Challenges to the What, When, and Why?

Abstract

Why Only Us (WOU) is a wonderful, slim, engaging, and clearly written book by Robert C. Berwick and Noam Chomsky (B&C). From the authors’ perspective, it is a book about language and evolution. And of course it is. However, I think it is actually about something much bigger. It is an argument about the evolution of thought itself, with language being not only one form of thought, but a domain that can impact thought itself, in ways that are truly unique in the animal kingdom. Seen in this light, WOU provides a framework for thinking about the evolution of thought and a challenge to Darwin’s claim that the human mind is only quantitatively different from other animals. Since this is an idea that I have cham