The Inner Eye: Social Intelligence in Evolution

Where does consciousness come from? What is it? Where is it taking us?
In 1971 Nicholas Humphrey spent three months at Dian Fossey's gorilla research centre in Rwanda. It was there, among the mountain gorillas that he began to focus on the philosophical and scientific puzzle that has fascinated him ever since: the problem of how a human being or animal can know what it is like to be itself. The Inner Eye describes where these original speculations led: to Humphrey's now celebrated theories of the 'social function of intellect' and of human beings as natural born 'mind-readers'. Easy to read, adorned with Mel Calman's brilliant illustrations, passionately argued, yet never less than scientifically profound, this book remains the best introduction to new thinking about 'theory of mind' and its implication for human social life.

animals, and what causes humans to commit atrocities. School for Social Research, New York, and also Senior Research Fellow at the London School of Economics. His books include Consciousness Regained: Chapters in the Development of Mind (OUP, 1983), and A History of the Mind: Soul Searching (Chatto & Windus, 1995), and The Mind Made Flesh (OUP, 2001).