About the event

Unique among mammals, great apes have evolved to be rational agents: (i) they metacognitively monitor their decision making and correct themselves or gather new information as needed; (ii) they understand why things happen in terms of the causal structure of the physical world and the intentional structure of the social world. Building on this foundation, humans have evolved in addition species-unique skills and motivations for collaboration and cultural life – shared agency and intentionality - which have made possible almost all of their most distinctive cognitive and cultural achievements.

About the speaker

Michael Tomasello is Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Duke University, and emeritus director at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany. His research interests focus on processes of cooperation, communication, and cultural learning in human children and great apes. His recent books include Origins of Human Communication (MIT Press, 2008); Why We Cooperate (MIT Press, 2009); A Natural History of Human Thinking (Harvard U. Press, 2014); A Natural History of Human Morality (Harvard U. Press, 2016); Becoming Human (Harvard U. Press, 2019); The Evolution of Agency (MIT Press, 2022); Primate Cognition, 2nd Ed. (Oxford U. Press, 2024); and Agency and Cognitive Development (Oxford U. Press, 2024).

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