Re: "The Evolution of Agency" by Michael Tomasello

Arkalen wrote:

Hello all,

hello too! It's so nice to have you back!!

Has anyone here read "The Evolution of Agency" by Michael Tomasello ?

I thought it was a really interesting (and very short) book that kind of blew my mind, and months later I can confirm it still impacts how I think about human consciousness and social living. I'm still not sure though how much of that is just being dazzled, or reading things for the first time that are actually already well-known, or if the book is plain wrong and if so on what.

I haven't read this one (but on the reading list now), I knew his work
mainly from the debate he had with Chomsky, and his rejection of the
idea of an innate universal grammar in favour of a social learning
model. I thought at the time that while the idea of shared intentionality
was very appealing and plausible, and explains a lot, on its own
I could not see how it overcomes the "poverty of the stimulus problem"
(but this was ages ago that I read it tbh) What I also found really interesting, for my day job,  was his discussion
 on third-party punishment (which he claims is uniquely human)

I'd toyed with the idea of doing a book report here, and still might if motivation arises, but I figured now it's been out long enough that someone else might actually have read it and have takes.