This discussion paper responds to two recent articles in Biology and Philosophy that raise similar objections to cultural attraction theory, a research trend in cultural evolution putting special emphasis on the fact that human minds create and transform their culture. Both papers are sympathetic to this idea, yet both also regret a lack of consilience with Boyd, Richerson and Henrich’s models of cultural evolution. I explain why cultural attraction theorists propose a different view on three points of concern (...) for our critics. I start by detailing the claim that cultural transmission relies not chiefly on imitation or teaching, but on cognitive mechanisms like argumentation, ostensive communication, or selective trust, whose evolved or habitual function may not be the faithful reproduction of ideas or behaviours. Second, I explain why the distinction between context biases and content biases might not always be the best way to capture the interactions between culture and cognition. Lastly, I show that cultural attraction models cannot be reduced to a model of guided variation, which posits a clear separation between individual and social learning processes. With cultural attraction, the same cognitive mechanisms underlie both innovation and the preservation of traditions. (shrink)

THE FATAL CONCEIT: THE ERRORS OF SOCIALISM by F. A. Hayek edited by W. W. Bartley, III Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989. 180 pp., $24.95.

My question is simple: how shall we Christians deal with apparent conflicts between faith and reason, between what we know as Christians and what we know in other ways, between teaching of the Bible and the teachings of science? As a special case, how shall we deal with apparent conflicts between what the Bible initially seems to tell us about the origin and development of life, and what contemporary science seems to tell us about it? Taken at face value, the (...) Bible seems to teach that God created the world relatively recently, that he created life by way of several separate acts of creation, that in another separate act of creation, he created an original human pair, Adam and Eve, and that these our original parents disobeyed God, thereby bringing ruinous calamity on themselves, their posterity and the rest of creation. (shrink)

In this article, I articulate and respond to an epistemological challenge to meta-normative realism. The challenge has it that, if realism about the normative is correct, and if evolutionary forces have significantly influenced our normative judgments, then it would be a remarkable coincidence if the content of the normative facts and our normative judgments were aligned. I criticize David Enoch's recent attempt to meet this challenge, but provide an alternative response that is structurally similar. I argue that if realism is (...) correct, then it would be remarkable if the content of our normative judgments and the normative facts were not significantly aligned. (shrink)

A critical notice of Roger Crisp's Reasons and the Good.

In the first part I argue that normic laws are the phenomenological laws of evolutionary systems. If this is true, then intuitive human reasoning should be fit in reasoning from normic laws. In the second part I show that system P is a tool for reasoning with normic laws which satisfies two important evolutionary standards: it is probabilistically reliable, and it has rules of low complexity. In the third part I finally report results of an experimental study (...) which demonstrate that intuitive human reasoning is in well accord with basic argument patterns of system P. (shrink)

We agree with Vaesen that there is evidence for cognitive differences between humans and other primates. However, it is too early to draw firm conclusions about the uniqueness of the cognitive mechanisms underlying human tool use. Tests of causal understanding are in their infancy, as is the study of animals more distantly related to humans.

Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek and Peter Singer argue that evolutionary considerations can resolve Sidgwick’s dualism of practical reason because such considerations debunk moral views that give weight to self-interested or partial considerations but cannot threaten the principle of universal benevolence. I argue that even if we grant these claims, this appeal to evolution is ultimately self-defeating. De Lazari-Radek and Singer face a dilemma. Either their evolutionary argument against partial morality succeeds, but then we need to also give up our conviction (...) that suffering is bad; or there is a way to defend this conviction, but then their argument against partiality fails. Utilitarians, I suggest, should resist the temptation to appeal to evolutionary debunking arguments. (shrink)

In Enhancing Evolution, leading bioethicist John Harris dismantles objections to genetic engineering, stem-cell research, designer babies, and cloning and makes an ethical case for biotechnology that is both forthright and rigorous. Human enhancement, Harris argues, is a good thing--good morally, good for individuals, good as social policy, and good for a genetic heritage that needs serious improvement. Enhancing Evolution defends biotechnological interventions that could allow us to live longer, healthier, and even happier lives by, for example, providing us (...) with immunity from cancer and HIV/AIDS. Further, Harris champions the possibility of influencing the very course of evolution to give us increased mental and physical powers--from reasoning, concentration, and memory to strength, stamina, and reaction speed. Indeed, he says, it's not only morally defensible to enhance ourselves; in some cases, it's morally obligatory. In a new preface, Harris offers a glimpse at the new science and technology to come, equipping readers with the knowledge to assess the ethics and policy dimensions of future forms of human enhancement. (shrink)

The introduction of computer simulation to paleobiology ushered in a new, experimental style of reasoning. Rather than starting with observed fossil patterns and hypothesizing causal processes that may have produced them, it became possible to start with a process model, and from it to simulate a range of possible patterns. ;The MBL Model is a stochastic model of phylogenetic evolution . Computer simulations conducted with the MBL Model served as thought experiments in stochastic evolution. In the MBL (...) work, similarities between empirical and stochastically simulated clades mounted a visual argument that stochastic processes potentially explained large fluctuations in diversity. Stanley and others countered that the similarities were an artifact of scaling. The scaling problem may have been obscured by visual bias: measures of clade shape are scale-invariant, but diversification itself is highly scale-dependent. ;Null and neutral models are frequently conflated. Null models generate hypothetical data distributions under conditions that exclude some process of interest to test whether patterns in an actual data distribution provide statistical evidence for that process. A neutral model assumes selective equivalence among all units at a specified hierarchical level in the evolving system. Neutral models are often inappropriate as null models. Pattern recognition presupposes a null model, but tacit null models are subject to persistent cognitive biases, necessitating explicit formulation of null models. Nonetheless, failure to reject the null model should not preclude further investigation of a pattern. ;Often, models are not candidates for falsification, but serve to simulate data for testing concepts or methods. Sepkoski and Kendrick , and Robeck, Maley, and Donoghue used the MBL Model to test whether mass extinction periodicity is an artifact of paraphyly in taxonomic data. Such numerical experiments, which make all assumptions explicit, can serve as templates for localizing points of disagreement. Models may fall into lineages, each generation providing lessons for the next, but often sharing operational assumptions. Artifacts of shared operational assumptions are often a threat to the validity of inferences. Results holding across models should not be accepted unless they withstand rigorous robustness analysis. (shrink)

There are many ways that biological theory can inform ethical discussions of genetic engineering and biomedical enhancement. In this essay, we highlight some of these potential contributions, and along the way provide a synthetic overview of the papers that comprise this special issue. We begin by comparing and contrasting genetic engineering with programs of selective breeding that led to the domestication of plants and animals, and we consider how genetic engineering differs from other contemporary biotechnologies such as embryo selection. We (...) go on to consider the implications of genetic engineering for human nature, human evolution, and persistence of the human species. Finally, we question whether genetic interventions warrant the extraordinary ethical scrutiny they are often given, and we show how the misleading “genetic blueprint” metaphor has imposed a faulty structure on the enhancement debate. We conclude by considering the nature of biological development and the sobering limits it places on what genetic engineering can reasonably hope to achieve. (shrink)

Some ‘naturalist’ accounts of disease employ a biostatistical account of dysfunction, whilst others use a ‘selected effect’ account. Several recent authors have argued that the biostatistical account offers the best hope for a naturalist account of disease. We show that the selected effect account survives the criticisms levelled by these authors relatively unscathed, and has significant advantages over the BST. Moreover, unlike the BST, it has a strong theoretical rationale and can provide substantive reasons to decide difficult cases. This is (...) illustrated by showing how life-history theory clarifies the status of so-called diseases of old age. The selected effect account of function deserves a more prominent place in the philosophy of medicine than it currently occupies. _1_ Introduction _2_ Biostatistical and Selected Effect Accounts of Function _3_ Objections to the Selected Effect Account _3.1_ Boorse _3.2_ Kingma _3.3_ Hausman _3.4_ Murphy and Woolfolk _4_ Problems for the Biostatistical Account _4.1_ Schwartz _5_ Analysis versus Explication _6_ Explicating Dysfunction: Life History Theory and Senescence _7_ Conclusion. (shrink)

'...a challenging and useful book, both because it provokes a careful scrutiny of one's own basic ideas regarding evolutionary theory, and because it cuts across so many biological disciplines.' -The Quarterly Review of Biology 'In my view, this work exemplifies Theoretical Biology at its best...here is rampant speculation that is consistently based on cautious reasoning from the available data. Even more refreshing is the absence of sloganeering, grandstanding, and 'isms'.' -Biology and Philosophy 'Epigenetics is fundamental to understanding both development (...) and gene expression, and not surprisingly, evolutionary biologists have long been fascinated with its proper place in evolutionary theory...Enter Jablonka and Lamb, who provide a thoughtful review of the recent molecular literature and suggest a number of potential consequences.' -EvolutionSince first publication of this controversial book, much of the initial opposition to the ideas it contained has been replaced by a general, although often grudging, acceptance of them. Advances in knowledge, especially at the molecular level, have enhanced general awareness and interest in epigenetics and the evolution of systems that store and transmit information and put any of the authors' speculations on a more solid basis. This paperback edition contains a new Preface that sets out the major changes in the scientific world and in the authors' own thinking that have occurred since the book was published. A new Appendix provides a selected bibliography of the many books and articles about epigenetic inheritance and its role in evolution that have appeared since first publication. (shrink)

Cosmides, Wason, and Johnson-Laird, among others, have suggested evidence that reasoning abilities tend to be domain specific, insofar as humans do not appear to acquire capacities for logical reasoning that are applicable across different contexts. Unfortunately, the significance of these findings depends upon the specific variety of logical reasoning under consideration. Indeed, there seem to be at least three grounds for doubting such conclusions, since: (1) tests of reasoning involving the use of material conditionals may not (...) be appropriate for representing ordinary thinking, especially when it concerns causal processes involving the use of causal conditionals instead; (2) tests of domain specificity may fail to acknowledge the crucial role fulfilled by rules of inference, such as modus ponens and modus tollens, which appear to be completely general across different contexts; and, (3) tests that focus exclusively upon deductive reasoning may misinterpret findings involving the use of inductive reasoning, which is of primary importance for human evolution. (shrink)

À quoi bon la pensée? Pour de nombreux chercheurs, inspirés par les théories évolutionnistes, la pensée réfléchie est utile à notre espèce. Elle lui confère des avantages importants et contribue à son succès reproductif. Pourtant ses avantages ne sont pas si évidents. La pensée ne figure ni dans les mécanismes de l'évolution qui ont façonné la vie, ni parmi les procédés dont se servent la plupart des organismes pour s'y maintenir. Dans Évolution et rationalité, Ronald de Sousa montre que, pour (...) comprendre les avantages de la pensée réfléchie, il faut changer nos présupposés relatifs à la rationalité et reconnaître la multiplicité de ses dimensions. La rationalité ne nous sert pas seulement à avoir des croyances vraies et à agir de manière efficace dans un environnement changeant. Elle nous aide à gérer nos plaisirs et nos peines dans le temps et nous permet d'envisager des situations qui n'existent pas. En général, le statut de la rationalité comme ensemble de capacités ayant évolué dans le cours de l'histoire naturelle de notre espèce, passant des tropismes aux désirs et de la détection à la représentation, n'a pas été pris suffisamment au sérieux. Suivre ce processus d'évolution de la rationalité permet de comprendre comment elle est devenue une norme, mais aussi pourquoi il lui arrive aussi souvent d'échouer. Ronald de Sousa a profondément modifié nos façons de concevoir les émotions. Avec Évolution et rationalité, il pourrait avoir une influence aussi décisive sur nos façons de concevoir la rationalité. (shrink)

Evolution is often seen as a site of contestation within the school curriculum. The topic of evolution is therefore often considered to be ‘controversial’. I first examine what is meant by ‘controversial’ and conclude that while, in an everyday sense, the topic of evolution can indeed be considered to be controversial, this term can mislead. A more fruitful way forward may be to regard the topic of evolution as ‘sensitive’. I examine reasons why evolution might (...) be considered sensitive – noting that for a not inconsiderable number of people it is so because of a perceived conflict with religious views and also because it may be existentially disturbing for some. Rather little attention has been paid in the philosophy of education literature as to how we might deal with sensitive issues. I therefore look at what we mean by describing an issue as sensitive and at how teachers might deal in the classroom with such issues, specifically evolution. (shrink)

I have two main objectives in this essay: (1) to situate the events of 11 September within the context of the impact of modernization on religious consciousness and institutions; and (2) to suggest, albeit without adequate empirical support, that militant Islamic opposition to the West in general and the United States in particular is itself an effect of the peculiar path of modernization that has unfolded in the Gulf region of the Middle East over the last 200 years. To develop (...) my argument, I draw upon Habermas's theory of social evolution. Since this strategy requires explaining the key components of that theory, I devote a good part of the article to this task. The paper has five parts. In parts one and two, I criticize competing explanations of the events of 11 September from left, right and center. All these positions fail in one way or another to take seriously the religious significance of those events. In part three, I explain the six central dimensions of Habermas's theory of social evolution: (1) communicative rationality; (2) communicative action; (3) life-world; (4) system; (5) social typology; and (6) the systemic colonization of the life-world. In part four, I examine the relation between religion and modernity. In part five, I examine the modernization processes in the Gulf region of the Middle East. Empirical evidence tentatively suggests that such a process has been one-dimensional, focusing on systemic complexity to the detriment of the communicative rationalization of the life-world. Such evidence also indicates the existence of widespread systemic colonization of the life-world. If the empirical data are correct, then we can explain the emergence of extreme militant Islamic fundamentalism as an effect of a retarded development of those socio-political structures necessary for the realization of communicative rationality. (shrink)

An evolutionary case for the existence of free will. Scientists are learning more and more about how brain activity controls behavior and how neural circuits weigh alternatives and initiate actions. As we probe ever deeper into the mechanics of decision making, many conclude that agency-or free will-is an illusion. In Free Agents, leading neuroscientist Kevin Mitchell presents a wealth of evidence to the contrary, arguing that we are not mere machines responding to physical forces but agents acting with purpose. Traversing (...) billions of years of evolution, Mitchell tells the remarkable story of how living beings capable of choice emerged from lifeless matter. He explains how the emergence of nervous systems provided a means to learn about the world, granting sentient animals the capacity to model, predict, and simulate. Mitchell reveals how these faculties reached their peak in humans with our abilities to imagine and to introspect, to reason in the moment, and to shape our possible futures through the exercise of our individual agency. Mitchell's argument has important implications-for how we understand decision making, for how our individual agency can be enhanced or infringed, for how we think about collective agency in the face of global crises, and for how we consider the limitations and future of artificial intelligence.An astonishing journey of discovery, Free Agents offers a new framework for understanding how, across a billion years of Earth history, life evolved the power to choose and why this matters. (shrink)

Legal reasoning is an engaging field for cognitive science, since it raises so many fundamental questions, such as the representation and evolution of complex concepts. This article focuses on aspects of legal reasoning that require reasoning with cases, often in concert with other modes of reasoning.

Rejecting evolutionary principles is a mistake, because evolutionary processes produced the irrational human minds for which Colman argues. An evolved cultural ability to acquire information socially and infer other's mental states (mind-reading) evokes Stackelberg reasoning. Much of game theory, however, assumes away information transfer and excludes the very solution that natural selection likely created to solve the problem of cooperation.

Is there a reason to believe that the evolution of language leads to compositional semantics? A proposal from Henry Brighton is presented and criticized. As an alternative, the role of compositionality for the complexity of semantic interpretation is emphasized.

Aberrations and variations within kinds of creatures required explanation to Western medievals, who took the Genesis creation narratives together with Aristotelian species to imply that change was limited to within species; consequently, species were presumed static. Medieval philosophers often explained variation—including “new” kinds like mules—as due to problems in procreation/gestation (following Aristotle) or by sin. I argue that Aquinas's explanation of variation in women, people with disabilities, and mules suggests that Aquinas cannot be taken to entirely reject the possibility of (...) new kinds, and parallels in his explanation of the existence of women and the possible existence of new kinds provides warrant for a re‐evaluation of his understanding of the notion of the natures or essences shared by kinds. Sin—individual or original—is an inadequate explanation for variation, and the argumentative parallels between Aquinas's treatment of women and mules challenge presumptions about what medievals mean by “static kinds” at all, revealing space for evolutionary thought. (shrink)

In the late summer of 1998, the authors, a cognitive scientist and a logician, started talking about the relevance of modern mathematical logic to the study of human reasoning, and we have been talking ever since. This book is an interim report of that conversation. It argues that results such as those on the Wason selection task, purportedly showing the irrelevance of formal logic to actual human reasoning, have been widely misinterpreted, mainly because the picture of logic current (...) in psychology and cognitive science is completely mistaken. We aim to give the reader a more accurate picture of mathematical logic and, in doing so, hope to show that logic, properly conceived, is still a very helpful tool in cognitive science. The main thrust of the book is therefore constructive. We give a number of examples in which logical theorizing helps in understanding and modeling observed behavior in reasoning tasks, deviations of that behavior in a psychiatric disorder (autism), and even the roots of that behavior in the evolution of the brain. (shrink)

Abstract The apparent contradictory relationship between Islam and evolution is important because it has been cited as an example of contradiction between religion and science by both thinkers in the West and Muslims. Muslim scholars and scientists mainly disagree with evolution's legitimacy. Islam's Quantum Question by Nidhal Guessoum is a unique narrative providing in one of its first chapters an overview of evolution from neo-Darwinists to creationists, including the views of scholars throughout Islamic history. Guessoum then proceeds (...) to advocate for evolution. Drawing from Nidhal Guessoum's work, I highlight the reasons why there is an apparent contradiction between Islam and science—and, in particular, Islam and evolution—which include lack of freedom of thought and misinterpretation of the Qur’an. In doing so, I suggest setting the stage for a new Einsteinian theory of evolution, which involves the dimension of time and human cognition. (shrink)

In his late lecture course titled “Nature and Logos: The Human Body” (1959-1960), Merleau-Ponty proposed that we understand human symbolism, language, and reason by viewing the human being initially as a variant on animal embodiment and perception prior to being a rational animal. To elaborate this project, he outlined an “esthesiology” informed by the study of evolution. However, in the sketches that survive of “Nature and Logos,” we find neither a detailed explanation of how Merleau-Ponty understood this approach nor (...) its concrete execution with respect to the human body. In this paper I reconstruct Merleau-Ponty’s esthesiology. An animate body possesses two “sides”: it is a sensing organism open onto the world and a sensible part of the natural world. Visual animals such as humans can see, see themselves, and be seen by others. To understand their way of life, we must study not only the body’s capacities for perception and action, but also how those capacities are seen by other organisms, especially conspecifics. The body’s visibility shapes the social prospects of a species and its potential for developing complex sociality, language, and cognition. I apply this basic esthesiological principle to study the human eye. Both in its vision and its visibility, the human eye is a distinctive variation of animality and one that conditions and shapes human sociality and cognition. I develop this insight with respect to a central philosophical theme of Merleau-Ponty’s late work, the relation of the visible and the invisible. I conclude by discussing the importance of Merleau-Ponty’s esthesiology for his late thought and current discussions of the naturalization of phenomenology. (shrink)

Many of the current comparisons of taxic phylogenetic and biological homology in the context of morphology focus on what are seen as categorical distinctions between the two concepts. The first, it is claimed, identifies historical patterns of conservation and variation relating taxa; the second provides a causal framework for the explanation of this conservation and variation. This leads to the conclusion that the two need not be placed in conflict and are in fact compatible, having non-competing epistemic purposes or mapping (...) the same extensions in the form of monophyletic groupings (see Roth, The biological basis of homology 1–26, 1988; Sluys, J Zool Syst Evol Res 34:145–152, 1996; Abouheif, Trends Ecol Evol 12:405–408, 1997; Brigandt, J Exp Zool 299:9–17, 2003, Biol Philos 22:709–725, 2007; Assis and Brigandt, Evol Biol 36:248–255, 2009). This article argues that moves in this direction miss the essential disagreement between these concepts as they have been developed in the context of the debate concerning the best concept for evolutionary investigation. We should rather see these concepts employing a common fundamental methodological approach to homology, but disagreeing about how to apply the methodology effectively. Both concepts employ class reasoning, which pursues homologies as units of generalization—more precisely, as sources of reliable and relevant group-bound information in the form of shared underlying causes. The dispute can be better understood by two poles that structure such reasoning: the need for a reliable basis for projections about the causal history of shared structures, and the desire to identify homologous characters with more informative and specific causal information relevant to generalizing about evolutionary processes. Judgments in favor of one or the other in turn have affected the scope or extension of these competing homology concepts. (shrink)

Three experiments investigated the contrasting predictions of the evolutionary and decision-theoretic approaches to deontic reasoning. Two experiments embedded a hazard management (HM) rule in a social contract scenario that should lead to competition between innate modules. A 3rd experiment used a pure HM task. Threatening material was also introduced into the antecedent, p, of a deontic rule, if p then must q. According to the evolutionary approach, more HM responses (Cosmides & Tooby, 2000) are predicted when p is threatening, (...) whereas decision theory predicts fewer. All 3 experiments were consistent with decision theory. Other theories are discussed, and it is concluded that they cannot account for the behavior observed in these experiments. (shrink)

Ernst Mayr has argued that Darwinian theory discredited essentialist modes of thought and replaced them with what he has called "population thinking". In this paper, I characterize essentialism as embodying a certain conception of how variation in nature is to be explained, and show how this conception was undermined by evolutionary theory. The Darwinian doctrine of evolutionary gradualism makes it impossible to say exactly where one species ends and another begins; such line-drawing problems are often taken to be the decisive (...) reason for thinking that essentialism is untenable. However, according to the view of essentialism I suggest, this familiar objection is not fatal to essentialism. It is rather the essentialist's use of what I call the natural state model for explaining variation which clashes with evolutionary theory. This model implemented the essentialist's requirement that properties of populations be defined in terms of properties of member organisms. Requiring such constituent definitions is reductionistic in spirit; additionally, evolutionary theory shows that such definitions are not available, and, moreover, that they are not needed to legitimize population-level concepts. Population thinking involves the thesis that population concepts may be legitimized by showing their connections with each other, even when they are not reducible to concepts applying at lower levels of organization. In the paper, I develop these points by describing Aristotle's ideas on the origins of biological variation; they are a classic formulation of the natural state model. I also describe how the development of statistical ideas in the 19th century involved an abandoning of the natural state model. (shrink)

Theistic evolutionists often suggest that one can reconcile evolutionary theory with biblical teaching. But in fact Christians have accepted Darwinian theory only after reinterpreting the opening chapters of Genesis. Is such a reinterpretation justified? Within Western Christian thought, there exists a hermeneutical tradition that dates back to St Augustine and which offers guidelines regarding apparent conflicts between biblical teaching and natural philosophy (or “science”). These state that the literal meaning of the text may be abandoned only if the natural-philosophical conclusions (...) are established beyond doubt. But no large-scale scientific theory, such as Darwin’s, can claim this degree of certainty. It follows that to justify their reinterpretation of Genesis 1–3, Christians must either argue that the literal sense of the biblical text can be maintained or accept that the Augustinian view of biblical authority is untenable. Three alternative views are discussed: a first that attempts to limit the scope of biblical authority, a second that distinguishes between the Bible and the Word of God, and a third that abandons the idea that religious faith offers certain knowledge. While the third view seems the most defensible, it comes at a cost: the recognition that, as John Locke put it, “reason must be our last judge and guide in everything.”. (shrink)

We are reliable about logic in the sense that we by-and-large believe logical truths and disbelieve logical falsehoods. Given that logic is an objective subject matter, it is difficult to provide a satisfying explanation of our reliability. This generates a significant epistemological challenge, analogous to the well-known Benacerraf-Field problem for mathematical Platonism. One initially plausible way to answer the challenge is to appeal to evolution by natural selection. The central idea is that being able to correctly deductively reason conferred (...) a heritable survival advantage upon our ancestors. However, there are several arguments that purport to show that evolutionary accounts cannot even in principle explain how it is that we are reliable about logic. In this paper, I address these arguments. I show that there is no general reason to think that evolutionary accounts are incapable of explaining our reliability about logic. (shrink)

Does evolutionary theory have the potential to undermine morality? In his book The Evolution of Morality, Richard Joyce (2006) argues for a positive answer. He contends that an evolutionary account of morality would undermine moral judgements and lend support to moral scepticism. I offer a critique of Joyce’s argument. As it turns out, his case can be read in two different ways. It could be construed as an argument to establish a general scepticism about the justification of moral judgements. (...) Or it could be read as an argument that targets only a particular meta-ethical position, namely moral realism. My claim is that it fails on both interpretations. There is no reason to believe that evolutionary considerations undermine morality. (shrink)

Cultural traits are those phenotypic traits whose development depends on social learning. These include practices, skills, beliefs, desires, values, and artefacts. The distribution of cultural traits in the human species changes over time. But this is not enough to show that culture evolves. That depends on the mechanisms of change. In the cultural realm, one can often observe something similar to biology’s ‘descent with modification’: cultural traits are sometimes modified, their modifications are sometimes retained and passed on to others through (...) social learning, until new modifications are added. In this way, new modifications are piled on top of old modifications, generating cumulative change. But, again, this is not enough to show that culture evolves. For culture to evolve, cumulative change must be the result of hidden-hand mechanisms similar to those that explain cumulative biological change. If cumulative cultural change cannot be explained in these terms, the analogy between cultural change and biological evolution is unhelpful. The best known biological mechanism is natural selection. There are reasons to think that cultural change is at least sometimes due to natural-selection-like mechanisms. The adaptive fit often found between cultural traits and the environment has in many cases been built gradually and in a way that involves natural selection operating at the cultural level. The parallel with morphological adaptation is compelling. No complete and universally accepted account of natural-selectionlike processes operating at the cultural level exists at this stage. But at least three kinds of processes seem possible. (shrink)

What is ethics? Where do moral standards come from? Are they based on emotions, reason, or some innate sense of right and wrong? For many scientists, the key lies entirely in biology---especially in Darwinian theories of evolution and self-preservation. But if evolution is a struggle for survival, why are we still capable of altruism? In his classic study The Expanding Circle, Peter Singer argues that altruism began as a genetically based drive to protect one's kin and community members (...) but has developed into a consciously chosen ethic with an expanding circle of moral concern. Drawing on philosophy and evolutionary psychology, he demonstrates that human ethics cannot be explained by biology alone. Rather, it is our capacity for reasoning that makes moral progress possible. In a new afterword, Singer takes stock of his argument in light or recent research on the evolution of morality.--Publisher's description. (shrink)

It has been claimed in several places that the new genetic technologies allow humanity to achieve in a generation or two what might take natural selection hundreds of millennia in respect of the elimination of certain diseases and an increase in traits such as intelligence. More radically, it has been suggested that those same technologies could be used to instil characteristics that we might reasonably expect never to appear due to natural selection alone. John Harris, a proponent of this genomic (...) optimism, claims in his book Enhancing Evolution that we not only have it in our power to enhance evolution, but that we also have a duty to do so. In this paper, I claim that Harris' hand is strong but that he overplays it nevertheless. He is correct to dismiss the arguments of the anti-enhancement lobby and correct to say that enhancement is permissible; but ‘good’ is different from ‘permissible’ and his argument for the goodness of enhancement is less convincing. Moreover, he is simply wrong to claim that it generates a duty to enhance. (shrink)

RésuméIl y a, dans la notion de dialectique moderne, deux perspectives de l'évolution intellectuelle: l'intelligence peut n'ětre encore que la pointe extrěme de l'adaptation biologique ou elle peut ětre déjà l'expression de la raison. C'est ce caractère ouvert des dialectiques scientifiques que nous retrouvons dans les interprétations étudiées ici: le pancalisme de Baldwin, la pensée sans images de Binet, l'interprétation de Janet et celle de Piaget, qui contribuent à enrichir la notion de genèse de l'intelligence et à en faire saisir (...) l'évolution.ZusammenfassungDie geistige Entwicklung wird in der modernen Dialektik aus zwei Gesichtspunkten erfasst, und zwar mag die Intelligenz wohl nur noch das äusserste Ende der biologischen Anpassung oder schon der Ausdruck der Vernunft sein. Das Offene eben der wissenschaftlichen Dialektiken finden wir in den hier erörterten Deutungen wieder, im Baldwinschen Pancalismus, im Denken ohne Bilder von Binet, in den Deutungen von Janet und von Piaget, die dazu beitragen, den Begriff von der Entstehungsgeschichte der Intelligenz zu bereichern und deren Evolution verständlich zu machen.There are two prospects of intellectual evolution in the notion of dialectics: intelligence can either be the ultimate point of biological adaptation or it can already be the expression of reason. Within this open characteristics of scientific dialectics are to be found the interpretations studied here: Baldwin's pancalism, Binet's » thought without image «, Janet's and Piaget's interpretations which help to enrich the knowledge of the genesis of intelligence and its evolution. (shrink)

This collection of original essays covers a wide range of issues in current naturalised philosophy of mind. Particular attention is paid to the ways in which concepts drawn from evolutionary biology might enhance our understanding of the place of mind in the natural world. Issues covered include the advantages of construing the mind as an adaptation, the naturalisation of intentional and phenomenal content, the evolution of means-end reasoning, rationality and higher-order intentionality, methodological issues in cognitive ethology and evolutionary (...) psychology. (shrink)

Stephen Jay Gould and others have argued that what we know about evolution implies that human beings are a 'cosmic accident'. In this paper I examine an argument for Gould's view and then attempt to show that it fails. Contrary to the claims of Gould, Daniel Dennett, and others, it is a mistake to think that what we have learned from evolutionary biology somehow shows that human beings are mere accidents of natural history. Nor does what we know about (...) the contingency of evolution give us good reason to reject the view that human beings came to be according to a divine providential plan. (shrink)

RésuméIl n'y a pas de sujet plus idoine à justifier la philosophie ouverte qui est celle de Dialectica que l'étude de l'évolution du concept de raison dans la pensée occidentale.C'est avec la création de la géométrie déductive que le mot raison prit un sens chez les Grecs du ***Ve siècle av. J.‐C. A l'évidence sensible qui résulte du témoignage de nos sens et ne constate que le comment d'un fait observé, les géomètres grecs substituent l'évidence intelligible qui en explique le (...) pourquoi, en montrant qu'il est la conséquence nécessaire d'un petit nombre de propositions admises comme évidentes. S'élevant du concret à l'abstrait, ils dégagent l'essence intelligible de l'accident sensible et substituent au réel le possible. Les disciplines empiriques des Orientaux font place aux sciences théoriques et explicatives: l'astronomie, la mécanique, l'optique, la théorie musicale. Toutefois, au lieu de voir dans les concepts mathématiques une création de l'esprit, les penseurs‐géomètres de la Grèce les assimilent à une découverte par les yeux de l'ǎme d'essences préexistantes. Ils méprisèrent, en outre, les applications pratiques qui seules peuvent stimuler les sciences expérimentales. De là procèdent les limites, puis l'arrět de la science hellénique.Les conquětes d'Alexandre déversèrent sur l'Occident méditerranéen les religions de salut de l'Orient. A la recherche désintéressée du vrai se substitue la gnose, la révélation de mystères transcendants à la raison. Lorsque le message chrétien devint une philosophie puis une théologie, on en vint à distinguer » la démonstration hellénique « par le raisonnement et la dialectique, et » la démonstration hébraique « par les prophéties et les miracles des articles de la foi. La Scolastique rechercha l'accord de la raison et de la foi, en entendant par raison l'apport de la science et de la philosophie helléniques, assimilées, à partir du XIIIe siècle dans la Latinité, à l'encyclopédie aristotélicienne. La Scolastique échoua dans cette tentative. La doctrine de » la double vérité « fut l'aveu de cette impuissance.Pour se libérer de la mentalité scolastique, il fallut s'affranchir dans l'étude des phénomènes naturels de l'autorité d'Aristote, du joug de la théologie et parvenir à une théorie correcte de la connaissance, en particulier de la valeur des idées abstraites et de la distinction des vérités formelles et des vérités empiriques. Il fallut interpréter comme une création de l'esprit ce que les Grecs assimilaient à une découverte de vérités préexistantes. La désagrégation de l'a priori synthétique, conçu à la façon des Cartésiens et des Kantiens, conduit à se demander ce qui subsiste des exigences a priori de la raison. C'est à quoi s'évertue de répondre la dernière partie de l'article.ZusammenfassungEs gibt keinen geeigneteren Gegenstand zur Rechtfertigung der offenen Philosophie, die von der Dialectica vertreten wird, als das Studium der Entwicklung des Vernunftsbegriffes im abendländischen Denken.Mit der Entstehung der deduktiven Geometrie erhält das Wort Vernunft bei den Griechen des 5. Jahrhunderts vor Christo einen Sinn. An Stelle der gefühlsmässigen Evidenz, die auf der Gewissheit unserer Sinne beruht und lediglich das Wieeiner beobachteten Tatsache feststellt, setzen die griechischen Geometer die logische Evidenz, die das Warum erklärt, indem sie zeigt, dass es eine Folge einer kleinen Zahl von Voraussetzungen ist, die als evident angesehen werden können. Sich vom Konkreten zum Abstrakten erhebend, befreien sie das intelligible Wesen von der Zufälligkeit des Sinnlichen und ersetzen das Reelle durch das Mögliche. Die empirischen Disziplinen der Morgenländer schaffen Platz für die theoretischen und erklärenden Wissenschaften wie Astronomie, Mechanik, Optik, Musiktheorie. Immerhin, anstatt in den mathematischen Konzepten eine Schöpfung des Geistes zu sehen, setzen die geometrischen Denker Griechenlands diese der Entdeckung präexistenter Essenzen durch die Augen der Seele gleich. Sie verachten im übrigen die praktischen Anwendungen, die nur die Experimentalwissen‐schaften anregen können. Daher kommt es, dass die griechische Wissenschaft bei einer gewissen Grenze Halt machen musste.Die Schlachten Alexanders verschlangen im Abendland des Mittelmeeres die Heilsreligionen des Orients. An Stelle des uneigennützigen Suchens nach der Wahrheit tritt die Gnosis, das Erheben des mysteriös‐Transzendenten in den Bereich der Vernunft. Als die christliche Botschaft eine Philosophie, darauf eine Theologie wurde, begann man zu unterscheiden zwischen der » griechischen Beweisführung « mittels Vernunft und Dialektik und der » hebräischen Beweisführung « mittels Prophezeiungen und Wundern des zu Glaubenden. Die Scholastik forschte nach dem Zusammenhang zwischen Vernunft und Glaube, indem sie unter Vernunft den Beitrag der griechischen Wissenschaft und Philosophie verstand, der Aristotelischen Enzyklopädie angeglichen in der Folgezeit des 13. Jahrhunderts im Römischen Reich. Die Scholastik scheiterte in diesem Versuch. Die Lehre der » doppelten Wahrheit « war das Geständnis dieses Unvermögens.Um sich von der scholastischen Mentalität zu befreien, hiess es sich im Studium der Naturereignisse von der Autorität des Aristoteles befreien, vom Joch der Theologie und zu einer korrekten Theorie der Erkenntnis zu gelangen, speziell des Wertes der abstrakten Ideen und der Unterscheidung zwischen formellen und empirischen Wahrheiten. Was die Griechen einer Entdeckung von präexistenten Wahrheiten gleichsetzten, musste als Schöpfung des Geistes interpretiert werden. Die Desagregation des synthetischen Apriori, aufgefasst im Sinne von Descartes und Kant, führte zur Frage, was vorhanden sei von den apriori‐Erfordernissen der Vernunft.Dies zu beantworten, bemüht sich der letzte Teil des Artikels.There is no subject more suitable to the open philosophy of Dialectica than the study of the development of the concept of reason in Western thought.The word » reason « acquired a meaning with the creation of deductive geometry by the Greeks of the Vth cent. B. C. These geometers substituted for the sensible evidence, which only establishes the » what « of an observed fact, the intelligible evidence which explains the » why « of such an observed fact, by showing that it is the necessary result of a small number of statements, accepted as self‐evident. Rising from the concrete to the abstract, the geometers isolated the intelligible essence from the sensible accident, and substituted for the real the possible. The empirical technics of the Orientals made place for the theoretical sciences of the Greeks: astronomy, mechanics, optics and musical theory. Instead, however, of seeing mathematical concepts as creations of the mind, the Greek geometers considered them as preexisting entities, discovered by the eyes of the soul. They furthermore disregarded the practical applications which alone can stimulate experimental sciences. These were the limitations and the causes of the eventual end of hellenic science.The conquests of Alexander brought to the Western Mediterranean the religions of salvation of the East. The gnose, revelation of mysteries transcending reason, took the place of the disinterested search for truth. As the Christian message became a philosophy and then a theology, the distinction came to be made between the » hellenic demonstration of the faith « by logic and dialectics, and the » hebrew demonstration « by the prophecies and the miracles. The scholastics sought to reconcile reason with faith, by defining reason as the legacy of Greek science and philosophy, identified, after the XIIIth century, with the Aristotelian Encyclopedia. They failed in this endeavour. The doctrine of the » double truth « was the admission of this failure.In order to progress beyond the scholastic outlook, it was necessary to reject the precepts of Aristotle in the study of natural phenomena, to become free of the tyranny of theology, to develop a correct theory of knowledge, especially as regards the role of abstract ideas and the distinction between formal and empirical truths. It was necessary to interpret as a creation of the mind what the Greeks considered the discovery of preexisting truths. The breakdown of the synthetic apriori of the Cartesians and the Kantians leads one to wonder what remains of the a priori requisites of reason. The last part of the article suggests an answer to this question. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Journal of Aesthetic Education 37.4 (2003) 50-58 [Access article in PDF] Evolution in Qualitative Factors Used to Evaluate Japanese Students [Tables] Introduction Two basic viewpoints are typically taken in the evaluation of achievement in Japanese schools: either the focus is primarily on "field-content-basedevaluation" or on "ability-concept-based evaluation." I have compared the qualitative factors encompassed by these two viewpoints as reflected in the permanent school records of Japanese (...) students. These recordsinclude classes taken, grades earned, and school-related information. Kanten (in Japanese) has become a key word in the evaluation of academic achievement in Japan. It represents the qualitative factors that should be considered when evaluating a student's learning achievements. In this essay, I review how these qualitative factors have evolved, both for general subjects and for fine arts.From the beginning of the educational system (1872) to 1938, the "assessment" [Hyoutei] of a student depended on the comprehensiveness of the student's achievement in each subject. (Overall assessments are now usually made using a three-point scale; 1-3, a five-point scale; 1-5, or an ABC scale.) However, it was not clearly specified how scholastic ability and learning accomplishment should be assessed or which qualitative factors should be considered.Starting in 1941, teachers were required to evaluate, comprehensively assess, and record the student's learning, consideration, dealing, application, skill, appreciation, practice, and learning attitude through his or her daily learning and activity. 1 The factors seem to be basically equivalent to those recently used as "interest/aspiration/attitude," "thinking," "judgment," [End Page 50] and "expressive power." After 1941, the point of view in the area of fine arts gradually changed from focusing on the "field-content-based factor" to the "ability-concept-based factor" in both the educational content and in evaluation.This report focuses on the evolution in the qualitative factors used in evaluations in the postwar era. From 1949 to 1991 "Understanding," "attitude," and "skill" were specified as factors that shouldbe considered when evaluating a student's learning achievements in 1949. For a few years, these factors were considered independently in the non-referenced evaluation of five-point ratings. The two basic viewpoints, "field-content-based factor" and "ability-concept-based factor," coexisted in the course of study in the early 1950s, according to a tentative plan published in 1951. "Attitude" and "habits" carried the same weight as "understanding" and "skill." These factors received minimal attention at the elementary school level. Evaluations thus evolved from simply an overall assessment of the student's achievement in a subject to an assessment of these specific factors. For instance, at the elementary school level, drawing and handicrafts both had factors related to "field content difference" (for example, drawing, color, and pattern) and to "ability concept difference" (for example, attitude and habit). At the junior high level, the factors were represented by a double-layer structure (Table 1). The elements underlined in Table 1 reflect on the "ability concept difference" (for example, expression activities and understanding activities) instead on the "field content difference." Following the revision of the permanent cumulative records in 1955, students were evaluated based only on an overall assessment of their individual [End Page 51] performance in each subject (Japanese language, mathematics, social studies, music, and drawing and handicrafts). There were three main reasons for this change.The effort it takes to evaluate each factor analytically. The difficulty of evaluating "attitude." The demand by schools at the next level for a comprehensive and uniform evaluation for each student for each subject. 3Furthermore, although "interest" was added as one of factors to be considered in the evaluation, it was not to be dealt with analytically in the evaluation of what the student learned. Consequently, evaluations became clearer and more comprehensive, although the weights of the factors, referred to as the "affective domain," took a step backward. In 1961, the factor "interest/attitude toward fine arts" was added. At the same time, "interest" was given more weight. However, the higher weighting of the factor was short-lived because intangible factors such as... (shrink)

The evolution of the nation state is described as a process of bordernisation and de-bordernisation of macro-social units. The processes of political and cultural inclusion within the formation of the nation state lea to three paradoxes of implementation. These paradoxes are analysed with the dichotomies: universal - particularistic, affirmative - critical, and traditional - modern. These three kinds of self-description are reasons for both, the contradictions and the flexibility of the evolution of the nation state.

Philosophy in the 19th century experienced a ‘turn from idealism,’ when idealist philosophies were largely abandoned for materialist ones. Scientific naturalism is now considered by many analytic philosophers to be the new orthodoxy, largely in part due to the success of the scientific method. The New Atheists, such as Daniel Dennett and Richard Dawkins, claim it is Darwin in particular who deserves much of the credit for repudiating the traditional Mind-first world view. Some, like Alvin Plantinga and Michael Behe, maintain (...) the opposite, that evolution casts doubt on naturalism and supports theism. This dissertation seeks to determine just what exactly the logical implications of evolutionary theory are. Is evolution incompatible with theism? Does the acceptance of evolution necessarily entail naturalism and preclude theism? Is it possible, as naturalism maintains, that everything can be reduced to physical processes, or are there too many recalcitrant phenomena that defy reduction? Answering these involves a detailed analysis of the concepts, ‘evolution,’ ‘naturalism,’ and ‘theism.’ Just what exactly does accepting evolutionary theory entail? How is it different from Darwinism? Is evolution guided or unguided? What is naturalism? There are many different types of metaphysical naturalists: eliminative materialists, physicalists, and emergent property dualists. What is the relationship between metaphysical naturalism and methodological naturalism? Theism affirms a creator God who sustains all being, who is transcendent and yet immanent. So if theism posits a God who is active in the world, does this mean that scientific investigation may at times have to admit supernatural explanations when natural ones fail? My general conclusion is a type of mitigated skepticism – that given evolution, neither naturalism nor theism logically follows. As to whether evolution is guided or unguided, the only correct position is ‘undetermined.’ In this instance metaphysical positions may fill in the gaps in knowledge by projection, but cannot fulfill the necessary and sufficient conditions required for knowledge. Metaphysical naturalism and theism are worldviews that an individual adopts as the most overall coherent explanation of the wide variety of experiences, intuitions, and reflections on their life. Whether evolution offers evidence for one and against the other is often based upon one’s prior metaphysical assumptions, since all facts are theory laden. The underdetermination of theory allows for multiple theories to cover the same phenomena, with each offering an epistemically adequate explanation. However, numerous recalcitrant anomalies which defy scientific explanation and reduction present problems for the strict naturalist. While neither naturalism nor theism can be determined to be objectively true, one can offer reasons for choosing one or the other on the basis of overall coherence. (shrink)

It is a matter of dispute how far back evolutionary explanations of social order should be traced. Evolutionary ideas certainly appear in the work of the ancient Greek philosophers, but it seems reasonable to identify the origins of modern evolutionary thinking in the eighteenth-century natural histories of civil society such as Rousseau’s Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality Among Men (1750: Pt III), Adam Ferguson’s An Essay on the History of Civil Society (1767), and Adam Smith’s Wealth of (...) Nations (1776: Bk III). In these eighteenth-century works, the explanation of current social institutions as an unplanned and generally adaptive development out of earlier and simpler arrangements gained traction. Germany too had a tradition of Naturphilosophie employing general evolutionary ideas, as well as Hegelian-influenced thinking on the development of societies. In 1863, four years after Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, August Schleicher’s Die Darwinsche Theorie und die Sprachwissenschaf, drew on these traditions as well as Darwin’s book to present an evolutionary account of the development of families of languages (Taub 1993), an endeavor that was carried on by a number of scholars in the later part of the nineteenth century. (shrink)

Starting from one of the classical criticisms of evolutionary thinking accusing it of being based on tautological reasoning and being unable to predict future events, the authors propose an escape route from this attack by programmatically specifying the notion of fitness with reference to three particular aspects: cultural context, individual choice and social networks. Paralleling recent developments in economics, that try to explain preference formation endogeneously, the authors argue for an endogeneous explanation of the evolutionary fitness landscape to explain (...) the evolution of structural complexity. (shrink)

Introduction -- Defending a socio-biological account of morality -- Non-objectivist evolutionary ethics -- Recent objectivist approaches to evolutionary ethics -- Sketch of an Aristotelian evolutionary ethics -- Evolutionary biology and the moral status of animals -- Faith, reason, and evolutionary epistemology -- Psychological egoism and evolutionary biology -- Evolution and free will : darwinian non-naturalism defended -- Recent developments in philosophy of evolution.

Philosophy and social science assume that reason and cause are objective and universally applicable concepts. Through close readings of ancient and modern philosophy, history and literature, Richard Ned Lebow demonstrates that these concepts are actually specific to time and place. He traces their parallel evolution by focusing on classical Athens, the Enlightenment through Victorian England, and the early twentieth century. This important book shows how and why understandings of reason and cause have developed and evolved, in response to what (...) kind of stimuli, and what this says about the relationship between social science and the social world in which it is conducted. Lebow argues that authors reflecting on their own social context use specific constructions of these categories as central arguments about the human condition. This highly original study will make an immediate impact across a number of fields with its rigorous research and the development of an innovative historicised epistemology. (shrink)