THE FIRST IDEA --- HOW SYMBOLS, LANGUAGE, AND INTELLIGENCE EVOLVED FROM OUR PRIMATE ANCESTORS TO MODERN HUMANS by Stuart G. Shanker. Da Capo Press, 2004
    INTRODUCTION (p1-14)

      What was the first idea?

        How and when did the capacity to create an idea come about in the first place?

        This question has perplexed ancient and modern philosophers, scientists in the fields of human development and evolution, and most of the rest of us.

        How do human beings develop their highest mental abilities, the abilities to symbolize and think? And how did these distinctly human abilities arise during the course of evolution?

      In short, how did we become human beings and how do we maintain our humanness?

      This book shows how the capacity to create symbols and to think stems from our passions or emotions! It shows how emotions actually give birth to our human ability to create symbols and to think. (p1)

      A very special characteristic of our emotions determines the ability to understand symbols, which is the capacity to transform basic emotions into a series of successively more complex interative "emotional signals." This "emotional signaling" enables a child to separate perceptions from fixed predictable actions and, in so doing, free up these perceptions to acquire emotional meaning and become symbols. (p1-2)

      Mastering common simple words comes into being through six initial levels of emotional interaction and signaling in the early years of life. (p2)

      Nature and nurture are constantly influencing one another. (p3-4)

    PART 1 --- ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF SYMBOLS (p15-97)

      1) Origin of symbols (p17-40)

      2) Intellectual growth and transformations of emotions during the course of life (p41-95)

    PART 2 --- A NEW DIRECTION FOR EVOLUTIONARY THEORY (p97-184)

      Introduction (p97-102)

      3) The early stages of emotional regulation, engagement, and signaling --- nonhuman primates and the earliest hominids (p103-)

      4) Problem-solving collaborations --- chimpanzees and early humans (p132-146)

      5) Symbols, words, and ideas --- Archaic Homo sapiens and early moderns (p147-166)

      6) Representation and the beginning of logic --- Homo sapiens sapiens (p167-180)

      7) The engine of evolution (p181-184)

    PART 3 --- THE DEVELOPMENT OF LANGUAGE AND INTELLIGENCE (p185-318)

      Introduction (p185)

      8) The origins of language (p187-207)

      9) The role of emotions in langauge development (p208-231)

      10) Emotions and the development of intelligence (p232-)

        [1] A developmental model of intelligence (p232-235)

        [2] Defining intelligence (p236-237)

        [3] The functional/emotional approach to intelligence (p237-247)

        [4] The roots and branches of intelligence (p247-248)

        [5] Model of intelligence that can be applied across species during the course of evolution (p248-249)

      11) How emotional signaling links emotion and cognition and the brain's subsymbolic and symbolic cortical systems --- implications for neroscience and Piaget's Cognitive Psychology

      12) Emotional development derailed --- pathways to and from autism (p295-318)

    PART IV --- THE DEVELOPMENT OF SOCIAL GROUPS (p319-456)

      Introduction (p319)

      13) The developmental levels of groups, societies, and cultues (with Elizabeth Greenspan) (p321-374)

        DIAGRAM = Developmental processes and cultural patterns (p374)

      14) A new history of "History" (p375-423)

      15) Future evolution --- toward a society of "global interdependence" (p424-456)

        DIAGRAM = Foundations for adaptive global interdependency (p455)

    NOTES (p457-470)

    REFERENCES (p471-488)

    INDEX (p489-503)

    ABOUT THE AUTHORS (p504)

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