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Homunculi rule: Reflections on Darwinian populations and natural selection by Peter Godfrey Smith: Oxford University Press, 2009

Daniel C. Dennett

Biology and Philosophy 26 (4):475-488 (2011)

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Agential thinking.Walter Veit - 2021 - Synthese 199 (5):13393-13419.details In his 2009 monograph, Darwinian Populations and Natural Selection, Peter Godfrey-Smith accuses biologists of demonstrating ‘Darwinian Paranoia’ when they engage in what he dubs ‘agential thinking’. But as Daniel Dennett points out, he offers neither an illuminating set of examples nor an extended argument for this assertion, deeming it to be a brilliant propaganda stroke against what is actually a useful way of thinking. Compared to the dangers of teleological thinking in biology, the dangers of agential thinking have unfortunately rarely (...) Download Export citation Bookmark 6 citations
The rationale of rationalization.Walter Veit, Joe Dewhurst, Krzysztof Dołęga, Max Jones, Shaun Stanley, Keith Frankish & Daniel C. Dennett - 2019 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 43:e53.details While we agree in broad strokes with the characterisation of rationalization as a “useful fiction,” we think that Fiery Cushman's claim remains ambiguous in two crucial respects: (1) the reality of beliefs and desires, that is, the fictional status of folk-psychological entities and (2) the degree to which they should be understood as useful. Our aim is to clarify both points and explicate the rationale of rationalization. Download Export citation Bookmark 8 citations
Replicate after reading: on the extraction and evocation of cultural information.Maarten Boudry - 2018 - Biology and Philosophy 33 (3-4):27.details Does cultural evolution happen by a process of copying or replication? And how exactly does cultural transmission compare with that paradigmatic case of replication, the copying of DNA in living cells? Theorists of cultural evolution are divided on these issues. The most important objection to the replication model has been leveled by Dan Sperber and his colleagues. Cultural transmission, they argue, is almost always reconstructive and transformative, while strict ‘replication’ can be seen as a rare limiting case at most. By (...) Download Export citation Bookmark 8 citations
Culture and Transitions in Individuality.Paulo Abrantes - 2011 - In Luiz Dutra & Alexandre Meyer Luz (eds.), Rumos da Epistemologia v. 11. Núcleo de Epistemologia e Lógica. pp. 395-408.details Some "major" evolutionary transitions have been described as transitions in individuality. In this depiction, natural selection might bring about new kinds of individuals, whose evolutionary dynamics takes place in a novel way. Using a categorization proposed by Godfrey-Smith, this transition is fully accomplished when a new "paradigmatic" Darwinian population emerges. In this paper I investigate whether at some point in the evolution in the hominin lineage a transition of this kind might have happened, by assuming some of the theses of (...) Download Export citation Bookmark
The strategic gene.David Haig - 2012 - Biology and Philosophy 27 (4):461-479.details Abstract Gene-selectionists define fundamental terms in non-standard ways. Genes are determinants of difference. Phenotypes are defined as a gene’s effects relative to some alternative whereas the environment is defined as all parts of the world that are shared by the alternatives being compared. Environments choose among phenotypes and thereby choose among genes. By this process, successful gene sequences become stores of information about what works in the environment. The strategic gene is defined as a set of gene tokens that combines (...) Download Export citation Bookmark 24 citations

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