KLI Colloquia are invited research talks of about an hour followed by 30 min discussion. The talks are held in English, open to the public, and offered in hybrid format.
Fall-Winter 2025-2026 KLI Colloquium Series
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https://us02web.zoom.us/j/5881861923?omn=85945744831
Meeting ID: 588 186 1923
25 Sept 2025 (Thurs) 3-4:30 PM CET
A Dynamic Canvas Model of Butterfly and Moth Color Patterns
Richard Gawne (Nevada State Museum)
14 Oct 2025 (Tues) 3-4:30 PM CET
Vienna, the Laboratory of Modernity
Richard Cockett (The Economist)
23 Oct 2025 (Thurs) 3-4:30 PM CET
How Darwinian is Darwinian Enough? The Case of Evolution and the Origins of Life
Ludo Schoenmakers (KLI)
6 Nov (Thurs) 3-4:30 PM CET
Common Knowledge Considered as Cause and Effect of Behavioral Modernity
Ronald Planer (University of Wollongong)
20 Nov (Thurs) 3-4:30 PM CET
Rates of Evolution, Time Scaling, and the Decoupling of Micro- and Macroevolution
Thomas Hansen (University of Oslo)
4 Dec (Thurs) 3-4:30 PM CET
Chance, Necessity, and the Evolution of Evolvability
Cristina Villegas (KLI)
8 Jan 2026 (Thurs) 3-4:30 PM CET
Embodied Rationality: Normative and Evolutionary Foundations
Enrico Petracca (KLI)
15 Jan 2026 (Thurs) 3-4:30 PM CET
On Experimental Models of Developmental Plasticity and Evolutionary Novelty
Patricia Beldade (Lisbon University)
29 Jan 2026 (Thurs) 3-4:30 PM CET
Jan Baedke (Ruhr University Bochum)
Event Details
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Topic description / abstract:
In this talk, I use the term "behavioral modernity" to refer to the establishment of a lifeway among our ancestors that was intuitively on par with that of ethnographically known hunter-gatherers. This notion is thus inherently inclusive of a wide range of human social, cognitive, and technological traits. I argue that the production and maintenance of larger and more diverse packages of common knowledge among various human social groups was a crucial driver of this transition. Here, "common knowledge" refers to information that is not just shared by a group of agents, but which is mutually known to be shared by those agents. I shall pay special attention to the role of material symbols in this process, focusing in particular on the essentially public and normative dimension of such symbols. With this increase in common knowledge came new and more complex opportunities for collaborative action, generating, in turn, additional forms of common knowledge, etc. The result was a common knowledge-collaborative action feedback loop that propelled our ancestors towards full-fledged behavioral modernity, I suggest.
Biographical note:
Ronald Planer obtained his PhD in Philosophy and Cognitive Science from Rutgers University, New Brunswick, in 2015. After that, he carried out post-doctoral research on the evolution of language at the Australian National University and the University of Melbourne. Currently, he is a Lecturer in the School of Liberal Arts at the University of Wollongong, where he also serves as Head of Post-Graduate Studies.
He researches a wide variety of topics relating to behavioral, social, and cognitive evolution, especially as regards humans, hominins, and other great apes. Though he is trained as a philosopher and cognitive scientist, he has developed broad competences across a range of fields and methodologies. These include evolutionary and developmental biology, archeology, anthropology, and linguistics.
He has published 30+ journal articles and an MIT Press book on the evolution of language (with Kim Sterelny). He was recently a Research Fellow at the Words, Bones, Genes, and Tools Center at the University of Tübingen and is currently a Visiting Fellow at the KLI. He maintains a rich global network of research connections with world-leading experts in human evolution, culture, and language.
