Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-xtgtn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-19T18:35:59.342Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Tool use as situated cognition

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 June 2012

Andy Blitzer  and
Bryce Huebner
Andy Blitzer
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, Georgetown University, Washington, DC 20057. ajb89@georgetown.eduhttp://philosophy.georgetown.edu/people/graduatestudents/AndyBlitzer/lbh24@georgetown.eduhttp://www9.georgetown.edu/faculty/lbh24/
Bryce Huebner
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, Georgetown University, Washington, DC 20057. ajb89@georgetown.eduhttp://philosophy.georgetown.edu/people/graduatestudents/AndyBlitzer/lbh24@georgetown.eduhttp://www9.georgetown.edu/faculty/lbh24/
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Vaesen disregards a plausible alternative to his position, and so fails to offer a compelling argument for unique cognitive mechanisms. We suggest an ecological alternative, according to which divergent relationships between organism and environment, not exotic neuroanatomy, are responsible for unique cognitive capacities. This approach is pertinent to claims about primate cognition; and on this basis, we argue that Vaesen's inference from unique skills to unique mechanisms is unwarranted.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 35 , Issue 4 , August 2012 , pp. 221 - 222
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Barrett, L. (2011) Beyond the brain: How the body and the environment shape cognition. Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Beer, R. D. (2000) Dynamical approaches to cognitive science. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 4(3):91–99.Google Scholar
Boesch, C. & Boesch-Achermann, H. (2000) The chimpanzees of the Taï Forest: Behavioural ecology and evolution. Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boesch, C., Head, J. & Robbins, M. (2009) Complex tool sets for honey extraction among chimpanzees in Loango National Park, Gabon. Journal of Human Evolution 56:560–69.Google Scholar
Boysen, S. T. & Berntson, G. G. (1995) Responses to quantity: Perceptual versus cognitive mechanisms in chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes). Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes 21(1):82–86.Google Scholar
Carruthers, P. (2002) The cognitive functions of language. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 25(6):657–726.Google Scholar
Clark, A. (2006) Language, embodiment, and the cognitive niche. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 10(8):370–74.Google Scholar
Clark, A. (2008) Supersizing the mind: Embodiment, action, and cognitive extension. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Evans, T. A. & Westergaard, G. C. (2006) Self-control and tool-use in tufted capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella). Journal of Comparative Psychology 120(2):163–66.Google Scholar
Fragaszy, D., Izar, P., Visalberghi, E., Ottoni, E. B. & Gomes, De Oliveira, M. (2004) Wild capuchin monkeys (Cebus libidinosus) use anvils and stone pounding tools. American Journal of Primatology 64(4):359–66.Google Scholar
Gould, S. J. (1977) Ontogeny and phylogeny. Belknap.Google Scholar
Gould, S. J. & Vrba, E. S. (1982) Exaption – A missing term in the science of form. Paleobiology 8(1):4–15.Google Scholar
Hauser, M. & Santos, L. (2007) The evolutionary ancestry of our knowledge of tools: From percepts to concepts. In: Creations of the mind: Theories of artifacts and their representation, ed. Laurence, S. & Margolis, E., pp. 267–88. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hutchins, E. (2008) The role of cultural practices in the emergence of modern human intelligence. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 363(1499):2011–19.Google Scholar
Kelso, J. A. S. (1995) Dynamic patterns: The self-organization of brain and behavior. MIT Press.Google Scholar
Pinker, S. (2010) The cognitive niche: Coevolution of intelligence, sociality, and language. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 107 (Suppl 2):8993–99.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Povinelli, D. J., Reaux, J.E., Theall, L.A. & Giambrone, S. (2000) Folk physics for apes: The chimpanzee's theory of how the world works. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Rumelhart, D. E., McClelland, J. L. & the PDP Research Group. (1986) Parallel distributed processing: Explorations in the microstructure of cognition, vol. 1. MIT Press.Google Scholar
Santos, L. R., Miller, C. T. & Hauser, M. D. (2003) Representing tools: How two non-human primate species distinguish between the functionally relevant and irrelevant features of a tool. Animal Cognition 6(4):269–81.Google Scholar
Sanz, C. & Morgan, D. (2010) Complexity of chimpanzee tool using behaviors. In: The mind of the chimpanzee: Ecological and experimental perspectives, ed. Lonsdorf, E. V., Ross, S. R. & Matsuzawa, T., pp. 127–40. University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Shubin, N. & Marshall, C. (2000) Fossils, genes and the origin of novelty. Paleobiology 26(4):324–40. Supplement.Google Scholar
Simon, H. (1996) Sciences of the artificial, 3rd ed. MIT Press.Google Scholar
Sterelny, K. (2003b) Thought in a hostile world: The evolution of human cognition. Blackwell Publishing.Google Scholar
Whiten, A., Goodall, J., McGrew, W. C., Nishida, T., Reynolds, V., Sugiyama, Y., Tutin, C. E. G., Wrangham, R. W. & Boesch, C. (1999) Cultures in chimpanzees. Nature 399:682–85.Google Scholar