The First Idea How Symbols, Language, and Intelligence Evolved from Our Primate Ancestors to Modern Humans

by Greenspan, Stanley I.; Shanker, Stuart

• ISBN13: 9780306814495
• ISBN10: 0306814498
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-02-07
• Publisher: Da Capo Press

Summary

In the childhood of every human being and at the dawn of human history there is an amazing and, until now, unexplained leap from simple, genetically programmed behavior to the complexities of language, symbolic thinking, and culture. The First Idea explores this missing link and offers brilliant new insights into two longstanding questions: How did human beings first create symbols, and how did these abilities evolve and get transmitted across generations over millions of years? Book jacket.

Author Biography

Stanley I. Greenspan, M.D., author of the widely used and praised books The Challenging Child and (with Serena Wieder, Ph.D.) Engaging Autism, is Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Pediatrics at George Washington University Medical School and lives in Bethesda, Maryland. Stuart G. Shanker, D.Phil., is Professor of Philosophy and Professor of Psychology at York University, in Toronto. At the forefront of research into ape and child language, his acclaimed books include Apes, Language and the Human Mind (with Sue Savage-Rumbaugh and Talbot Taylor) and Wittgenstein's Remarks on the Foundations of AI. Dr. Shanker's critiques of genetic determinist theories of human development have been the subject of television specials, including "The Today Show," "Discovery," and "The Pamela Wallin Show."

Table of Contents

Introduction	1	(16)
PART I: ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF SYMBOLS
Origin of Symbols	17	(24)
Intellectual Growth and Transformations of Emotions During the Course of Life	41	(62)
PART II: A NEW DIRECTION FOR EVOLUTIONARY THEORY
Introduction	97	(6)
The Early Stages of Emotional Regulation, Engagement, and Signaling: Nonhuman Primates and the Earliest Hominids	103	(29)
Problem-Solving Collaborations: Chimpanzees and Early Humans	132	(15)
Symbols, Words, and Ideas: Archaic Homo sapiens and Early Moderns	147	(20)
Representation and the Beginning of Logic: Homo sapiens sapiens	167	(14)
The Engine of Evolution	181	(6)
PART III: THE DEVELOPMENT OF LANGUAGE AND INTELLIGENCE
Introduction	185	(2)
The Origins of Language	187	(21)
The Role of Emotions in Language Development	208	(24)
Emotions and the Development of Intelligence	232	(18)
How Emotional Signaling Links Emotion and Cognition and the Brain's Subsymbolic and Symbolic Cortical Systems: Implications for Neuroscience and Piaget's Cognitive Psychology	250	(45)
Emotional Development Derailed: Pathways to and from Autism	295	(26)
PART IV: THE DEVELOPMENT OF SOCIAL GROUPS
Introduction	319	(2)
The Developmental Levels of Groups, Societies, and Cultures (With Elizabeth Greenspan)	321	(54)
A New History of History	375	(49)
Future Evolution: Toward a Psychology of Global Interdependency	424	(33)
Notes	457	(14)
References	471	(18)
Index	489	(15)
About the Authors	504