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Human uniqueness explored from the uniquely human perspective: Epistemological and methodological challenges
Author(s) -
Uher Jana
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
journal for the theory of social behaviour
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.615
H-Index - 51
eISSN - 1468-5914
pISSN - 0021-8308
DOI - 10.1111/jtsb.12232
Subject(s) - anthropocentrism , epistemology , comparability , sociality , perspective (graphical) , ethnocentrism , cognition , sociology , empirical research , cognitive science , psychology , social psychology , ecology , computer science , biology , philosophy , mathematics , combinatorics , artificial intelligence , neuroscience
Exploring human uniqueness encounters fundamental challenges because we can approach this endeavour only from within our uniquely human perspective. The intrinsic presumptions that this involves may entail two types of anthropocentric, ethnocentric, and egocentric biases, which can influence research on both epistemological and methodological levels. Their impact may be particularly pronounced if quests for the origins of human sociality are based only on our knowledge about humans. Tomasello's (2019) research demonstrates that the comparative study of humans and nonhuman species offers unique opportunities to explore forms of social cooperation, underlying cognitive and meta‐cognitive abilities as well as pathways in their ontological and (possible) phylogenetic development. It also shows that comparative approaches are essential to unravel the ways in which humans are indeed unique. But species comparisons are challenged by the need to consider inherent trade‐offs between achieving operational comparability in empirical studies and establishing ecological validity for the species compared—challenges, which analogously occur in comparisons across human cultures as well. This shows that comparative research can also contribute meaningfully to methodology development in psychology.