On his book Numbers and the Making of Us: Counting and the Course of Human Cultures
Cover Interview of June 20, 2017
Lastly
I hope the book gives readers a better appreciation of how
so many central aspects of their own lives are dependent on the invention of
the cognitive tools we call numbers. The story of numbers is also illustrative
a larger theme: what makes humans so special is not simply our innately given
intelligence, but the cognitive tools we acquire from each other—often across
generations—and then subsequently refine.
An interrelated pragmatic goal of the book is to bring
heightened awareness to the crucial role that anthropological linguistics can
play in elucidating the human narrative, helping us to better understand how we
got where we are now as a species. Anthropological linguistics sits at the
nexus of the study of language, human cognition, and culture, and relies on
findings from other diverse fields like neuroscience and archaeology. The
claims in the book are based on findings from all these diverse fields, but rest
most heavily on the study of diverse languages around the world.
I also hope that the book gives readers a better sense of
the insights diverse cultures can give us, even those cultures that do not
wield numerical technologies like ours. There is a temptation to exoticize
small groups of indigenes, and to see their reduced reliance on numbers as less
natural or, simply, weird. In fact, they represent more faithfully the bulk of
our species’ history, since most numerical technologies are a relatively recent
innovation. They offer an important window through which we can look and
discover more about ourselves.
Finally, I hope one of the consequences of the book is that
readers will reflect on the fact that so many of the “essential” numerical
features of their lives, from time-telling to the measurement of their net
worth, are not shared by all people.
[T]he Holocaust transformed our whole way of thinking about war and heroism. War is no longer a proving ground for heroism in the same way it used to be. Instead, war now is something that we must avoid at all costs—because genocides often take place under the cover of war. We are no longer all potential soldiers (though we are that too), but we are all potential victims of the traumas war creates. This, at least, is one important development in the way Western populations envision war, even if it does not always predominate in the thinking of our political leaders.Carolyn J. Dean, Interview of February 01, 2011
The dominant premise in evolution and economics is that a person is being loyal to natural law if he or she attends to self’s interest and welfare before being concerned with the needs and demands of family or community. The public does not realize that this statement is not an established scientific principle but an ethical preference. Nonetheless, this belief has created a moral confusion among North Americans and Europeans because the evolution of our species was accompanied by the disposition to worry about kin and the collectives to which one belongs.Jerome Kagan, Interview of September 17, 2009
Lastly
I hope the book gives readers a better appreciation of how so many central aspects of their own lives are dependent on the invention of the cognitive tools we call numbers. The story of numbers is also illustrative a larger theme: what makes humans so special is not simply our innately given intelligence, but the cognitive tools we acquire from each other—often across generations—and then subsequently refine.
An interrelated pragmatic goal of the book is to bring heightened awareness to the crucial role that anthropological linguistics can play in elucidating the human narrative, helping us to better understand how we got where we are now as a species. Anthropological linguistics sits at the nexus of the study of language, human cognition, and culture, and relies on findings from other diverse fields like neuroscience and archaeology. The claims in the book are based on findings from all these diverse fields, but rest most heavily on the study of diverse languages around the world.
I also hope that the book gives readers a better sense of the insights diverse cultures can give us, even those cultures that do not wield numerical technologies like ours. There is a temptation to exoticize small groups of indigenes, and to see their reduced reliance on numbers as less natural or, simply, weird. In fact, they represent more faithfully the bulk of our species’ history, since most numerical technologies are a relatively recent innovation. They offer an important window through which we can look and discover more about ourselves.
Finally, I hope one of the consequences of the book is that readers will reflect on the fact that so many of the “essential” numerical features of their lives, from time-telling to the measurement of their net worth, are not shared by all people.