The evolution of mind
Our understanding of the human mind has radically changed in recent years--from the unified mind once envisioned by Rene Descartes over three hundred years ago to a new understanding of mind as a set of specialized cognitive components gradually accumulated in our evolutionary past. As a result, many scientists and philosophers now believe that our minds emerged out of the same type of evolutionary processes that have shaped our bodies.In The Evolution of Mind, outstanding figures on the cutting edge of evolutionary psychology follow clues provided by current neuroscientific evidence to illuminate many puzzling questions of human cognitive evolution. With contributions from psychologists, ethologists, anthropologists, and philosophers, the book offers a broad range of approaches to explore the mysteries of the minds evolution--from investigating the biological functions of human cognition to drawing comparisons between human and animal cognitive abilities. This interdisciplinary work presents a comparative and evolutionary perspective on a wide variety of topics, including mental algorithms for reasoning about contingencies, quantities, social norms, and the minds of others; social play and communicative abilities; thought and language, and the role of Darwin's theory of natural selection in evolutionary psychology. Written in a highly readable style, The Evolution of Mind will appeal to a broad range of researchers and students and help set the agenda for the field for years to come.Introduction / Denise Dellarosa Cummins and Colin Allen -- 1. Ecological Intelligence: An Adaptation for Frequencies / Gerd Gigerenzer -- 2. Social Norms and Other Minds: The Evolutionary Roots of Higher Cognition / Denise Dellarosa Cummins -- 3. Building a Cognitive Creature from a Set of Primitives: Evolutionary and Developmental Insights / Marc Hauser and Susan Carey -- 4. An Evolved Capacity for Number / Karen Wynn -- 5. Cognitive Ethology: The Minds of Children and Animals / Carolyn A. Ristau -- 6. Playing with Play: What Can We Learn about Cognition, Negotiation, and Evolution? / Marc Bekoff -- 7. The Evolution of Reference / Colin Allen and Eric Saidel -- 8. Some Issues in the Evolution of Language and Thought / Paul Bloom -- 9. Morgan's Canon / Elliott Sober -- 10. Do's and Don'ts for Darwinizing Psychology / Lawrence A. Shapiro
edited by Denise Dellarosa Cummins and Colin Allenill. ; 25 cm
