This inaugural handbook documents the distinctive research field that utilizes history and philosophy in investigation of theoretical, curricular and pedagogical issues in the teaching of science and mathematics. It is contributed to by 130 researchers from 30 countries; it provides a logically structured, fully referenced guide to the ways in which science and mathematics education is, informed by the history and philosophy of these disciplines, as well as by the philosophy of education more generally. The first handbook to cover the (...) field, it lays down a much-needed marker of progress to date and provides a platform for informed and coherent future analysis and research of the subject. -/- The publication comes at a time of heightened worldwide concern over the standard of science and mathematics education, attended by fierce debate over how best to reform curricula and enliven student engagement in the subjects There is a growing recognition among educators and policy makers that the learning of science must dovetail with learning about science; this handbook is uniquely positioned as a locus for the discussion. -/- The handbook features sections on pedagogical, theoretical, national, and biographical research, setting the literature of each tradition in its historical context. Each chapter engages in an assessment of the strengths and weakness of the research addressed, and suggests potentially fruitful avenues of future research. A key element of the handbook’s broader analytical framework is its identification and examination of unnoticed philosophical assumptions in science and mathematics research. It reminds readers at a crucial juncture that there has been a long and rich tradition of historical and philosophical engagements with science and mathematics teaching, and that lessons can be learnt from these engagements for the resolution of current theoretical, curricular and pedagogical questions that face teachers and administrators. (shrink)

Our ability for scientific reasoning is a byproduct of cognitive faculties that evolved in response to problems related to survival and reproduction. Does this observation increase the epistemic standing of science, or should we treat scientific knowledge with suspicion? The conclusions one draws from applying evolutionary theory to scientific beliefs depend to an important extent on the validity of evolutionary arguments (EAs) or evolutionary debunking arguments (EDAs). In this paper we show through an analytical model that cultural transmission of scientific (...) knowledge can lead toward representations that are more truth-approximating or more efficient at solving science-related problems under a broad range of circumstances, even under conditions where human cognitive faculties would be further off the mark than they actually are. (shrink)

I argue that the French sociologist Émile Durkheim (1858–1917) decided to constitute sociology, a novel field, as ‘scientific’ early in his career. He adopted evolutionized biology as then practiced as his principal model of science, but at first wavered between alternative repertoires of concepts, models, metaphors and analogies, in particular Spencerian Lamarckism and French neo-Lamarckism. I show how Durkheim came to fashion a particular deployment of the French neo-Lamarckian repertoire. The paper describes and analyzes this repertoire and explicates how it (...) might have been available to a non-biologist. I analyze Durkheim’s very early writings between 1882 and 1892 in this context to substantiate my argument. (shrink)

Alexander Moritzi is one of the most obscure figures in the early history of evolutionary thought. Best known for authoring a flora of Switzerland, Moritzi also published Réflexions sur l’espèce en histoire naturelle, a remarkable book about evolution with an overtly materialist viewpoint. In this work, Moritzi argues that the generally accepted line between species and varieties is artificial, that varieties can over time give rise to new species, and that deep time and turnover of species in the fossil record (...) clearly support an evolutionary interpretation of biological diversity. Moritzi was also a gradualist and viewed relationships between taxa as best represented by a ramifying tree. Although Réflexions was the first full book to be written on the topic of evolution following Lamarck’s Philosophie zoologique, Moritzi’s evolutionist contribution was stillborn, read by almost no one in his lifetime and ultimately absent from the many historiographies of evolutionary thought. This is unfortunate since many of the arguments Moritzi marshaled on behalf of an evolutionary explanation of life can be found in subsequent transmutationist writings by Frédéric Gérard, Robert Chambers, Henri Lecoq, Baden Powell, Charles Naudin, Herbert Spencer, Alfred Russel Wallace, and Charles Darwin—none of whom is likely to have ever known of the existence of Réflexions. Finally, Moritzi’s arguments, along with those found in Darwin’s private essay on evolution of the same year, provide an excellent window into the state of evolutionary thought and debate over the nature of species at the beginning of the 1840s. (shrink)

The aim of this dissertation is to create a naturalistic philosophical picture of creative capacities that are specific to our species, focusing on artistic ability, religious reflection, and scientific study. By integrating data from diverse domains within a philosophical anthropological framework, I have presented a cognitive and evolutionary approach to the question of why humans, but not other animals engage in such activities. Through an application of cognitive and evolutionary perspectives to the study of these behaviors, I have sought to (...) provide a more solid footing for philosophical anthropological discussions of uniquely human behavior. In particular, I have argued that art, religion and science, which are usually seen as achievements that are quite remote from ordinary modes of reasoning, are subserved by evolved cognitive processes that serve functions in everyday cognitive tasks, that arise early and spontaneously in cognitive development, that are shared cross-culturally, and that have evolved in response to selective pressures in our ancestral past. These mundane cognitive processes provide a measuring rod with which we can assess a diversity of cultural phenomena; they form a unified explanatory framework to approach human culture. I have argued that we can explain uncommon thoughts in terms of interactions between common minds. This dissertation is subdivided into four parts. Part I outlines the problem of human uniqueness, examining theories on how humans conceptualize the world, and what their mental tool box looks like. Part II discusses the evolutionary and cognitive origins of human artistic behavior. Part III focuses on the cognitive science of religion, especially on how it can be applied to the reasoning of theologians and philosophers of religion. Part IV considers the cognitive basis of scientific practice. (shrink)

Renowned for his geological studies, Jean-Baptiste d'Omalius d'Halloy also pursued a far less known anthropological career. In different ‘editions’ of his main work, the first Belgian armchair anthropologist tried to divide the world population into races, branches, families and peoples. As a true figure of transition between the 18th and 19th century, he used both human and natural sciences to establish his racial classification, based on natural characters and geography, but also evolution, history and language. Influenced by both William Frederic (...) Edwards and Paul Broca, d'Omalius often defended polygenist views, despite his catholic and monogenist conviction and his refusal to accept the multiple origin of humankind. It is also notable that d'Omalius, like Tacitus and Montesquieu before him, claimed that the sole origin of humankind could to be situated in Northern European, which for d'Omalius still represented the homeland of the most civilized races. Critical of the ‘Aryan myth’, he stated that ‘Germanic’ culture and language had spread over Asia and not the other way around, an argument that caused conflict within learned societies and at international conferences. For the first time, based on new archival material, this article offers an overview of Belgian anthropology before the creation of Société d'Anthropologie de Bruxelles in 1882. (shrink)

Lamarck's perspective on change within the organic world, in particular his conception of "la marche de la nature," , crystallized during the last decade of the 18th century and the early years of the 19th. I argue that it should be viewed as resulting in part from interactions with, and transfers from, the social thought—modes of thinking, ways of conceptualizing, models, metaphors and analogies—of the decades before the French revolution and of the revolutionary decade itself. Moreover, Lamarck's involvement with the (...) new institutional frameworks initiated during the revolutionary period had brought him into direct contacts with the then prevalent modes of discourse on things social. (shrink)

Jean-Baptiste Lamarck is well known as a pre-Darwinian proponent of evolution. But much of what has been written on Lamarck, on his ‘Lamarckian’ belief in the inheritance of acquired characters, and on his conception of the role of the will in biological development mischaracterizes his views. Indeed, surprisingly little in-depth analysis has been published regarding his views on human physiology and development. Further, although since Robert M. Young’s signal 1969 essay on Malthus and the evolutionists, Darwin scholars have sought to (...) place Darwin’s work in its social and political context, this has yet to be done adequately for Lamarck. Here I address this gap. I argue that the will was of particular importance to Lamarck’s social commentary and his hopes for the transformation of the French people and nation. Further, I argue that if we are to really grasp Lamarck’s ideas and intentions we need to contextualize his works in relation to prevailing debates in France about the physiology of mind and morals and the future of the nation. (shrink)