Michael Tomasello. A Natural History of Human Thinking.

Cambridge/London: Harvard University

Press, 2014. 178 pp.

In A Natural History of Human Thinking, Michael Tomasello crosses the boundaries of scientific
disciplines, in order to present the theoretical conclusions he has drawn from his comparative
research into the cognition of humans and apes. He draws from studies in fields like philosophy of
language, developmental psychology, evolutionary biology, and philosophy of mind, to present his
framework for understanding what human thinking is about. Having read this book from a
philosophical background, I find the interdisciplinary approach refreshing. The book provides an
interesting and clear analysis of the essential characteristics of the thinking of modern humans as we
know them. Still the book also shows a methodological weakness, hesitating between chronological
and causal reasoning on the one hand, and explanatory and functionalistic reasoning on the other. To
my view, its self-description as ‘natural history’ is therefore confusing. Before I will elaborate on the
strong and weak points of the book however, I will first give a brief outline of its main thesis.

In his preface, Tomasello points out that the present book is to be seen as a sequel to his 1999 book
on The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition 1. His reasons for writing a new book on what he now
renames ‘thinking’ show his uprightness as a scientist: the newly available empirical material on
cognitive abilities of our closest relatives among the animals, the great apes, force him to redefine
what ‘makes human cognition unique’. The cognition of Chimpanzees, Orangutans and Bonobos is
apparently closer to ours than we used to think, which brings Tomasello to describing the differences
between their modes of thought and ours in more complex and layered ways. To this effect he
introduces his ‘shared intentionality’ thesis. This involves that human beings have developed the
ability to communication and collaboration to such a high level, that they actually create ‘objective’
social entities, like moral norms, money, and state power. ‘Objective’ means here that these
symbolic structures are reified by humans, which makes us perceive them and act upon them as
realities. (153) This high stage of communal meaning creation Tomasello calls collective
intentionality, distinguished from joint intentionality, displayed in the cognitive behavior of early
humans (and to a certain extent in apes) – in which shared meanings are always still related to the
intent and interest of the individual, and not abstracted from it.

The two-level development hypothesis that Tomasello proposes to explain what modern human
thinking is all about is theoretically inspired by a distinction made by George Herbert Mead in his
Mind, Self and Society, a book which Mead himself characterized as social behaviorist, but which can
be as well classified as presenting a form of pragmatist or constructionist social epistemology 2. Mead
introduces in his 1934 work the distinction between the ‘significant other’ (the one whose
perspective a human in a dual relation can take) and the ‘generalized other’, which is not a real
other, but which represents the group perspective, that, when internalized, makes it possible for an
individual to partake in social interaction, cognition and language in a non-dual, non-personal way.
(122) For Mead the self is thus part of a social reality that is not restricted to one’s own body, a point
of view Tomasello interprets to encompass the ability to project the effects of intentions and actions
of oneself and of others in the past as well as into the future, making tradition and culture possible.
(84-85)

1
Tomasello, Michael, 1999. The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
2
Mead, George Herbert, 1934. Mind, Self, and Society from the Standpoint of a Social Behaviorist (ed. C.W.
Morris). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
To argue that taking a generalized point of view (which is also named, with Thomas Nagel’s
expression, the ‘view from nowhere’) makes human thinking unique, Tomasello highlights the
difference in ontogeny between apes and humans. Whereas most non-human animals’ full cognitive
potential is mature or almost mature at birth, chimpanzees need a few years to develop theirs.
Humans, on the other hand, need ten years to develop full brain potential (145). This long period in
which the young human being is exposed to her social environment, makes for more flexibility in
development, individually, but, by extension, also socially – creating the psychological precondition
for the development of different human cultures.

The book’s main thesis rests on many references to his own and others’ research into the
development of humans and apes, and makes good use of philosophers like Grice, Searle,
Wittgenstein, Mead and Peirce, who can be broadly described as pragmatist and/or social
constructionist thinkers. Insights that characterize these, very different, thinkers, are the idea that
language and thinking (logic) should be understood in the wider frame of human living and acting.
Pragmatism in general has built philosophically on the Darwinian idea that human beings should be
understood from the great evolutionary chain which connects all life, which created a sharp
departure from the classical idea that logical thinking should be understood as radically different
from our instinctual nature, as pure spirit over against matter in motion. This philosophical approach
is being put to good use by Tomasello, while he makes distinctions between different cognitive
levels, and describes them in terms of functions such as taking perspectives, using symbols, objective
representation, creating an attractive conceptual clarity.

However, Tomasello has larger ambitions than providing a psychological and philosophical analysis of
what characterizes the thinking of modern humans, he also proposes a ‘natural history’ in a wider
sense, consisting of hypothetical proposals concerning the evolutionary development of the modern
human. This development would have been spurred on by circumstances such as the growth of the
population of primates who competed for the same food, forcing early humans to focus on hunting
for meat, and climatological changes that led to migrations. The parts where these proposals are put
forward are not very satisfactory for several reasons. One is that where he tries to convince us of the
serious nature of his hypotheses, he often refers to his own work (in sentences like ‘Tomasello
systematically compares…’), leaving it for the reader to check whether the argumentation in this
earlier work was convincing or not 3. All the same, he is not really interested in the chronology of the
turning points in the development from pre-humans to humans, as he repeatedly states that ‘when’
is less important than ‘how’. (37) A more substantial point, which he himself admits to be
problematic, is that comparing modern humans to contemporary apes is a wobbly source to prove
anything about the earlier versions of both species, or about any common ancestors – especially
when this comparison is based on cognitive tests carried out on apes who were raised by humans
and, mostly, middle class children from technologically advanced countries. Because of his own
warnings to this respect, it is surprising to sometimes read bold statements on human evolution,
such as “early humans began mating via pair bonding, with the result that nuclear families became
newly cooperating social units.” (133) When the wording is more cautious on the other hand, the
question remains what is exactly claimed, e.g. when we read: “[…] precisely when this all happened is
not crucial to our story, but the first clear signs of distinct human cultures appear with Homo sapiens
sapiens […] beginning at the earliest some 200,000 years ago.” (84) The conclusion from such

3
For some examples cf. 35-36, a.o.
sentences should perhaps be that research results on the development from early humans to
modern humans are today still so uncertain that trying to make a point on the evolution of our
cognition is too early.

Apart from the problem with respect to the foundation of the evolutionary part of the book, there
are some aspects in its argumentation that are not central and recurring, but which could be
important to assess its meaning in the long run. First, a Eurocentric position, erasing the longer
history of philosophy and science outside Europe, shows in a remark such as “At least since Aristotle,
human beings have wondered how they differ from other animal species.” (149) Or in a seemingly
innocent indication of monkeys as ‘New World monkeys’. (33) One might put this objection aside as
not relevant to the content of the thesis. On the other hand, it might be that such loose remarks say
something about the contextual background of the focus on generalizing, objectivity, and culture in
human thinking – ignoring for instance ‘cognitive’ phenomena such as spiritual healing, divine
prophecy, or soul travel, that are also claimed by modern humans. Second, the book is explicitly
anthropocentric, asking what makes for the ‘uniqueness’ of humans. Although this is a legitimate
question to investigate, its normative content (humans are the most developed species) is not
discussed as such. This might explain the implicit selection of research of our ‘cousins’, the apes, in
comparison to whom our ‘difference’ is most easily demonstrated. I think this is a pity, as including
the newest research on cognition in animals which differ more from us, e.g. birds and sea mammals,
could have made the question what characterizes human thinking more difficult, more complex and
still more interesting.

Angela Roothaan,

Vrije Universiteit,

Amsterdam, NL