Abstract

Thomas Suddendorf’s The Gap: The Science of What Separates Us from Other Animals takes as its subject the question of what separates human cognition from the cognition of animals. In addition to providing a lengthy synthesis of the current state of knowledge of the differences between human and animal minds, it also contains an introduction to the history of thinking about “the gap” between us and them, and—more implicitly—an introduction to the methods of experimental science. It does not defend—at least, not at length—any new claim about the nature of what it is that makes humans cognitively unique. In this respect, readers looking for bold new hypotheses to challenge recent academic claims about human uniqueness (e.g., Tomasello 2014) may be disappointed. Nonetheless, the book is a highly impressive work of popular science—and a very interesting, accessible, balanced, elegant, and enjoyable introduction to the field.Suddendorf’s book divides, roughly, into three parts. The first—spa ..