Likeness-making and the evolution of cognition

Paleontological evidence suggests that human artefacts with intentional markings might have originated already in the Lower Paleolithic, up to 500.000 years ago and well before the advent of ‘behavioural modernity’. These markings apparently did not serve instrumental, tool-like functions, nor do they appear to be forms of figurative art. Instead, they display abstract geometric patterns that potentially testify to an emerging ability of symbol use. In a variation on Ian Hacking’s speculative account of the possible role of “likeness-making” in the evolution of human cognition and language, this essay explores the central role that the embodied processes of making and the collective practices of using such artefacts might have played in early human cognitive evolution. Two paradigmatic findings of Lower Paleolithic artefacts are discussed as tentative evidence of likenesses acting as material scaffolds in the emergence of symbolic reference-making. They might provide the link between basic abilities of mimesis and imitation and the development of modern language and thought.

Book review: “Neanderthal Language: Demystifying the Linguistic Powers of Our Extinct Cousins” by Rudolf Botha

Recently, we have witnessed an explosion of studies and discussions claiming that Neanderthals engaged in a range of “symbolic” behaviors, including personal ornament use (Radovčić et al. 2015), funerary practices (Balzeau et al. 2020), visual arts (Hoffmann et al. 2018), body aesthetics (Roebroeks et al. 2012), etc. In Palaeolithic archaeology, it has become mainstream to axiomatically infer from these putative behaviors that Neanderthals engaged in symbol use and that Neanderthals thus possessed some form of language. Rudolf Botha’s bombastic title Neanderthal Language: Demystifying the Linguistic Powers of Our Extinct Cousins provides a detailed and very critical overview of the archaeological hypotheses and speculations about Neanderthal language.

Ego Distortion in Terms of True and False Self

In this paper on the subject of the True and False Self, Winnicott locates the area of this conceptualization as arising out of recognition of the difference of Ego versus Id in both infant development and analytic work with patients. Winnicott sees the False Self arising in the first object-relationships, where its positive function is to hide the True Self. Only the True Self can be spontaneous, creative and feel real. Where there is a pronounced split between the True and False Self, there is a poor capacity for symbol use and a poor quality of life. In analysis, the patient’s False Self can collaborate indefinitely with the analyst in the analysis of defences, but the real issues remain untouched. Suicide, which may occur in this context, is the destruction of the total self in avoidance, in fantasy, of the feared annihilation of the True Self.

The semiotic life cycle and The Symbolic Species

In The Symbolic Species (1997) Terrence Deacon identifies human verbal language acquisition as the first and foremost evolutionary threshold where symbol use happens, with all the concomitant adaptive advantages it affords, but along with these advantages in this book and elsewhere he alludes to certain disadvantages that result from symbols. To describe these disadvantages he uses words like maladaptation, parasitism, cognitive penumbra, and other hyperbolic terms. He does so offhandedly, either in connection with the results of some laboratory experiments, or simply in disconnected ominous generalizations, but never justifies these sign effects within the dominantly Peircean model of language acquisition that gives the book its title. In later works Deacon attempts to contextualize these generalizations within Richard Dawkins’ theory of the meme. Deacon is sometimes disparaged for his supposedly imprecise or incorrect use of the sign theory of Charles Peirce to defend his claims about memes and symbols. The problem is not that Peirce should not be used in this way. In fact Deacon’s book is a singular achievement in the application of Peirce. The problem is that Deacon’s Peircean model is too simple. In fact Deacon’s claim about the possible disadvantages of symbol use can be reinforced with a closer look at the mature, turn-of-the-century Peircean sign model. This preserves the theoretical integrity of The Symbolic Species and clarifies the relation between memes and signs.

Why semiotics, why poetry?

Giambattista Vico’s philosophy foresaw a very postmodern sense of language, first as the underlying logical capacity for what Peirce called the symbolic argument, and second as a communication system per se. And in our view, much of these higher sign processes, especially in the everyday symbol use of human communication, is based in metaphor, very much in Vico’s notion of the term. This essay explores the dynamics of sign ordinary process through poetry, referencing also Vico’s synthesis of understanding and creativity, and the connection of poetry to the earliest Western philosophies.