Three Prehistoric Inventions That Shaped Us

In a companion (prequel and sequel, he says) to his 2003 How History Made the Mind: the Cultural Origins of Objective Thinking, Johnson (emeritus, philosophy, York U., Toronto) argues that domesticating animals, creating sophisticated language, and acquiring religious or objective consciousness were deliberate undertakings by the ancestors of modern humans. Darwin and his successors have not taken proper account of culturally created human characteristics, he charges, and characterizes human nature as a lately discovered, causally powerful but perilous ecological opportunity. Annotation c2011 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

David Martel Johnson received his A.B. from Kenyon College and his MA and his PhD from Yale University. He is Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at York University, Toronto, where he has taught since 1965. He has edited (with Christina Erneling) The Future of the Cognitive Revolution (1997), (with Demetra Sfendoni-Mentzou and Jagdish Hattiangadi) Aristotle and Contemporary Science, Volume II (Peter Lang, 2000); and (with Christina Erneling) The Mind as a Scientific Object (2005). He also is the author of How History Made the Mind (2003).