Review of The First Idea: How Symbols, Language and Intelligence Evolved From Our Primate Ancestors to Modern Humans.

Abstract

STANLEY I. GREENSPAN and STUART G. SHANKER The First Idea: How Symbols, Language and Intelligence Evolved From Our Primate Ancestors to Modern Humans New York: Da Capo Press, 2004, 504 pages (ISBN 0738206806, CDN$34.95 Hardcover) Greenspan and Shanker combine their respective expertise in child psychiatry and philosophy of language to address the monumental question of the origin of The first idea: How symbols, language and intelligence evolved from our primate ancestors. In a sweeping and engrossing text, speckled with colourful anecdotes and real life examples, Greenspan and Shanker outline their ambitious theory that encompasses both development within a lifetime and evolution over millennia. They rightfully point out that and social interaction have been neglected variables in the search for the origin of ideas and language. Their thesis places these factors, encapsulated in the affective caregiving relationship, as the primary instigators of developmental change. In their evaluation of human Greenspan and Shanker argue that with increased emotional communication there are tandem increases in symbolic thinking. The engine of evolution, they advocate, is not found in the Darwinian principles of transmission of genetic information and survival of the fittest, but lies instead in culturally transmitted caregiving practices. Here they redefine what it is to be fit, moving the emphasis away from the prowess of the individual and towards the cohesion of the group. Over several chapters this engaging discussion ranges from the emergence of problem-solving collaborations in chimpanzees to the beginnings of logic in Homo sapiens. In each case, changes in cognitive abilities are postulated to be the direct result of increased affective interactions. Greenspan and Shanker take this argument into the discussion of the evolutionary origins of language, the classic defining feature of humanity. They postulate that co-regulated emotional signaling brought about a dynamic system that served as the foundations of language. While it does not offer causal proof, they discuss intriguing neurological evidence showing overlapping neural pathways for the facial muscles, middle ear, and sound-production organs. Further exploration of such markers is needed to bring concrete evidence to their arguments about the origins of language. Following their sweeping overview of human Greenspan and Shanker move to development within the individual. They argue that it is through emotional signaling that infants develop symbolic thought. The affectionate turn-taking of smiles between parent and child enables infants to, through several stages of functional emotional development, separate perception from their associated actions and to develop ideas and language. Emotions also serve an integration function for intelligence, which is redefined as the ability to use emotions to think out problems (p. 233). In development, parents play an important scaffolding role in teaching emotional regulation, and, in turn, facilitating the linking of processing domains through emotion. To support this argument, Greenspan and Shanker cite evidence demonstrating that enriched environments lead to neuronal growth. However, further investigation is clearly needed to identify which components of the enriched environments are associated with such developments. Nevertheless, their hypothesis expands the purview of what might be considered to be intelligence. And their ideas offer a strong challenge to the traditional Cartesian split between emotion and reason. …