Recent work in ethology persuasively argues that the striking advance in primate intelligence over that of lower mammals is a product of social interdependence. This finding raises two kinds of questions for students of human society. In the first place, if the constraints of social interaction generated primate intelligence, what was the ratchet that led to the emergence of incomparably greater hominid intelligence, that is to Homo sapiens sapiens? For reasons outlined below, this stimulus seems likely to have been closely related to the gradual emergence of spoken language. Although discussion of the role of language in human evolution can, for the present at least, be only speculative, the problem has a fascination which justifies such exploratory thinking. We need to ask how language might have altered primate social life in ways that demanded, and rewarded, more complex intelligence.

A second question looks forward, not back; it concerns the contemporary nature of human intelligence. If human intelligence evolved in response to the challenges of social living, what are the implications for understanding thought, interaction and social forms? This introduction outlines some of the dynamics likely to be related to both questions in a way that is intended to raise problems for further analysis and research.

Themes from Working Papers

Primate intelligence as a response to social interdependence

In a seminal paper, ‘The social function of intellect’, Nicholas Humphrey (1976) has argued for a social origin of primate intelligence.