Mindshaping

Mindshaping by Tadeusz Zawidzki

A proposal that human social cognition would not have evolved without mechanisms and practices that shape minds in ways that make them easier to interpret.

In this novel account of distinctively human social cognition, Tadeusz Zawidzki argues that the key distinction between human and nonhuman social cognition consists in our complex, diverse, and flexible capacities to shape each other's minds in ways that make them easier to interpret. Zawidzki proposes that such mindshaping--which takes the form of capacities and practices such as sophisticated imitation, pedagogy, conformity to norms, and narrative self-constitution--is the most important component of human social cognition. Without it, he argues, none of the other components of what he terms the human sociocognitive syndrome, including sophisticated language, cooperation, and sophisticated mindreading, would be possible.

Challenging the dominant view that sophisticated mindreading--especially propositional attitude attribution--is the key evolutionary innovation behind distinctively human social cognition, Zawidzki contends that the capacity to attribute such mental states depends on the evolution of mindshaping practices. Propositional attitude attribution, he argues, is likely to be unreliable unless most of us are shaped to have similar kinds of propositional attitudes in similar circumstances. Motivations to mindshape, selected to make sophisticated cooperation possible, combine with low-level mindreading abilities that we share with nonhuman species to make it easier for humans to interpret and anticipate each other's behavior. Eventually, this led, in human prehistory, to the capacity to attribute full-blown propositional attitudes accurately--a capacity that is parasitic, in phylogeny and today, on prior capacities to shape minds.

Bringing together findings from developmental psychology, comparative psychology, evolutionary psychology, and philosophy of psychology, Zawidzki offers a strikingly original framework for understanding human social cognition.

Zawidzki, Tadeusz Wiesław: - Tadeusz Wieslaw Zawidzki is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Codirector of the Mind-Brain Evolution Cluster at the George Washington University. He is the author of Dennett.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780262019019
ISBN 10	0262019019
Title	Mindshaping
Author	Tadeusz Zawidzki
Series	Mindshaping
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	MIT Press Ltd
Year published	2013-05-10
Number of pages	344
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.