motivation or cognitive capacity to distribute foods evenly. Given this inequity, apes are each motivated to be the one who kills the prey first, so they can have the biggest chance to secure the most food for themselves. This makes it impossible for groups to function in the most effective way to secure their goal; they decrease their chances as a group for attaining prey.
Tomasello speculates that our evolutionary ancestors became capable of agreeing on sharing the spoils equally among themselves. If this equal distribution is guaranteed, then individuals in a group would be freed to engage in the actions that would be most effective for the group as a whole. Mutually helpful behaviors become increasingly possible; our ancestors could develop greater motivations to help one another out, since this would benefit the group and thereby themselves as a whole.
Apes are capable only of requesting (or more like demanding) from others. Humans, in contrast, are capable of informing and sharing; we can offer advice and information to help one another, and we enjoy letting others in on the things we appreciate, so we can appreciate these things together. This makes Gricean communicative intent possible: I want you to notice that I purposefully intend to let you know about X. It is not just that I want you to know about X. This is the basis of joint intentionality. It is the starting point for us to form strong coordinative groups, social identities and cultures, and massive common ground; which is all requisite for the rich natural language distinctive of humans.
Parts of the book I have not summarized include Tomasello's review of the empirical literature on language formation in human infants, which amounts to the ontogenetic story of language. That is the focus of chapter 4. Tomasello also gives an account of how our full-blown natural languages might arise from the basic gestural communication that he accounts for in the phylogenetic story. That happens in chapter 6.
I'd highly recommend this book to anymore interested why humans are distinct from other organisms, and what makes our natural language categorically different from the communicative systems of other organisms. The book is very easy to read and presents deep ideas. Its various parts fit systematically together, and the writing is rarely redundant.
I'd like to write a bit on a consequence of all of this, which Tomasello briefly raises in the conclusion. Whenever we apprehend a case of language use (e.g., as I write out this sentence, and it is intelligible to me), the intelligibility and meaning of the language is based in this common ground we share with one another. This common ground consists in all the objects and events that we have jointly attended to; we have had shared experiences of these things, recognize that we share them, and intend for each other to recognize that we each intend for each other to share them. Thus the meaning of this sentence I'm writing is founded in intersubjective experiences; it is not strictly "I" who am speaking, but the possibilities of what I say are given by social groups or partners of which I have been participant. Poetically speaking, it is humans coalesced via joint intentionality who speak through my tongue; it is not any individual person, not I or you, who says my words. I don't know what this means on the literal register yet, and look forward to thinking about it more.
December 20, 2018
Michael Tomasello é psicólogo de desenvolvimento e diretor do Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, e apesar da sua investigação não ser na Comunicação, o seu trabalho, e em particular este livro, “Origins of Human Communication” (2008), é um contributo fundamental para a compreensão daquilo de que a Comunicação é feita. A pergunta de partida é muito simples: sendo os chimpanzés reconhecidamente tão inteligentes, porque é que eles não falam?
Continuar a ler:
https://virtual-illusion.blogspot.com...
Continuar a ler:
https://virtual-illusion.blogspot.com...
May 8, 2011
A very convincing account of how the language might have emerged from a cognitive/functional perspective. The hypothesis is that the spoken language must have developed only after there was some kind of gesture language which combined pointing and iconic gestures. Although other mammals, in particular apes, use gestures to communicate, experiments show that they all lack shared intentionality and "bird-view" perspective on the processes they are involved in. These in turn are prerequisites for recursive mind-reading (understanding what the others know and what they know that I know, etc.) and even grammar (each activity or process defines roles which are filled by participants). A few things I found hard to believe though, like that animals simply synchronize their activities without ever understanding that they have a shared goal towards which they are working together. This seems to run counter to what is known about ants and bees.
August 6, 2016
Result of more than 20 years of comparative experiment in apes and human psychology, this book highlights the cooperative and collaborative roots of human thought and language, in a manner that classical, theoretical sociologists and anthropologists, building and justifiying collective concepts as they were, could only have dreamt of.
A book of the first importance in science and moral reasoning at large.
A book of the first importance in science and moral reasoning at large.
May 21, 2012
Excellent and original book on language in which he designates the sharing of intentions as its central hallmark.
August 16, 2020
If Chomsky's discontinuity view lies on an end of a spectrum, this book argues for an idea that lies on the opposite end. I appreciate that the arguments put forward in this book are experimentally backed, which leaves little room for conceptual proposals.
It's good to read about opposing views on language evolution. I have read a great deal of what the formalists had to say about this matter, and I started my reading list on the functionalists' view with this book. I was hoping that this book would address generativists' argument against the continuity theory, which this book adopts. For example, generativists claim that communicative efficiency loses out to computational efficiency as observed in the universal property of displacement. Generativists claim that the property of displacement taxes cognitive resources that are otherwise available, and, hence if language had evolved only to serve as a communicative tool, we would expect linguistic operations to be performed with a minimal demand of cognitive resources. I guess it's the reader's job to connect the dots.
It's good to read about opposing views on language evolution. I have read a great deal of what the formalists had to say about this matter, and I started my reading list on the functionalists' view with this book. I was hoping that this book would address generativists' argument against the continuity theory, which this book adopts. For example, generativists claim that communicative efficiency loses out to computational efficiency as observed in the universal property of displacement. Generativists claim that the property of displacement taxes cognitive resources that are otherwise available, and, hence if language had evolved only to serve as a communicative tool, we would expect linguistic operations to be performed with a minimal demand of cognitive resources. I guess it's the reader's job to connect the dots.
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May 4, 2021I wonder where writing fits in. Symbols & structures can also say so much. A carcass eaten would mean a predator near by. Gestures seem so universal that it wouldn't be enough to give human's much of an advantage over other species.
I find it odd that beavers build dams but gorillas don't build shelter from the weather. Instead they stick to certain climate ranges.
I find it odd that beavers build dams but gorillas don't build shelter from the weather. Instead they stick to certain climate ranges.
August 16, 2012
Wonderful book
January 2, 2015
A fairly easy read, and nice enough if you keep in mind it's mainly rethoric and not concrete evidence-based arguments all the time.
June 8, 2017
The book description is enough to know and it is stated with greater precision than I can muster. I will be reading all of this man's titles. Enough said.
October 17, 2020
Interesting perspective of how human communication came to be.
February 19, 2025
Overall a very interesting book - I liked the emphasis on cooperation, intentionality, and common knowledge as human abilities that played into the development of language.
However, I was frustrated by his frameworks for human and primate cognition. He discusses various cognitive skills eg. agent/object identification, formation of goals, shared intentionality, role reversal, "birds-eye view", recognition of icons, creation of narratives, etc. Whenever he needs a new one in his argument, he basically says "it would be useful, so it evolved". He ends up constantly assuming that the cognitive skills run ahead of the language - humans first gained the ability to think of narratives, and then they struggled to gain the tools in their external language to express them. In other words, while he was quite good about a dialectical relationship between cultural versus biological evolution, his model for the relationship between cognitive skills (or perhaps "internal language") versus "external language" was unidirectional.
Due to this, I think his arguments against Chomskyian universal grammar fall a bit flat. This is unfortunate, as I was hoping for a more solid take-down. Perhaps they succeed against early forms of Chomsky's work where there was supposed to be a universal grammar identifiable in external language, but the shift towards a universal grammar for the internal language of thought means that Chomsky has ended up on an exclusively cognitive plane that Tomasello 1) relies upon insofar as he doesn't banish cognition from his arguments and 2) doesn't address within any coherent framework that could structure or limit which directions of evolution were possible, whether skills on this cognitive plane could develop gradually or had to develop all at once, etc.
I also found myself unconvinced by his argument that gestural language was a necessary intermediate between primate communication and human vocalized language. His discussions of Nicaraguan sign language and early childhood gestures do make it plausible, humans certainly are very skilled at gestural communication. But he relied at a crucial point on Quine's "gavagai" thought-experiment, whereby merely pointing at a running rabbit is not enough to convey the specific meaning of "gavagai" - does it mean rabbits? animals? running? Tomasello suggests that this limitation of mere pointing could only be avoided via iconographic imitation. That seems silly to me - why couldn't pointing more than once in different scenarios help clarify a word's meaning?
I'd argue that this is related Tomasello's total lack of discussion of what seems to be a crucial cognitive skill - ABSTRACTION. It was this ability, not grammar, which was used by Enlightenment philosophers, relying on Aristotle and Plato, used to distinguish between the irrational animals and the rational humans. As Herder puts it, each animal species only has a fixed, Finite collection of words, while humans have the cognitive ability to create an Infinity of new distinctions in their language of thought, which then they can, with some struggle, externalize. Tomasello agrees with Herder insofar as animal vocal language is concerned, but his discussion of primate gestural language takes some amount of abstraction for granted, which may be how he thinks he can assume it without any further discussion.
I absolutely think it is very important to break down various assumptions of the Philosophers' View: can humans abstract as perfectly as the philosophers assume? surely not. can animals abstract to some extent? surely. is abstraction itself a single cognitive skill or are there different types? probably the latter. But Tomasello's cognitive frameworks, largely based on analytic language philosophy (and not as Wittgensteinian as his many quotations from W. would suggest), simply take abstraction for granted.
However, I was frustrated by his frameworks for human and primate cognition. He discusses various cognitive skills eg. agent/object identification, formation of goals, shared intentionality, role reversal, "birds-eye view", recognition of icons, creation of narratives, etc. Whenever he needs a new one in his argument, he basically says "it would be useful, so it evolved". He ends up constantly assuming that the cognitive skills run ahead of the language - humans first gained the ability to think of narratives, and then they struggled to gain the tools in their external language to express them. In other words, while he was quite good about a dialectical relationship between cultural versus biological evolution, his model for the relationship between cognitive skills (or perhaps "internal language") versus "external language" was unidirectional.
Due to this, I think his arguments against Chomskyian universal grammar fall a bit flat. This is unfortunate, as I was hoping for a more solid take-down. Perhaps they succeed against early forms of Chomsky's work where there was supposed to be a universal grammar identifiable in external language, but the shift towards a universal grammar for the internal language of thought means that Chomsky has ended up on an exclusively cognitive plane that Tomasello 1) relies upon insofar as he doesn't banish cognition from his arguments and 2) doesn't address within any coherent framework that could structure or limit which directions of evolution were possible, whether skills on this cognitive plane could develop gradually or had to develop all at once, etc.
I also found myself unconvinced by his argument that gestural language was a necessary intermediate between primate communication and human vocalized language. His discussions of Nicaraguan sign language and early childhood gestures do make it plausible, humans certainly are very skilled at gestural communication. But he relied at a crucial point on Quine's "gavagai" thought-experiment, whereby merely pointing at a running rabbit is not enough to convey the specific meaning of "gavagai" - does it mean rabbits? animals? running? Tomasello suggests that this limitation of mere pointing could only be avoided via iconographic imitation. That seems silly to me - why couldn't pointing more than once in different scenarios help clarify a word's meaning?
I'd argue that this is related Tomasello's total lack of discussion of what seems to be a crucial cognitive skill - ABSTRACTION. It was this ability, not grammar, which was used by Enlightenment philosophers, relying on Aristotle and Plato, used to distinguish between the irrational animals and the rational humans. As Herder puts it, each animal species only has a fixed, Finite collection of words, while humans have the cognitive ability to create an Infinity of new distinctions in their language of thought, which then they can, with some struggle, externalize. Tomasello agrees with Herder insofar as animal vocal language is concerned, but his discussion of primate gestural language takes some amount of abstraction for granted, which may be how he thinks he can assume it without any further discussion.
I absolutely think it is very important to break down various assumptions of the Philosophers' View: can humans abstract as perfectly as the philosophers assume? surely not. can animals abstract to some extent? surely. is abstraction itself a single cognitive skill or are there different types? probably the latter. But Tomasello's cognitive frameworks, largely based on analytic language philosophy (and not as Wittgensteinian as his many quotations from W. would suggest), simply take abstraction for granted.
October 1, 2023
Based on empirical research involving humans and great apes, Michael Tomasello proposes that human language emerged from the need for communication as part of collaboration. Collaboration and shared intentionality that it came to entail, was the basis. He does not think that language began as vocalizations, since the ability to refer to specific things is required, and how does one indicate that using just sound without a prior basis of meaning? Instead, gestures, and in particular pointing, is more likely as the precursor of language, in Tomasello's view.
Human communication is based on biological adaptions to the need for cooperative social interaction, and it relies heavily of cultural inheritance. Tomasello does not think that Chomsky's theory of innate grammar really provides much explanatory power. Instead, the focus should be in shared intentionality and the transmitting of cultural innovations.
I found this to be a more accessible text than usual for Tomasello. Not that he is usually difficult to understand, rather that his texts usually have rather high density. This one was a little lighter.
Human communication is based on biological adaptions to the need for cooperative social interaction, and it relies heavily of cultural inheritance. Tomasello does not think that Chomsky's theory of innate grammar really provides much explanatory power. Instead, the focus should be in shared intentionality and the transmitting of cultural innovations.
I found this to be a more accessible text than usual for Tomasello. Not that he is usually difficult to understand, rather that his texts usually have rather high density. This one was a little lighter.
December 15, 2025
Ich habe mir wirklich viel Zeit für dieses Werk genommen und es war jede Sekunde wert.
Die Hauptthese, dass wir Menschen durch die natürliche Auslese sich als moralische Wesen entwickelt haben, wird hier von den Primaten bis zum modernen Menschen gezeichnet. Erst wird dargestellt, ob und inwieweit Primaten moralische Wesen sind (sie sind es nicht, da ihnen der Sinn der Fairness fehlt) und dann wird der Schritt über den Frühmenschen zum modernen Menschen gemacht. Durch kooperative Intentionalität erfährt der Mensch, dass es eine Gleichheit zwischen “Ich” und “Du” gibt, was letztendlich zu einem “Wir” mit sozialen Normen führt, welche insofern als objektiv gelten, dass sie als unparteiisches Ideal gelten (Grüsse an Platon), an welchen sich alle Beteiligten orientieren können.
Ein wirklich tolles Buch und eins meiner Highlights aus diesem Jahr. Must-read!
Die Hauptthese, dass wir Menschen durch die natürliche Auslese sich als moralische Wesen entwickelt haben, wird hier von den Primaten bis zum modernen Menschen gezeichnet. Erst wird dargestellt, ob und inwieweit Primaten moralische Wesen sind (sie sind es nicht, da ihnen der Sinn der Fairness fehlt) und dann wird der Schritt über den Frühmenschen zum modernen Menschen gemacht. Durch kooperative Intentionalität erfährt der Mensch, dass es eine Gleichheit zwischen “Ich” und “Du” gibt, was letztendlich zu einem “Wir” mit sozialen Normen führt, welche insofern als objektiv gelten, dass sie als unparteiisches Ideal gelten (Grüsse an Platon), an welchen sich alle Beteiligten orientieren können.
Ein wirklich tolles Buch und eins meiner Highlights aus diesem Jahr. Must-read!
August 12, 2023
«Anche se ciò è dato del tutto per scontato dagli scienziati cognitivi, gli esseri umani sono l'unica specie animale che concettualizza il mondo in termini di differenti punti di vista potenziali riguardanti una e una sola entità, creando così le cosiddette "rappresentazioni cognitive orientate". Il punto chiave è che queste forme uniche di concettualizzazione dipendono in modo cruciale dall'intenzionalità condivisa - nel senso che l'intera nozione di "punto di vista" presuppone una entità esterna che mettiamo a fuoco congiuntamente, che sappiamo di condividere e che però vediamo da angolazioni differenti sapendo che sono differenti»
Bello e illuminante, tutto sommato accessibile anche per i profani come il sottoscritto.
Bello e illuminante, tutto sommato accessibile anche per i profani come il sottoscritto.
September 24, 2022
I couldn't have asked for a more rigorous treatment of this fascinating and central topic. Unfortunately, with rigor comes some repetitiveness and over-explaining at times. It felt like reading the longest scientific paper ever written. But, still, Tomasello is onto something and may have unlocked one of the ultimate secrets of the world. He gives due recognition to philosophy (especially, to his great credit, Wittgenstein and Grice) as well as hard, experimental data.
This is a must-read for anyone interested in the origin of that uniquely human feature, the mark of the mental, the source of our rationality and everything that comes with it: language.
This is a must-read for anyone interested in the origin of that uniquely human feature, the mark of the mental, the source of our rationality and everything that comes with it: language.
December 26, 2024
So chimps don’t communicate as complexly as we do because they didn’t evolve the same level of social cooperation that we did; they are capable of using pointing (contrasted with pantomime, which involves cognitive skills for abstraction—and the cultural evolution of language does piggyback on natural cognitive skills) for “request” functions, but not for “inform” and “share”. MT unfolds an elegant, empirically supported argument for the evolution of language from gesture (sign language did come easily to those Nicaraguan kids). And he doesn’t like Chomsky. Very fun book, pleasurable to read too.
July 30, 2017
Kitap oldukça iyi organize edilmiş ve isminin hakkını vererek sistematik bir şekilde insan iletişiminin kökenlerini sorguluyor. Bununla birlikte çeviri konusunda sıkıntı olduğunu düşünüyorum. Bu durum hem özgün metnin bilimsel terimlerinin Türkçe karşılığının olmaması hem de mümkün olduğunca öz Türkçe kullanma kaygısından kaynaklanıyor. Bu nedenle metni takip etmek zorlaşıyor. 3 yıldız vermemin sebebi de bu. İngilizce metinden okumak daha sağlıklı olacaktır kanısındayım.
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February 28, 2023Insan Iletisiminin Kökenleri by Michael Tomasello (2017)
August 9, 2024
***** iletişim üzerine yazılmış okuduğum en iyi en inandırıcı kitap . Ucundan dil bilime de değiniyor . Kütüphane kitabı. Yazarım diğer kitapları da rahatlıkla okunur . Çok sistematik . Farklı bakış açısı . Daha ne olsun 🤟🏻
January 31, 2025
Basically Tomasello’s thesis is that human language arose via a situation analogous to the spiderman pointing meme.
Seems plausible enough to me!
Interesting topic but kinda repetitive.
Seems plausible enough to me!
Interesting topic but kinda repetitive.
February 20, 2025
For the 'philosophically' inclined - this is the route taken by the historical world spirit , the remnants of which are studied by the proclaimed philosophers etcetera
The discourse on the origins of language , too complicated for the average theologian who resorts to intelligent design , is the voyage into the origins of metaphysics
Chomsky is a proponent of supernatural metaphysics, 'inborn instincts for metaphysics', and therefore blind to the function of human communication. To survey the depths of human nature , one cannot be a platonist fundamentalist
Tomasello carries the torch of reason in human history
Tbc
So Homo Sapiens evolved, was hominized, in the context of shared intentionality and cooperative communication, (a proper definition of 'language' as such) which in its 'frozen' form is what is conceptualized as written language. This is evident from observations on chimpanzees (who lack shared intentionality, its language limited to individualistic one- or twoword phrases indicating individualistic motifs of food, drink or play) as well as human infants, who are built to imitate and communicate 'gramatically'. Grammar is basically representing the internal structure of the body, and signalling belonging to a particular cultural group. The author declares Chomsky to be obsolete and irrelevant, which is refreshing.
I think the author, in constructing the narrative of hominization , pertorts a fundamentally romantic view , which does not account for violence. René Girard could provide the missing link - penal substitution (ställföreträdande strafflidande/död), found in lutheran dogma at the center of pietistic mythology, is in fact the origin of language ; substituting the sign for the founding murder.
The discourse on the origins of language , too complicated for the average theologian who resorts to intelligent design , is the voyage into the origins of metaphysics
Chomsky is a proponent of supernatural metaphysics, 'inborn instincts for metaphysics', and therefore blind to the function of human communication. To survey the depths of human nature , one cannot be a platonist fundamentalist
Tomasello carries the torch of reason in human history
Tbc
So Homo Sapiens evolved, was hominized, in the context of shared intentionality and cooperative communication, (a proper definition of 'language' as such) which in its 'frozen' form is what is conceptualized as written language. This is evident from observations on chimpanzees (who lack shared intentionality, its language limited to individualistic one- or twoword phrases indicating individualistic motifs of food, drink or play) as well as human infants, who are built to imitate and communicate 'gramatically'. Grammar is basically representing the internal structure of the body, and signalling belonging to a particular cultural group. The author declares Chomsky to be obsolete and irrelevant, which is refreshing.
I think the author, in constructing the narrative of hominization , pertorts a fundamentally romantic view , which does not account for violence. René Girard could provide the missing link - penal substitution (ställföreträdande strafflidande/död), found in lutheran dogma at the center of pietistic mythology, is in fact the origin of language ; substituting the sign for the founding murder.
August 3, 2015
I estimate that the research represented here might deserve 3 or even 4 stars, but the author has not wrung a very readable text out of the material.
The main idea I've gotten from the first three chapters is that the distinguishing feature of human communication is that we understand cooperation in a way that the beasts do not. The author is at great pains to show that the sounds made by animals which alert their fellows (their "conspecifics," as the text insists on calling them) are reflexive rather than deliberate.
The primal unit of communication which leads to language, the author argues, is POINTING at something, which we understand from our fellow humans means that there is something of benefit at the other end of the arrow, because we understand the intention of the gesture as charitable. He quotes study after study demonstrating that chimpanzees simply don't get this idea, even after educational efforts. And dogs, which have been trained to point for the benefit of humans and indeed can communicate with familiar humans in other meaningful ways -- domestication -- don't point for the benefit of other dogs.
I'd follow this line of reasoning farther in the direction it points if the text were more inviting.
The main idea I've gotten from the first three chapters is that the distinguishing feature of human communication is that we understand cooperation in a way that the beasts do not. The author is at great pains to show that the sounds made by animals which alert their fellows (their "conspecifics," as the text insists on calling them) are reflexive rather than deliberate.
The primal unit of communication which leads to language, the author argues, is POINTING at something, which we understand from our fellow humans means that there is something of benefit at the other end of the arrow, because we understand the intention of the gesture as charitable. He quotes study after study demonstrating that chimpanzees simply don't get this idea, even after educational efforts. And dogs, which have been trained to point for the benefit of humans and indeed can communicate with familiar humans in other meaningful ways -- domestication -- don't point for the benefit of other dogs.
I'd follow this line of reasoning farther in the direction it points if the text were more inviting.
December 12, 2024
Michael Tomasello gelişim psikolojisi üzerine çalışan bir psikolog ve aynı zamanda dilbilimci. Kitapta insan iletişiminin işbirliğine dayalı olarak geliştiği yönündeki savı üzerinden, insanlığın tüm iletişim sürecini okuyoruz. Yazar primatlardan başlayarak insan iletişiminin bugün olduğu hale nasıl geldiğine dair derin bir araştırma sunuyor.
Kitabın her sayfası, her satırı bilgi içeriyor ve ortaya konan tüm düşünceler deneyler ile destekleniyor. Bu yönüyle okuyucusundan da ilgi bekleyen bir kitap İnsan İletişiminin Kökenleri. İletişime ve kökenlerine dair derinlikli bir kaynak adeta.
İletişim, dil öğrenme, dil ile aktarım gibi konularda bilimsel metinler okumayı sevenler listeye ekleyebilir 🌱
Kitabın her sayfası, her satırı bilgi içeriyor ve ortaya konan tüm düşünceler deneyler ile destekleniyor. Bu yönüyle okuyucusundan da ilgi bekleyen bir kitap İnsan İletişiminin Kökenleri. İletişime ve kökenlerine dair derinlikli bir kaynak adeta.
İletişim, dil öğrenme, dil ile aktarım gibi konularda bilimsel metinler okumayı sevenler listeye ekleyebilir 🌱
December 24, 2019
dit is echt een goed te lezen wetenschappelijk boek van een van de grote tegenhangers van chomsky. hij beredeneert de herkomst van communicatie en taal met één kernconcept: shared intentionality, ofwel het inschatten van andere levende dingen (mensen) als voltallige actoren met intenties. ontzettend boeiend verpakt vol referenties naar onze meest verwante maatjes de mensapen en veel onderzoek naar kijk- en gebaargedrag van mensenkinderen. soms wel eens doordrammend of langdradig in stijl, schrijft hij wel overtuigend.
schijnbaar is een van de grote ontwikkelingen van de mens het meer zichtbaar zijn van oogrichting door groter oogwit en dus kunnen we zien waar andere mensen naar kijken.
schijnbaar is een van de grote ontwikkelingen van de mens het meer zichtbaar zijn van oogrichting door groter oogwit en dus kunnen we zien waar andere mensen naar kijken.
September 5, 2011
Wer bereit ist sich mit den Untiefen der Fachsprache auseinanderzusetzen und sich durch einen Wust von Fremdwörtern zu hangeln, dem wird eine ungemein spannende, mit vielen empirischen Beispielen angereicherte und hochplausible theoretische Tiefseefahrt zu den phylogenetischen Ursprüngen der menschlichen Kommunikation und Sprache geboten. Wittgenstein meets Evolutionsbiologie - ein großer Wurf.
Want to read
August 6, 2015yay!
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