Giving a helping hand we became humans, without saying a word

Abstract

INTRODUCTION. It is a fact that, in post-Enlightenment Occidental culture, the prevailing description of the human mind has been clearly biased towards logic and argument; the prototype of rationality would be scientific, especially in the realm of Mathematics and the Natural Sciences. In the anthropological deliberation, the signs which demonstrated technical knowledge and related productive capacities to describe the process of humanization have taken priority. Nonetheless, an anthropological model has been put forward which presents cooperation as a core mechanism of evolutionary pressure towards the human condition; the aim of this paper is to investigate the mental functions involved in the pattern of cooperation. We shall point out the main arguments that corroborate the value of this perspective and the observable facts supporting it. METHOD. We will use data provided by Anthropology on temporal and causal priority of the culture of cooperation over the culture of artifacts or technical culture; the fostering of newborn and the culture of childbearing will be highlighted, as a core episode of the action pattern of cooperative behavior. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION. In this niche of experiences emerged the recursion of thinking first and, subsequently, the technique and the oral language. The instrumental supplies do not stand above emotional components nor above capacities involved in the emotional closeness, affiliation and mutual sentimental understanding. Matching with those who have been underlying the theoretical relevance of the ethics of compassion, the ethics of care, birthing ethics, the ethics of responsibility. It seems necessary to take into account the point of view that privileges the cooperative behavior in evolution. The data points to the fact that cooperation went ahead of technological progress in evolution.