0037 At around the age of nine months, sensible construction comes to life.

On the content level, the normal context of what is happening_3a brings the actuality of ongoing events with others_2a into relation with the potential of ‘something happening’_1a.

On the situation level, the normal context of what it means to me_3b brings the actuality of the object of attention_2b into relation with the potential of ‘social referencing’_1b.

Tomasello provides details.  For example, three types of joint attention emerge in sequence.  First, check the attention of others.  Next, follow the attention of others.  Then, direct the attention of others.

0038 Tomasello aims for a theoretical account that addresses two questions.

First, why do all joint attentional skills manifest in a particular pattern?

Second, why do they manifest starting at nine months of age?

0039 Tomasello proposes that infants start to engage in joint attention when they begin to “understand” others as intentional agents like the self.

Is understanding (that is, comprehension) necessary?

Or does competence in the above sensible construction suffice?

Infants pay attention to the actions of others_2a and situate the implied social reference_1b with an object of joint attention_2b.

Does this classify as sociogenesis?

Yes, it does.

0040 Plus, the above sensible construction does not depend on an explicit abstraction of the self as a participant.

Instead, the sensible construction generates the self as a participant_3b within joint action_2b. 

0041 The sensible construction pictured above is experienced holistically.

Social and cognitive scientists can only observe and measure facets of this whole relation.  So, they build models that explicitly abstract one of the elements.  This foregrounds the abstracted element and backgrounds the others.  For example, experiments may be designed to foreground the self_3b, with the result that objects of joint attention_2b may be classified as “like me” and “not like me”.

Are social and cognitive scientists observing what their models are asking them to look for?

Uh oh.  Is this another tautology (point 0017)?

I wonder whether Tomasello’s research program may be an exercise in social construction, because social constructions often have a tautological character, where the perspective level refers back to the content level, and the situation level takes on a vague or an unsettled tone.

0042 I can say that models of newborns and infant psychology support a hypothesis that human ontogeny (body and behavioral development) is phenotypic.  Phenotypes and adaptations not the same.  But, they constitute one entity.  Adaptation and phenotype coincide in that entity.  But, they are not the same

So, a question arises about the potential that an adaptation exploits or avoids.  That niche is the potential of something independent of the adapting species.

For human ontogeny_2b, not as a phenotype, but as its corresponding adaptation_2b, the niche_1b, must be… hmmm… the potential of culture, where culture is something independent of the adapting species_2a.

0043 To me, this recalls the awkwardness of points 0014 through 0019.

Here is a diagram of the resulting Darwinian paradigm.

0044 Tomasello (and other cognitive psychologists) construct Darwinian paradigms that locate culture_2a as the actuality independent of the adapting species_2a in order to identify phenotypic traits as adaptations_2b.  The adapting species are children_3b, which the above paradigm labels as “individuals within culture”_3b.

The normal context of natural selection of individuals within culture_3b brings the actuality of phenotypical patterns of human development_2b into relation with the potential_1b of an actuality independent of the adapting species_2a.

What is that independent actuality_2a?

Culture_2a.

0045 What is the question that I am addressing (see point 0041)?

Can Tomasello’s research program be diagrammed as a social construction?

A social construction is a type of three-level interscope, where the perspective and content levels stand out and the situation level is muddled.

0046 I suppose that I have identified two Darwinian paradigms that I can cut and paste into a three level interscope.

The first paradigm treats phenotypes_2b as adaptations_2b.

The second is the Tomasello-Mah synthesis.

0047 I ask the question, “Does culture (on the content level of the psychological paradigm) situate the cognitive ability to identify with conspecifics (that is, joint attention, on the situation level of the Tomasello-Mah synthesis)?”

In the following figure, I hybridize the above paradigms.  I move the situation-level of the Tomasello-Mah synthesis into the content-level of a vision in cognitive psychology.  Situation-level natural selection_3b becomes content-level natural selection_3a.  I also replace “cognitive ability to identify with conspecifics_2a” with the term, “joint attention_2a“.

0048 Notably, the actuality_2a underlying the adaptation of joint attention_2b in the Tomasello-Mah synthesis disappears.

If Tomasello’s research program is a house, built with the tools of cognitive psychology, then the actuality of triadic relations dwells in the basement, out of sight and out of mind.

0049 Perhaps, a little fig leaf of a normal context can cover thirdness for the situation level.  In the following figure, I replace the empty situation-level normal context with the term, “cultural selection_3b“.

Here is a picture of Tomasello’s research program.

0050 Tomasello’s vision is coherent and intellectually satisfying.  Each element in the social construction (three-level interscope) is filled in.  Plus, each normal context is nominally Darwinian, that is, based on selection upon variation.  Also, each actuality₂ connects to instrumental (as well as final) causality₁.

0051 This three-level interscope does not fully manifest in the book before me.  However, the title of the work before meintimates the above constellation.

Culture occupies the situation level (and originally, occupies the slot for the actuality independent of the adapting species,where the adapting species is the individual in community).

Human cognition is defined by psychological models of observations and measurements of behaviors in human newborns, infants, toddlers and so on (that is, human ontogeny).

0052 The problem?

The phylogenetic (content) level of Tomasello’s vision conceals the hypothesis that sociogenesis_1a is the potential of triadic relations, as shown in the following figure.

0053 The implications?

I see four.

First, this concealment accounts for the tautological foundation of Tomasello’s natural history for hominins (points 0014 to 0016), where the potential of joint attention_1b cannot be readily distinguished from sociogenesis_1a.

Second, this concealment stands at the start of Tomasello’s journey, commencing with the book before me, published in 1999, and arriving at a destination in his book on human ontogeny, published in 2019.  Even though Tomasello is familiar with Peirce, he does not imagine that a Peircean framework is foundational to his enterprise.  Instead, he offers  scientific formulations.

Oops.

0054 Third continues the second.

Mah proposes that the Peircean motif of the category-based nested form may serve as a framework capable of describing scientific research into human cognition and evolution.  The category-based nested form allows one to distinguish between “behavioral competence” and “understanding”.  These terms are difficult to parse, even though the distinction is important to inquiry into human understanding.

Indeed, Tomasello’s science-based arguments direct the reader’s imagination away from Peircean semiotics and towards specialized scientific languages, unsuitable for describing the thing itself.  The actualities labeled “joint attention_2a“, “culture_2b” and “human ontogeny_2c” are models based on observations and measurements of phenomena.  They are not descriptions of the thing itself.

Fourth, the above figures allow the reader to appreciate the relational being conceived in the work before me.  Chapter three is titled, “Joint Attention and Cultural Learning”.  Chapter four is titled, “Linguistic Communication and Symbolic Representation”.  These titles suggest that hominin culture_2b is instrumentally caused by the adaptation of joint attention_2a and that joint attention_2a emerges from (and situates) sociogenesis_1a.

0055 Here is a list of the chapters of the book before me.

0056 Once again, here is the three-level interscope of Tomasello’s vision.

0057 Do these figures correspond?

Well, if they do correspond, then Tomasello envisions a grand schema, weaving together hominin evolution and modern linguistics into one explanatory canvas.  Human ontogeny_2c describes the phenotypic expression of human cognition.   Culture_2b describes traditions concerned with inspiring, interpellating and guiding human ontogenetic development_2c.  Joint attention_2a is the foundational adaptation, emerging from (and situating) the niche of sociogenesis_1a, making human cultural traditions_2b possible.

0058 To me, the first three chapters concern the first two levels of Tomasello’s vision.  The remaining four chaptersdiscuss the second two levels.

Details?

0059 In chapter four, Tomasello proposes that the social-cognitive basis of language acquisition is modeled by scientific inquiry into joint attention_2a.  Communicative intentions are key.  Imitative role-reversal, along with intersubjectivity, is at play.  Joint-attention_2a starts without language, at the age of one year.  Language acquisition starts soon afterwards.

0060 So how do newborns and infants cogitate?

Well, they pay attention to events that are going around them.

Prior points 0026 and 0027 apply.  The newborn is trying to be sensible.  The newborn begins to fill in elements of an innate relational structure that is not articulated by modern scientists, but by medieval scholastics.  At the end of the Latin Age, the Baroque scholastic, John Poinsot (1589-1644 AD), formulates the proposition that a sign is a triadic relation.  Charles Peirce (1839-1914), two centuries later, makes the same discovery and invents postmodern semiotics.

0061 Of course, neither newborns or Tomasello know this, they only know the events before them.  For newborns, events include mom and dad and other siblings and the stuff of everyday life.  For Tomasello, the events include scientific inquiries into the behaviors of the great apes and the cognitive abilities of newborns and infants.

0062 Here is a picture of the scholastic two-level interscope for sensible thought.  The newborn has impressions, sensations and feelings due to an event.  The scholastics call these qualia, “species impressa_2a“.  This is the only element that is filled in at first.  The other elements come into play because this relational structure is phenotypic.

0063 This relation does not require language.  It is a precursor to language.

Also, the ongoing event_2a is not the event itself.  Rather, the ongoing event_2a consists of impressions of what is going on at the moment_2a.

By the time the tyke is nine months old, slots are filling in quite nicely.

Here is a picture.

0064 With chapter four in mind, I add another layer, where the object of joint attention_2b has the potential to be represented symbolically_1c (in speech-alone talk) or iconically and indexally_1c (in hand and hand-speech talk).  The resulting actuality_2c is linguistic communication_2c (or “language_2c“) in the normal context of making sense.

This added layer follows the theme of Tomasello’s argument.

0065 At the same time, the above three-level interscope correlates to a similar diagram developed while reading articles about Latin Age scholastics.  Consider two blogs appearing on Razie Mah’s website, Looking at John Deely’s Book (2010) “Semiotic Animal” (appearing in November 2023) and Looking at Daniel Dennett’s Book (2017) “From Bacteria, To Bach, And Back” (appearing in December 2023).

The scholastic picture of the way humans think is diagrammed below.

0066 To me, Tomasello wrestles with the same issues addressed by John Deely and Daniel Dennett.   Our lineage adapts into the potential_1b of immaterial actualities independent of the adapting species_2a.  The human niche_1b is the potential of triadic relations_2a.

0067 The three-level scholastic interscope for how humans think is a purely relational structure.

Are Tomasello, Deely and Dennett discussing the same suite of human adaptations, as pictured in Razie Mah’s foundational construction of the Darwinian paradigm in the masterwork, The Human Niche (available at smashwords and other e-book venues)?

0068 Here is a picture of the Darwinian paradigm for human evolution.

For Tomasello, another term for the human niche_1b is “sociogenesis_1b“.   Joint attention_2b is the adaptation_2b.

For Deely, human semiosis_2b is the adaptation and the niche_1b is the potential of sign-processing_1b. 

For Dennett, meme-usage_2b is the adaptation and the niche_1b is the potential of the species impressa_1b.

0069 Here is a scholastic picture of the way humans think.  The actualities are foregrounded, the normal contexts and potentials fade to the background.

Species impressa_2a covers impressions, sensations, feelings, qualia and decodings.  An ongoing event is the apparent cause of these cognitions_2a.  Indeed, the event and its species impressa_2a cannot be distinguished by a human infant.

Species expressa_2b covers perceptions, phantasms, realizations, emotions, and so forth,  addressing the question, “What does the content mean to me?”_3b.

Species intelligibilis_2c, in theory, brings an intelligible aspect of the situation-level actuality into relation with a universal aspect of the content-level actuality.  Species intelligibilis_2c is a triadic relation experienced holistically as a relationbetween what is and what ought to be.  The Latin term for what is is species impressa intelligibilis, a universal aspect of the species impressa_2a.  The Latin term for what ought to be is species expressa intelligibilis, an intelligible aspect of species expressa_2b.

0070 Here is Tomasello’s description of human cognition rendered as a three-level interscope.  Again, the actualities are foregrounded.

0071 To me, a comparison of the previous two diagrams supports the claim that modern Tomasello and medieval schoolmen try to fashion keys for the same lock.  The lock is a purely relational structure.  What enters into each elementdepends on the inquirer.

The scholastics are interested in separating mind-dependent and mind-independent beings, among other goals.  This seems to be a far cry from Tomasello’s journey into the natural history of who we are.  Yet, these two inquiries have this relational structure in common.