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In this chapter, we examine marginal cases of systematicity in the behavior of minimally cognitive agents like plants and insects. Our intention is to provide in the context of such simple agents a basis for understanding systematicity in more sophisticated kinds of linguistically mediated cognition. To do so, we adopt a neo-Gibsonian perspective in order to show how systematicity may emerge, providing an explanation of the emergence of systematic intelligence per se rather than a defense of a particular cognitive architecture.

This chapter aims to challenge the theoretical tenets of systematicity arguing that this feature is language dependent and not a general capacity of cognition. We support this statement by means of two ideas: First, systematicity is syntax bound. Second, the data from comparative and developmental psychology indicates that non-verbal cognitive creatures do not exhibit systematic processes. We demonstrate that examples given in perception, such as amodal completion, are context-dependent and non-systematic. According to this rationale, we maintain that ecological psychology is a better approach to explain regularities in behavior (with examples in spatial perception, sensory substitution and perceptual learning). As a corollary, alternatives to a classical view of cognition are deemed to be necessary.

In the previous chapter, we considered those methodologies that might be seen to characterize the archaeology of the contemporary past. One of the issues raised there was the extent to which an archaeology of the contemporary past is defined by, and is even reliant upon, working with and across a series of different academic disciplines and areas of subject specialisms. In this chapter, we will look in more detail at the relationship between the archaeology of the contemporary past and the various academic disciplines on which it draws and with which it overlaps. Rather than a field defined by a series of other academic disciplines, we argue that the archaeology of the contemporary past emerges from this review as a discipline characterized by a particular vision and approach to the material culture of the contemporary world. These issues are explored in relation to various examples which illustrate both the similarities and differences between an archaeology of the contemporary past, and those various specialisms with which it has close relations. This chapter will also explore the relationship between the archaeology of the contemporary past and contemporary art, both in terms of artistic engagements with the archaeology of the contemporary past and the idea of archaeology as a form of contemporary artistic practice. A number of authors have written in detail about the historical relationship between archaeology and anthropology (e.g. Gosden 1999), and we do not have space to cover the topic in the detail it deserves here. The relationship between archaeology and anthropology is, however, particularly relevant when we are considering the archaeology of the contemporary past, as in almost all instances we are considering the material remains of societies contemporary with us. Archaeology and anthropology, although closely related, have developed along divergent lines in the different countries of the world in which they are practised, so for this reason we will focus our discussion on the historical relationship between archaeology and anthropology in North America and Britain, and the role of an ‘anthropological archaeology’ in approaches to the archaeology of the contemporary past.

Cognitive-evolutionary theories of religion have so far paid little attention to the value that religious practices add to life, focusing instead on the verbally expressed content of religious beliefs. Adopting the perspective of ecological psychology, this chapter presents a radically different approach. First, it argues that in the context of everyday life, participation in religious activities is more worthy of explanation, than statements of belief. Second, it proposes that the primary function of religious activity is the discovery and creation of value, and that a basic drive to maximize value has played a leading role in its evolution. It is argued here that the earliest forms of religion were indistinguishable from the earliest art and music: only gradually did religion emerge as a distinct sphere of experience. Finally, it is argued that once religious values have been given their due, we are better prepared to frame questions about cognitive content (e.g. supernatural beings).

During the 1980's and 1990's Fodor, McLaughlin, and Pylyshyn claimed that thought is in various respects systematic. Further, they argued that so-called “Classical” syntactically and semantically combinatorial representations provide a better explanation of the systematicity of thought than do non-combinatorial representations or non-Classical combinatorial representations. During the 1990’s, part of what made the systematicity arguments problematic was the subtlety of the idea of providing a better explanation. In what sense is the Classical account better than its rivals? During what we might call the Post-Connectionist era of roughly the last ten years, however, theoretical shifts have made it even more difficult to bring considerations of the systematicity of thought to bear on the nature of cognition. Post-Connectionist cognitive science has come to focus less on cognition. This chapter reviews these changes in the cognitive science landscape regarding systematicity.