Three points to strengthen the “stories-come-first” account of language origins: protostories, story-susceptibility, and pantomime
In his piece Stories come first, Francesco Ferretti offers a bold and fresh philosophical perspective on language and its evolutionary origins, arguing that human thought is discursive (narrative, specifically) rather than propositional, and that “thinking in stories” is therefore phylogenetically p...
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| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | deu |
| Published: |
Mimesis Edizioni, Milano
2025-01-01
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| Series: | Rivista Internazionale di Filosofia e Psicologia |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://www.rifp.it/ojs/index.php/rifp/article/view/rifp.2025.0004 |
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| Summary: | In his piece Stories come first, Francesco Ferretti offers a bold and fresh philosophical perspective on language and its evolutionary origins, arguing that human thought is discursive (narrative, specifically) rather than propositional, and that “thinking in stories” is therefore phylogenetically prior to thinking in sentences or similar linguistic structures. In our article, we comment on the key points of Ferretti’s account. We agree with the main claims regarding the important cognitive role that stories have played in the evolution of human cognition, and continue to play even today. We also offer three caveats, or points we believe warrant further discussion. Firstly, we emphasize that today’s stories are necessarily different from the “prototypes” shared in our ancestral past. Secondly, we suggest that Ferretti’s account of the evolution of the persuasiveness of stories should be strengthened by a more thorough analysis of the adaptiveness of listening to (and being persuaded by) stories. A third, minor point relates to the usefulness of a clear distinction between pantomime and gesture in the context of language origin theories. |
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| ISSN: | 2039-4667 2239-2629 |