Comments on Michael Tomasello's Arc of Inquiry (1999-2019) Part 2

By Razie Mah

From 1999 to 2019, Dr. Michael Tomasello, then Co-Director of the Max Planck Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology, publishes five books on human evolution: (A) The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition (1999), (B) Origins of Human Communication (2008), (C) A Natural History of Human Thinking (2014), (D) A Natural History of Human Morality (2016) and (E) Becoming Human: A Theory of Ontogeny (2019). In doing so, Tomasello's defines an arc of inquiry offers hypotheses on human evolution. These hypotheses cannot be ignored.
The same can be said for the literary figure, Razie Mah, who publishes three books on human evolution: The Human Niche (2018), An Archaeology of the Fall (2012) and How To Define The Word "Religion" (2015).
Tomasello approaches human evolution from the vantage point of developmental psychology.
Razie Mah approaches human evolution from the vantage point of semiotics (and, more generally, the categories of Charles Peirce).
This commentary examines Tomasello's argument from Mah's semiotic standpoint, producing a far more evocative and nuanced conceptualization of human evolution and psychology. Each of Tomasello's books benefits from commentary.
The commentary is divided into two parts. Part 1 contains A-C. Part 2 covers D-E.
Portions of this commentary appear in Razie Mah's blog for the months of January, February and March 2024. This commentary brings these blogs into one location and adds more material at the end.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Razie Mah
• Release date: Jan 10, 2024
• ISBN: 9781955931137

Razie Mah

See website for bio.

Book preview

Comments on Michael Tomasello's Arc of Inquiry (1999-2019) Part 2

By Razie Mah

Published for Smashwords.com

2024

Notes on Text

This work comments on five books by Michael Tomasello, an evolutionary anthropologist. Much of the material is published in Razie Mah's blog (www.raziemah.com) in January, February and March, 2024. Additional material in included. The goal is to allow the inquirer to purchase Mah's complete commentary covering two decades of Tomasello's research.

This work is part 2 of a 2 part sequence.

Prerequisites: A Primer on the Category-Based Nested Form, A Primer on Sensible and Social Construction

Recommended: The Human Niche

Table of Contents

Comments on The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition (1999)

Comments on Origins of Human Communication (2008)

Comments on A Natural History of Human Thinking (2014)

Comments on A Natural History of Morality (2016)

Comments on Becoming Human (2019)

Comments on A Natural History of Morality (2016)

0389 A Natural History of Human Morality (2016) is published by Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts. The question? What makes humans unique? The approach is scientific. Humans think differently than great apes, their closest biological kin. One way to understand that difference is to observe and measure the cognitive capacities of human newborns and infants, as well as the cognitive abilities of adult great apes.

This book belongs to a decades-long arc of inquiry by the author. During much of this time, Michael Tomasello serves as co-Director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. I cover two decades in my examinations. Here is the fourth book in the list.

0390 What has this semiotician found so far?

First, from the very start of his journey, the content-level of Tomasello's vision corresponds to the situation-level of Razie Mah's hypothesis. The ultimate human niche consists of the potential of triadic relations.

Razie Mah's hypothesis applies the two-level interscope for Darwin's paradigm to human evolution.

0391 First, the general Darwinian paradigm looks like this.

0392 In The Human Niche (available at smashwords and other e-book venues), Razie Mah proposes that the ultimate human niche1b is the potential of triadic relations.

Tomasello's hypothesis that joint attention2b and shared intentionality2b are behavioral and cognitive adaptations to the niche of sociogenesis1b reconfigures the situation-level of Darwin's paradigm, resulting in what I call the Tomasello-Mah synthesis.

0393 Yes, fortune turns her wheel. Tomasello does not know Mah's hypothesis. Tomasello's arc of inquiry is underway in 1999. Mah's hypothesis first appears online in 2018. So, Tomasello configures his insight, corresponding to the situation-level of the Darwinian paradigm, as the content-level of his vision.

Tomasello's vision offers a way to bring a phenotype (of human ontogeny2c') into relation with a foundational adaptation (of joint attention2a'). But, according to Mah, phenotype and adaptation are two independent fields of evolutionary inquiry. One does not situate or contextualize the other. Rather, the two intersect.

Consequently, Tomasello's vision resolves the internal contradictions of the intersection of genetics and natural history, by assigning the phenotype to the category of thirdness and the adaptation to the category of firstness, while maintaining the actuality of both.

0394 Here is a picture of Tomasello's vision.

0395 Of course, this examination appears precisely 25 years after Tomasello's vision is cast in 1999 AD.

His vision is maintained throughout his arc of inquiry.

Consequently, his conclusions carry an awkward emptiness. The emptiness compares to the basement of a house. The basement is dark, cool, foundational and ignored, until of course, one must seek refuge in a storm.

0396 The previous examinations of Tomasello's works demonstrate that the house, the abode of his vision, is furnished with morality.

Tomasello can ignore the basement, haunted by immaterial beings called, triadic relations. Yet, in that place, where a family might store potatoes, onions, smoked meat, along with luggage and Christmas ornaments, dwells something that Tomasello may safely ignore. I call that ghost, religion.

0397 Tomasello's book opens with a hypothesis. Interpendence2 emerges from (and situates) cooperation1. In terms of Tomasello's vision, interdependence2 replaces human culture2b and cooperation1b virtually situates joint-attention2a as an adaptation to sociogenesis1a. Cooperation1b may be defined as the potential of joint- and collective-attention2a.

0398 Of course, the other option is to consider cooperation2b as an actuality and interdependence1b as a possibility.

The option that I offer captures Tomasello's claim that there are two forms to cooperation: mutualistic collaboration and altruistic helping. Classical philosophers discuss these two forms in terms of motives. Mutualistic collaboration harbors a motive for justice (that is, the right, as in righteous). Altruistic helping carries a motive for beneficence (that is, the good). Yes, philosophers distinguish fairness from sympathy. Each exhibits is own style of morality, where morality associates with the possibility of what is righteous and good1b.

0399 So, why say that cooperation1b is the potential1b of joint attention2a?

Joint attention2a holds the potential of justice and beneficence, the motives for cooperations1b.

Plus, moral dilemmas reside in the way that interdependence2b, the actuality emerging from (and situating) cooperation1b, plays out.

0400 Remember, the sociogenesis1a of teams entails competition (each member of the team is selected by all others) for the honor of cooperating (that is, manifesting the potential of joint attention2a).

Hominins compete to cooperate.

Morality plays roles in both competition and cooperation.

Ah, that must mean that morality is embedded in cultural selection3b.

0400 Tomasello intends to provide an evolutionary account for the natural history of human morality3b, as the normal context for unique forms of social interaction and organization of the Homo genus2b (that is, interdependence2b), emerging from the cultivation of fairness and sympathy1b (that is, cooperation1b).

Here are two pictures of one situation-level nested form.

0401 Have Tomasello's previous books laid the groundwork for an exploration into the natural history of human... or is it?... hominin morality?

So, remember to cross out the word, human, and write the word, hominin, where hominin is technically defined as a human ancestor.

0401 Recall, the natural history of human morality occurs in generations prior to the appearance of anatomically modern humans. In previous works, Tomasello identifies three eras of intentionality.

Here is a picture.

0402 The era of individual intentionality shows interdependence with respect to family (5) and intimate friends (5). The band (50) is not interdependent in the same sense of the word. The band (50) is large enough to deter predators.

0403 The era of joint intentionality begins once bipedal southern apes collaborate in order to forage. The advance is so productive that collaborative foraging becomes obligatory. Obligatory collaborative foraging is conducted in teams (15). Teams have more members than family (5) or friends (5) but less than the band (50).

0404 Teams cultivate the capacity for joint attention2a. If joint attention2a is behavioral, then joint or shared intentionality2a is the corresponding cognitive capacity. This cognitive capacity is what cognitive psychologists observe in newborns and infants in their experiments in human ontogeny1c. This cognitive capacity2a embodies sociogenesis1a, where sociogenesis is more subtle than the mere naming of social circles. Sociogenesis1a is the potential of um... an actuality independent of the adapting species.

0405 Cooperation1b requires participants in joint-attention activities2a to serve different roles while sharing the team's shared intention2a... that is... purpose2a.

Is there a problem?

Free riders must be excluded.

Well, the solution turns out to be remarkably simple. If an individual does not pull weight, for whatever reason, then the team meets without the slackard. How simple is that?

Or, should I say, "How awkward is that, especially when the excluded individual discovers the secret that