This is one of the few books I've read that changed the way I think. The notions of "cooperative attention", "common ground" and "shared intent" are profound and leave me thinking and wondering. Let's see if I can describe one, common ground. As I see it, in a conversation participants share a framework, a "common ground". For example, the common ground may be the task "preparation for dinner". This framework permits many shortcuts. For example, common ground makes pointing an effective and informative means of communication. In the context of preparation for dinner, pointing to the salt may mean "please bring that to me so I can cook". Tomasselo argues that the 3 essential features derive from human social groups being inherently cooperative. An example would be a hunting party, where a single plan could be established and differential roles assigned. Tomasselo argues that ape societies are not cooperative, and disputes claims of cooperation from primate behavior research.
One of my interests is "Theory of Mind". Tomasselo argues (counter to his thinking 15 years ago) that apes do have a theory of mind. This means, roughly, that apes recognize that conspecifics (or humans) see the world differently than they do and are separate agents with separate goals and desires. The notion of "shared intent" rests on theory of mind. Tomasselo contends that apes do not have shared intent, due to the lack of natural cooperation in their social structure. Our presumed ancestors possessed both theory of mind and shared intent, necessary precursors for language development.
One of the most surprising Tomasselo ideas is that human language developed not from primate vocalization but from primate gesture and pantomime. He successfully demonstrates that primate vocalization is rigid, while pointing and pantomime have many key features of proto-language. He shows that pointing and pantomime serve important proto-language roles in 12 month old children. He is very convincing. The difficulty, for me, is how in our ancestors language made the jump from gestural to vocal. This seems a large jump.
I have two small quibbles with the book. One is that I would like to have heard a more direct account of the relation of "shared intent" and "theory of mind". Tomasselo is an expert on theory of mind -- he publishes reviews, etc, -- but the topic is not explicitly introduced. Second, as an outsider I would like to have a more explicit history of these ideas. For example, the contributions of Wittgenstein and Grise. While these writers are frequently cited with reverence, the history of these remarkable ideas is not presented.
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