From the Transmission of Representations to the Education of Attention

Abstract

The article discusses the role of experience and generational change in the ways human beings know and participate in the culture. It questions the assumption of cognitive science that knowledge exists primarily in the form of ‘mental content’ that is passed from generation to generation, and that culture is a legacy that people receive from their ancestors. The author dialogues with the neo-Darwinian biology and cognitive psychology in order to place human development beyond the dichotomy between innate abilities and skills. He proposes the concept of human skills as emergent properties of dynamical systems where each generation achieves and exceeds the wisdom of their predecessors. He concludes that the contribution for the increase of human knowledge that each generation gives to the following is given least as a cumulative supply of representations and more for an education of attention.