Tomasello hypothesizes that there is a natural human capacity to become
acculturated and aware of multiple perspectives on the same object or event.
But this natural capacity becomes actualized into an explicit ability only in
and through social interaction.^59 It is through participating in what Toma-
sello calls“extended joint attentional interactions,”^60 particularly in cases in
which we become aware of others as agents who may have both multiple
goals and multiple available means for achieving a goal, that we become
aware thathowobjects are picked out can vary and that this matters. Other
nonhuman primates can also shift goals and see the same object as either a
weapon or a tool for digging. But we can see differing aspects and identities of
things much more quickly and flexibly, we can do so simultaneously, not
only sequentially, and, most importantly, we can internalize different ways
of identifying things, as we pick up on how others identify them. This
internalization“creates a clear break with [the] straightforward perceptual
or sensory-motor representations [that we share with other nonhuman pri-
mates and sentient creatures].”^61
As a result, as we come both phylogenetically and ontogenetically to
develop this internalized awareness of different ways of seeing and identify-
ing things, in and through the development of representational systems,
visual and verbal alike, we are particularly aware of ourselvesasrepresen-
ters, asusingimages or cries for one communicative purpose or another.
Whatever the roots in biological evolution of this socially actualized, flexible
representational capacity, it offers us a clear evolutionary advantage. It has
survival value, in enabling more flexible and culturally accumulative respon-
siveness to our natural environment. We can plan, learn, and cooperate with
others much more flexibly and effectively than other animals can.
(^59) The distinction between capacities or second-order, natural abilities to develop abilities
and explicit first-order abilities traces to Aristotle. See Richard Eldridge,On Moral Person-
hood: Philosophy, Literature, Criticism, and Self-Understanding(Chicago, IL: University of
Chicago Press, 1987), p. 31 and p. 193, n. 15 for the relevant references. The idea that
we have a natural language capacity that becomes an explicit ability to speak some
particular language or other only and necessarily through social interaction is defended
by many Wittgensteinians. See Eldridge,Leading a Human Life, pp. 203–04.
(^60) Tomasello,Cultural Origins of Human Cognition, p. 36. Compare also Donald Davidson on what
he calls“triangulation”in Donald Davidson,“The Second Person,”in D. Davidson,Subjective,
Intersubjective, Objective(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2001), pp. 107–21 at pp. 117–21.
(^61) Ibid., p. 126.
Representation, imitation, and resemblance 45