M ichael T omasello , Becoming human: a theory of ontogeny , Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Pres
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Michael Tomasello, Becoming human: a theory of ontogeny, Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2019, xi + 379 pp, $35.00/£28.95/€31.50 Ivan Gonzalez‑Cabrera1
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
In this book, Michael Tomasello proposes an overarching theoretical framework that organizes the research that he and his colleagues at the Department of Developmental and Comparative Psychology of the Max Planck Institute in Leipzig have carried out for the past 20 years. The book is recommended for students and academics working on the evolution of human cognition, especially those interested in the intersection between evolutionary developmental biology and developmental psychology. The book consists of twelve chapters divided into four sections. The first section sets the goal of the book. Tomasello aims to provide what he calls a ‘neo-Vygotskian framework’ to explain the evolution and development of children’s psychological traits during the first 6 years of life that are unique within the ape lineage. These traits are grouped into cognitive and sociomoral categories. The second part of the book focuses on the ontogenetic pathways that lead to the distinctiveness of human cognition: social cognition, communication, cultural learning, and cooperative thinking. The third part of the book focuses on the distinctive ontogenetic pathways of human sociality: cooperation, prosociality, social norms, and moral identity. In the book’s concluding section, Tomasello frames the resulting theory as a neoVygotskian theory that focuses on shared agency. Tomasello’s shared intentionality account is a Vygotskian theory to the extent that it focuses on uniquely human psychology, which it explains mainly in terms of the unique forms of sociocultural activity in which individuals engage over the life course. But the theory is neo-Vygotskian insofar as it uses an evolutionary approach to human ontogeny. Many species are biologically adapted in specific ways for engaging in their species-unique forms of social activity. In humans, * Ivan Gonzalez‑Cabrera ivan.gonzalez‑[email protected] 1
Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research (KLI), Martinstraße 12, 3400 Klosterneuburg, Austria
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these adaptations are culturally transmitted. Unlike Vygotsky, whose work focused on the process of cultural transmission and its effects on human psychology, this neo-Vygotskian theory takes a step back to look at the adaptations that facilitate the kind of social and mental coordination that facilitate human cultural adaptations. In this way, Tomasello builds not only on the work of classical developmental psychologists but also upon theoretical concepts from philosophy (joint agency, shared and collective intentionality) and evolutionary developmental biology (ontogenetic adaptations, ontogenetic pathways, developmental plasticity). According to Tomasello, the last common ancestor of humans, bonobos, and chimpanzees was cognitively characterized by ind
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