The summer school aims to survey recent theoretical models (coming from memetics, cultural theory, evolutionary psychology, developmental psychology of social and causal cognition, comparative ethology, cognitive neuroscience, and philosophy of mind) and empirical work on imitative learning vs. emulation learning in humans as well as in different animal species (such as non-human primates, birds, domesticated dogs, and wolves). The course will provide an interdisciplinary overview of some of the puzzles raised by cultural phenomena and the related empirical and theoretical considerations that led to different theoretical proposals concerning the nature and role of imitation vs. other forms of social learning in the transmission and stabilization of cultural forms in humans versus other animal species.
The other major focus of the course will be on the origins and nature of understanding artifacts in terms of functions and physical-causal accordances in non-human versus human cultures and development, the development of understanding the 'design stance' and its relation to naive essentialism in categorization, and to naive teleo-functionalism in understanding goal-directed actions and artifact use in early childhood.
Completed CEU Summer University Application Form
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