A frequent argument is that Darwin’s theory of evolution has or should revolutionize our conception of the relation between humans and animals, though society has yet to take account of that revolution in our treatment of animals. On this view, after Darwin demonstrated the essential continuity of humans and animals, traditional morality must be rejected as speciesist in seeing humans as fundamentally distinct from other animals. In fact, the argument is of dubious merit. While there is plenty of room for (...) improving our treatment of animals, it is unlikely that these shortcomings can be blamed on scientific ignorance, or that knowledge of the theory of evolution has any clear moral implications for our treatment of animals. (shrink)

Anthropic reasoning has lately been strongly associated with the string theory landscape and some theories of particle cosmology, such as cosmological inflation. The association is not, contrary to multiple statements by physicists and philosophers alike, necessary. On the contrary, there are clear reasons and instances in which the anthropic reasoning is useful in a diverse range of fields such as planetary sciences, geophysics, future studies, risk analysis, origin of life studies, evolutionary theory, astrobiology and SETI studies, ecology, or even strategic (...) studies and global policy. The association of anthropic reasoning with string theory and particle cosmology has not only become the standard wisdom, but has been often construed in a negative way, in order to demonstrate or insinuate that such reasoning is too abstract or even belongs to “fringe science”, remote from run-of-the-mill research practices in any other more “mundane” and less theoretical scientific discipline. The purpose of this paper is to analyse some of the counter-examples to the standard wisdom, suggest that the anthropic reasoning is more flexible, more general, and less fashion-driven than the detractors state. In addition, we consider some historical and/or extrascientific motivation for this persistent prejudice. (shrink)

There have been monumental advances in the study of the social dimensions of knowledge in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. But it has been common within a wide variety of fields--including social philosophy, cognitive science, epistemology, and the philosophy of science--to approach the social dimensions of knowledge as simply another resource to be utilized or controlled. I call this view, in which other people's epistemic significance are only of instrumental value, manipulationism. I identify manipulationism, trace its manifestations in (...) the aforementioned fields, and explain how to move beyond it. The principal strategy that I employ for moving beyond manipulationism consists of synthesizing enactivism and neo-Kuhnian social epistemology. Specifically, I expand the enactivist concept of participatory sense-making by linking it to recent conceptual innovations in social epistemology, such as the concept of immanent cogent argumentation. (shrink)

Disagreement remains about whether particular human socio-cognitive traits arose primarily as a result of biological adaptations, or because of changing cultural practices. Heyes argues that uniquely human traits, including imitation and theory of mind, are the product of cultural learning. In contrast, Tomasello argues that they are, in key respects, part of a suite of adaptations for ‘shared intentionality’. We consider how such disagreements might be resolved. We show that the kinds of consideration often used to adjudicate questions about trait (...) origins are insufficient to settle origin questions. Furthermore, humankind’s immersion in culture undermines the prospect that cross-cultural and developmental studies could resolve origin questions. Nonetheless we argue that, when cautiously interpreted, currently neglected studies of enculturated great apes (i.e. apes raised in human environments) can shed new light on trait origins, and inform mechanistic accounts of cognitive development. While acknowledging the shortcomings of enculturation research, we argue that it deserves renewed attention. (shrink)