Artifacts, Analogy, and Metaphor: Toward an Interdisciplinary Framework for Studying the Evolution of Analogy

Abstract

Analogy is central to human language and cognition. It has also been proposed to play an important role in language evolution. For these reasons, the evolution of analogy and the cognitive processes supporting it are an important explanatory target for evolutionary accounts of human language. We integrate data from comparative psychology and cognitive archaeology to investigate the evolution of analogy as well as its evolutionary foundations. We present evidence supporting the view that a number of capacities underlying analogy display evolutionary continuity between humans and nonhuman animals. In addition, we propose that analogical capacities can also be inferred from the archaeological record by looking at productional diversity in tool-making. To gain further insight into the evolution of complex human analogical capacities, we investigate comparative and archaeological evidence for one cognitive process intricately linked to complex forms of analogy and the evolution of language, that of metaphor. Overall, we propose an interdisciplinary framework for understanding the evolution of analogy and argue that analogy has deep evolutionary roots, supporting cognitive capacities such as metaphor and language.