The Evolution of Social Communication in Primates ― A Multidisciplinary Approach

How did social communication evolve in primates? In this volume, primatologists, linguists, anthropologists, cognitive scientists and philosophers of science systematically analyze how their specific disciplines demarcate the research questions and methodologies involved in the study of the evolutionary origins of social communication in primates in general, and in humans in particular. In the first part, pioneering primatologists provide cutting edge insights into how the study of communicative behavior portrayed by extant monkeys and great apes can provide information for studies on the origin and evolution of human language. Chapters range from the social and communicative importance of grooming in primate societies, to the multiple levels of primate mother-infant communication, and the significance of gestural and vocal signs produces by monkeys and great apes. The primary focus is how these various types of behavior can be understood as evolutionary precursors to human language. In the second part, we turn to the cognitive sciences, and leading psychologists analyze how facial expressions, Theory of Mind and intentionality, mimesis and imitation evolved in both humans and other primates, and how these traits are necessary prerequisites for human language evolution. In the third part, we turn to the hominin lineage, and anthropologists and archeologists investigate the necessary anatomical and behavioral features required for language to evolve within the hominin and human lineage. In the last part of the book, historians, philosophers of science and moral philosophers address how the epistemological framework associated with language evolution studies has changed over time, and how these conceptual changes affect our understanding of primates in general and humans in particular. Specific emphasis is placed on debates on human uniqueness as well as whether or not we can attribute moral agency to primates.

Marco Pina has a background in medicine which he applies to topics in philosophy of biology and philosophy of medicine. He is currently preparing a doctoral dissertation on the development of the mind-brain dyad in the context of the nature/nurture debate, which is funded by the Portuguese Fund for Science and Technology and executed at the Faculty of Science of the Portuguese University of Lisbon. Previously, as a scientific collaborator for the Centre for Philosophy of Science of the University of Lisbon as well as its Applied Evolutionary Epistemology Lab, he has edited several books on evolutionary theory, language evolution, and the evolution of man.

Nathalie Gontier is a philosopher of science and an anthropologist. Her main research interests lie in evolutionary epistemology and non-Darwinian evolutionary theories, how the latter differ from the Modern Synthesis and how they can be implemented into the linguistic sciences and the overall sociocultural domain. As the founding director of the Lisbon Applied Evolutionary Epistemology Lab, she is affiliated to the Centre for Philosophy of Science at the Faculty of Science of the University of Lisbon, and financed by the Portuguese Fund for Science and Technology. Previous appointments were held at the Dutch Free University of Brussels (Belgium), the Konrad Lorenz Institute (Austria), and the American Museum of Natural History (USA). Her research has been sponsored by the American John Templeton Foundation, the European Marie Curie Actions and the Belgian Fund for Scientific Research Flanders. She is the founder and editor-in-chief of the Springer book series Interdisciplinary Evolution Research.