On the challenges of the primatological revolution, empathic cognition and the nature of a cognitive gap between a man and an ape

Abstract

The article examines recent distinguished achievements in the study of anthropoids and critically discusses the assertions made by the leaders of the world primatology about the absence of a qualitative difference between apes and man in the cognitive sphere as well as among the methods of organizing communities and the mechanisms for regulating behavior. According to the presented position, a special ontological stage, namely, a post-natural world that had existed for millions of years, and then disappeared, evolutionally dissociates nature from society. During the development of the post-natural world, there appeared basic units of being of a new type. They could not be detected with senses and acted as supra-individual subjects. The system of their cognitive representation was formed on the basis of an empathic cognition. The development of this cognition resulted in a formation of a non-sensory conceptual cognitive system. The intellect of animals remained within the framework of sensory cognition and simple forms of empathic cognition indissolubly related to it. Qualitatively, the new cognitive system was based on concepts and initially arose in the context of the creation a new type of subject-subject interaction. It made it possible to discover entities that avoid sensory identification not only in the social life, but also in any other realm, including nature.