Cognitive phylogenies, the darwinian logic of descent, and the inadequacy of cladistic thinking

There has been a reappraisal of phylogenetic issues in cognitive science, as reconstructing cognitive phylogenies has been considered a key for unveiling the cognitive novelties that set the stage for what makes humans special. In our opinion, the studies made until now have approached cognitive phy...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Theofanopoulou, Constantina, Boeckx, Cedric
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2015
País:España
Institución:Varias* (Consorci de Biblioteques Universitáries de Catalunya, Centre de Serveis Científics i Acadèmics de Catalunya)
Repositorio:Recercat. Dipósit de la Recerca de Catalunya
OAI Identifier:oai:recercat.cat:2445/139911
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/2445/139911
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Evolució humana
Cognició
Human evolution
Cognition
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spelling Cognitive phylogenies, the darwinian logic of descent, and the inadequacy of cladistic thinkingTheofanopoulou, ConstantinaBoeckx, CedricEvolució humanaCognicióHuman evolutionCognitionThere has been a reappraisal of phylogenetic issues in cognitive science, as reconstructing cognitive phylogenies has been considered a key for unveiling the cognitive novelties that set the stage for what makes humans special. In our opinion, the studies made until now have approached cognitive phylogenies in a non-optimal way, and we wish to both highlight their problems, drawing on recent considerations in philosophy of biology. The inadequacy of current visions on cognitive phylogenies stems from the influence of the traditional "linear cladograms," according to which every seemingly new or more sophisticated feature of a cognitive mechanism, viewed as a novelty, is represented as a node on top of the old and shared elements. We claim that this kind of cladograms does not succeed in depicting the complexity with which traits are distributed across species and, furthermore, that the labels of the nodes of these traditional representational systems fail to capture the "tinkering" nature of evolution. We argue that if we are to conceive of cognitive mechanisms in a multi-dimensional, bottom-up perspective, in accordance with the Darwinian logic of descent, we should rather focus on decomposing these mechanisms into lower-level, generic functions, which have the additional advantage of being implementable in neural matter, which ultimately produces cognition. Doing so renders current constructions of cognitive phylogenies otiose.Frontiers Media2019201920152019info:eu-repo/semantics/articleinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion6 p.application/pdfhttps://hdl.handle.net/2445/139911Articles publicats en revistes (Filologia Catalana i Lingüística General)reponame:Recercat. Dipósit de la Recerca de Catalunyainstname:Varias* (Consorci de Biblioteques Universitáries de Catalunya, Centre de Serveis Científics i Acadèmics de Catalunya)InglésReproducció del document publicat a: https://doi.org/10.3389/fcell.2015.00064Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology, 2015, vol. 3, num. 64https://doi.org/10.3389/fcell.2015.00064info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/EC/FP7/256413cc-by (c) Theofanopoulou, Constantina et al., 2015http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/esinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccessoai:recercat.cat:2445/1399112026-05-29T05:05:01Z
dc.title.none.fl_str_mv Cognitive phylogenies, the darwinian logic of descent, and the inadequacy of cladistic thinking
title Cognitive phylogenies, the darwinian logic of descent, and the inadequacy of cladistic thinking
spellingShingle Cognitive phylogenies, the darwinian logic of descent, and the inadequacy of cladistic thinking
Theofanopoulou, Constantina
Evolució humana
Cognició
Human evolution
Cognition
title_short Cognitive phylogenies, the darwinian logic of descent, and the inadequacy of cladistic thinking
title_full Cognitive phylogenies, the darwinian logic of descent, and the inadequacy of cladistic thinking
title_fullStr Cognitive phylogenies, the darwinian logic of descent, and the inadequacy of cladistic thinking
title_full_unstemmed Cognitive phylogenies, the darwinian logic of descent, and the inadequacy of cladistic thinking
title_sort Cognitive phylogenies, the darwinian logic of descent, and the inadequacy of cladistic thinking
dc.creator.none.fl_str_mv Theofanopoulou, Constantina
Boeckx, Cedric
author Theofanopoulou, Constantina
author_facet Theofanopoulou, Constantina
Boeckx, Cedric
author_role author
author2 Boeckx, Cedric
author2_role author
dc.subject.none.fl_str_mv Evolució humana
Cognició
Human evolution
Cognition
topic Evolució humana
Cognició
Human evolution
Cognition
description There has been a reappraisal of phylogenetic issues in cognitive science, as reconstructing cognitive phylogenies has been considered a key for unveiling the cognitive novelties that set the stage for what makes humans special. In our opinion, the studies made until now have approached cognitive phylogenies in a non-optimal way, and we wish to both highlight their problems, drawing on recent considerations in philosophy of biology. The inadequacy of current visions on cognitive phylogenies stems from the influence of the traditional "linear cladograms," according to which every seemingly new or more sophisticated feature of a cognitive mechanism, viewed as a novelty, is represented as a node on top of the old and shared elements. We claim that this kind of cladograms does not succeed in depicting the complexity with which traits are distributed across species and, furthermore, that the labels of the nodes of these traditional representational systems fail to capture the "tinkering" nature of evolution. We argue that if we are to conceive of cognitive mechanisms in a multi-dimensional, bottom-up perspective, in accordance with the Darwinian logic of descent, we should rather focus on decomposing these mechanisms into lower-level, generic functions, which have the additional advantage of being implementable in neural matter, which ultimately produces cognition. Doing so renders current constructions of cognitive phylogenies otiose.
publishDate 2015
dc.date.none.fl_str_mv 2015
2019
2019
2019
dc.type.none.fl_str_mv info:eu-repo/semantics/article
info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion
format article
status_str publishedVersion
dc.identifier.none.fl_str_mv https://hdl.handle.net/2445/139911
url https://hdl.handle.net/2445/139911
dc.language.none.fl_str_mv Inglés
language_invalid_str_mv Inglés
dc.relation.none.fl_str_mv Reproducció del document publicat a: https://doi.org/10.3389/fcell.2015.00064
Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology, 2015, vol. 3, num. 64
https://doi.org/10.3389/fcell.2015.00064
info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/EC/FP7/256413
dc.rights.none.fl_str_mv cc-by (c) Theofanopoulou, Constantina et al., 2015
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/es
info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
rights_invalid_str_mv cc-by (c) Theofanopoulou, Constantina et al., 2015
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/es
eu_rights_str_mv openAccess
dc.format.none.fl_str_mv 6 p.
application/pdf
dc.publisher.none.fl_str_mv Frontiers Media
publisher.none.fl_str_mv Frontiers Media
dc.source.none.fl_str_mv Articles publicats en revistes (Filologia Catalana i Lingüística General)
reponame:Recercat. Dipósit de la Recerca de Catalunya
instname:Varias* (Consorci de Biblioteques Universitáries de Catalunya, Centre de Serveis Científics i Acadèmics de Catalunya)
instname_str Varias* (Consorci de Biblioteques Universitáries de Catalunya, Centre de Serveis Científics i Acadèmics de Catalunya)
reponame_str Recercat. Dipósit de la Recerca de Catalunya
collection Recercat. Dipósit de la Recerca de Catalunya
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