Picturing the Mind by Simona Ginsburg & Eva Jablonka illustrated by Anna Zeligowski

Author:Simona Ginsburg & Eva Jablonka illustrated by Anna Zeligowski [Неизвестный]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: MIT
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

4.3 WHY TAKE AN EVOLUTIONARY APPROACH TO HUMAN NATURE?

The limitations, contradictions, possibilities, and endless varieties of the human mode of being have certainly been honed by both genetic and cultural evolution. But what insights does an evolutionary approach afford?

First, it allows us to recognize that human-specific universal capacities, though unique in their scope and sophistication, have nascent precursors, especially in the great apes and in pre-sapiens species. These are the scaffolds on which human mentality evolved.

Second, a comparison between humans and the great apes might uncover human-specific traits that were previously unappreciated.

Third, an evolutionary perspective forces us to spell out what we mean by ×´human×´: "human" can either refer only to Homo sapiens sapiens, or it can refer to other species that belong to our lineage and that share some, though possibly not all, the capacities we listed. Our species belongs to the genus Homo, which emerged with the appearance of Homo habilis, a species we know very little about, just over 2 MYA (million years ago). Its descendant, Homo erectus, who originated shortly afterwards seems to have led a recognizably human life. These people inhabited many areas of the world and diverged into several different species, including our close cousins, the Neanderthals, who became extinct about 40,000 years ago, and our own species, Homo sapiens, which originated in Africa around 300,000 years ago.

Fourth, an evolutionary approach could tell us how the different capacities are connected: the various human-specific capacities are partially overlapping and codependent. Some have probably co-evolved, while others facilitated the evolution of additional capacities.

Fifth, the dynamics of the evolutionary changes in our lineage and the interactions between cultural and genetic evolution might provide insights into the way that human mental architecture has been and is being shaped.

What, then, could the evolutionary history of our lineage tell us about the endless forms of human consciousness? What can past evolution tell us about our future?

The behavior and mentality of great apes, such as the mountain gorillas studied by Dian Fossey, can highlight the continuities and discontinuities between the great apes and us, and shed light on human evolution.

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