The Shape of Thought

H. Clark Barrett is an evolutionary anthropologist who studies the evolution of cognition. For the past fifteen years he has conducted field work in the Amazon region of Ecuador, and uses experimental cognitive tasks across cultures to test hypotheses about the evolution of the mind. He is now Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Rich and thoughtful, this book lays out why, if we want to understand human psychology, neural plasticity, cultural differences and cognitive development, we need evolutionary theory, and an understanding of how humans evolved. In Barrett's hands, the pernicious dichotomy that divides "learning" from "innate" explanations crumbles, leaving only evolutionary explanations, which may involve different types of developmental processes. In setting the house back in order, Barrett synthesizes insights and findings from psychology, culture-gene coevolutionary theory, anthropology, developmental biology and philosophy. He delivers Evolutionary Psychology 2.0.

• Acknowledgments ; Introduction: The problem ; Part 1. Evolution ; 1 - Additivism ; 2 - Hill-climbing ; Part 2. Information ; 3 - Adding value ; 4 - Social ontology ; 5 - Minds ; Part 3. Development ; 6 - Development ; 7 - Open ends ; Part 4. Culture ; 8 - Moving targets ; 9 - Culture ; 10 - Accumulation ; Part 5. Architecture ; 11 - Parts ; 12 - Wholes ; 13 - Us ; Conclusion: Possibilities ; References ; Index