Baboon Metaphysics: The Evolution of a Social Mind

Citation

Anderson J (2008) Baboon Metaphysics: The Evolution of a Social Mind. Review of: Asking Baboons What They Think. A review of Dorothy L. Cheney and Robert M. Seyfarth, Baboon Metaphysics: The Evolution of a Social Mind. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2007, 358 pp. ISBN 978-0-226-10243-6. Evolutionary Psychology, 6 (1), pp. 64-66. https://doi.org/10.1177/147470490800600106

Abstract
Reviews the book, Baboon metaphysics: The evolution of a social mind by Dorothy L. Cheney and Robert M. Seyfarth (2007). This book is a worthy successor to Cheney and Seyfarth's previous book, How Monkeys See the World (1990). It is quite different in style and approach, but again brimming with new findings, insightful questions, and intriguing interpretations. With the focus switched from eastern African vervet monkeys to southern African chacma baboons, the authors describe a series of studies, largely but not exclusively based on vocalization playback experiments, and show how we can thus gain insights into baboons' minds, with particular emphasis on the importance of mental representations of social relationships and events. There is a total absence of graphic representations of data in the book, which further distinguishes Baboon Metaphysics from How Monkeys See the World. This is not really a weakness, however, as the outcomes of the studies are described so well. Instead, a good number of photos illustrate life for the baboon subjects, and help us even more to achieve what the authors set out to do in the text, which is to improve our understanding of baboon's life, both physical and mental. They have done a superb job. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2008 APA, all rights reserved). A review of Dorothy L. Cheney and Robert M. Seyfarth, Baboon Metaphysics: The Evolution of a Social Mind. University of Chicago Press: Chicago, 2007, $27.50, 358 pp. ISBN 978-0-226-10243-6

Keywords
1990; 20; baboons; book review; C; Classification; Comparative Psychology; data; EVENT; evolution; evolutionary psychology; experiment; focus; GENETICS; insight; INSIGHTS; language; LIFE; media; mental; METAPHYSICS; Mind; Monkeys; NUMBER; other; outcome; outcomes; Population; PSYCHOLOGY; Psycinfo; relationship; relationships; representation; review; Reviews; rights; Scotland; SERIES; social mind; social relationships; Stirling; Theories; THEORY; Theory of Evolution; understanding; universities; WORLD

Notes
Output Type: Book Review

Journal
Evolutionary Psychology: Volume 6, Issue 1