What methodological approaches do research programs use to investigate the world? Elisabeth Lloyd’s Logic of Research Questions (LRQ) characterizes such approaches in terms of the questions that the researchers ask and causal factors they consider. She uses the Logic of Research Questions Framework to criticize adaptationist programs in evolutionary biology for dogmatically assuming selection explanations of the traits of organisms. I argue that Lloyd’s general criticism of methodological adaptationism is an artefact of the impoverished LRQ. My Ordered Factors Proposal extends (...) the LRQ to characterize approaches with sequences of questions and factors. I highlight the importance that ordering one’s investigation plays in approaches at the level of adaptationism by analyzing two research programs in community ecology: competitionists and neutralists. Competitionists and neutralists take opposed starting points and use explanatory and developmental heuristics to consider more factors in due time. On the Ordered Factors Proposal, these approaches are not only the ecological factors they are open to considering but also the order in which they will consider them. My disagreement with Lloyd’s over how to characterize methodological approaches reflects different views about methodological monism and pluralism. (shrink)

What is the purpose of perception? And how might the answer to this question help distinguish perception from other mental processes? Block’s landmark book, The.

“Teleosemantic” or “biosemantic” theories form a strong naturalistic programme in the philosophy of mind and language. They seek to explain the nature of mind and language by recourse to a natural history of “proper functions” as selected-for effects of language- and thought-producing mechanisms. However, they remain vague with respect to the nature of the proposed analogy between selected-for effects on the biological level and phenomena that are not strictly biological, such as reproducible linguistic and cultural forms. This essay critically explores (...) various interpretations of this analogy. It suggests that these interpretations can be explicated by contrasting adaptationist with pluralist readings of the evolutionary concept of adaptation. Among the possible interpretations of the relations between biological adaptations and their analogues in language and culture, the two most relevant are a linear, hierarchical, signalling-based model that takes its cues from the evolution of co-operation and joint intentionality and a mutualistic, pluralist model that takes its cues from mimesis and symbolism in the evolution of human communication. Arguing for the merits of the mutualistic model, the present analysis indicates a path towards an evolutionary pluralist version of biosemantics that will align with theories of cognition as being environmentally “scaffolded”. Language and other cultural forms are partly independent reproducible structures that acquire proper functions of their own while being integrated with organism-based cognitive traits in co-evolutionary fashion. (shrink)

Paleontological evidence suggests that human artefacts with intentional markings might have originated already in the Lower Paleolithic, up to 500.000 years ago and well before the advent of ‘behavioural modernity’. These markings apparently did not serve instrumental, tool-like functions, nor do they appear to be forms of figurative art. Instead, they display abstract geometric patterns that potentially testify to an emerging ability of symbol use. In a variation on Ian Hacking’s speculative account of the possible role of “likeness-making” in the (...) evolution of human cognition and language, this essay explores the central role that the embodied processes of making and the collective practices of using such artefacts might have played in early human cognitive evolution. Two paradigmatic findings of Lower Paleolithic artefacts are discussed as tentative evidence of likenesses acting as material scaffolds in the emergence of symbolic reference-making. They might provide the link between basic abilities of mimesis and imitation and the development of modern language and thought. (shrink)

Darwin provided us with a powerful theoretical framework to explain the evolution of living systems. Natural selection alone, however, has sometimes been seen as insufficient to explain the emergence of new levels of selection. The problem is one of “circularity” for evolutionary explanations: how to explain the origins of Darwinian properties without already invoking their presence at the level they emerge. That is, how does evolution by natural selection commence in the first place? Recent results in experimental evolution suggest a (...) way forward: Paul Rainey and his collaborators have shown that Darwinian properties could be exogenously imposed via what they call “ecological scaffolding.” This could solve the “black box” dilemma faced by Darwinian explanations of new levels of organization. Yet, despite “scaffolding” recently becoming a popular term in the study of cognition, culture, and evolution, the concept has suffered from vagueness and ambiguity. This article aims to show that scaffolding can be turned into a proper scientific concept able to do explanatory work within the context of the major evolutionary transitions. Doing so will allow us to once again extend the scope of the Darwinian model of evolution by natural selection. (shrink)

Fifteen years ago, Sharon Street and Richard Joyce advanced evolutionary debunking arguments against moral realism, which purported to show that the evolutionary history of our moral beliefs makes moral realism untenable. These arguments have since given rise to a flurry of objections; the epistemic principles Street and Joyce relied upon, in particular, have come in for a number of serious challenges. My goal in this paper is to develop a new account of evolutionary debunking which avoids the pitfalls Street and (...) Joyce encountered and responds to the most pressing objections they faced. I begin by presenting a striking thought experiment to serve as an analogy for the evolution of morality; I then show why calibrationist views of higher-order evidence are crucial to the evolutionary debunking project; I outline a new rationale for why finding out that morality was selected to promote cooperation suggests that our moral judgments are unreliable; and I explain why evolutionary debunking arguments do not depend on our having a dedicated faculty for moral cognition. All things considered, I argue, evolutionary debunking arguments against moral realism are on relatively secure footing – provided, at least, that we accept a calibrationist account of higher-order evidence. (shrink)

This is a book review/critical review of Jackson and Depew's _Darwinism, Democracy, and Race: American Anthropology and Evolutionary Biology in the Twentieth Century_.

This special issue for the Journal for General Philosophy of Science is devoted to exploring the impact and many ramifications of current research in evolutionary epistemology. Evolutionary epistemology is an inter- and multidisciplinary area of research that can be divided into two ever-inclusive research avenues. One research avenue expands on the EEM program and investigates the epistemology of evolution. The other research avenue builds on the EET program and researches the evolution of epistemology. Since its conception, EE has developed three (...) schools of thought: adaptationist, non-adaptationist, and applied EE. Although diverse in outlook and theoretical background, these research avenues and schools share the same agenda of understanding how knowledge evolves, and how it relates to the world. In this paper, we first explain wherefrom evolutionary epistemological schools of thought developed, and then we highlight current debates in EE by briefly reviewing the papers that form part of this special issue. (shrink)

⦿ In my dissertation I introduce, motivate and take the first steps in the implementation of, the project of naturalising modal metaphysics: the transformation of the field into a chapter of the philosophy of science rather than speculative, autonomous metaphysics. -/- ⦿ In the introduction, I explain the concept of naturalisation that I apply throughout the dissertation, which I argue to be an improvement on Ladyman and Ross' proposal for naturalised metaphysics. I also object to Williamson's proposal that modal metaphysics (...) --- or some view in the area --- is already a quasi-scientific discipline. -/- ⦿ Recently, some philosophers have argued that the notion of metaphysical modality is as ill defined as to be of little theoretical utility. In the second chapter I intend to contribute to such skepticism. First, I observe that each of the proposed marks of the concept, except for factivity, is highly controversial; thus, its logical structure is deeply obscure. With the failure of the "first principles" approach, I examine the paradigmatic intended applications of the concept, and argue that each makes it a device for a very specific and controversial project: a device, therefore, for which a naturalist will find no use for. I conclude that there is no well-defined or theoretically useful notion of objective necessity other than logical or physical necessity, and I suggest that naturalising modal metaphysics can provide more stable methodological foundations. -/- ⦿ In the third chapter I answer a possible objection against the in-principle viability of the project: that the concept of metaphysical modality cannot be understood through the philosophical analysis of any scientific theory, since metaphysical necessity "transcends'' natural necessity, and science only deals with the latter. I argue that the most important arguments for this transcendence thesis fail or face problems that, as of today, remain unsolved. -/- ⦿ Call the idea that science doesn't need modality, "demodalism''. Demodalism is a first step in a naturalistic argument for modal antirealism. In the fourth chapter I examine six versions of demodalism to explain why a family of formalisms, that I call "spaces of possibility'', are (i) used in a quasi-ubiquitous way in mathematised sciences (I provide examples from theoretical computer science to microeconomics), (ii) scientifically interpreted in modal terms, and (iii) used for at least six important tasks: (1) defining laws and theories; (2) defining important concepts from different sciences (I give several examples); (3) making essential classifications; (4) providing different types of explanations; (5) providing the connection between theory and statistics, and (6) understanding the transition between a theory and its successor (as is the case with quantisation). -/- ⦿ In fifth chapter I propose and defend a naturalised modal ontology. This is a realism about modal structure: my realism about constraints. The modal structure of a system are the relationships between its possible states and between its possible states and those of other systems. It is given by the plurality of restrictions to which said system is subject. A constraint is a factor that explains the impossibility of a class of states; I explain this concept further. First, I defend my point of view by rejecting some of its main rivals: constructive empiricism, Humean conventionalism, and wave function realism, as they fail to make sense of quantum chaos. This is because the field requires the notion of objective modal structure, and the mentioned views have trouble explaining the modal facts of quantum dynamics. Then, I argue that constraint realism supersedes these views in the context of Bohm's standard theory and mechanics, and underpins the study of quantum chaos. Finally, I consider and reject two possible problems for my point of view. -/- ⦿ A central concern of modal metaphysicians has been to understand the logical system that best characterises necessity. In the sixth chapter I intend to recover the logical project applied to my naturalistic modal metaphysics. Scientists and philosophers of science accept different degrees of physical necessity, ranging from purely mathematically necessary facts that restrict physical behaviour, to kinetic principles, to particular dynamical constraints. I argue that this motivates a multimodal approach to modal logic, and that the time dependence of dynamics motivates a logic of historical necessity. I propose multimodal propositional (classical) logics for Bohmian mechanics and the Everettian theory of many divergent worlds, and I close with a criticism of Williamson's approach to the logic of state spaces of dynamic systems. (shrink)

La actitud del diseño es una estrategia interpretativa propuesta por Dennett, que consiste en tratar al sistema, cuyo “comportamiento” se quiere predecir, bajo el supuesto de que sus partes cumplen funciones que obedecen a un diseño satisfactorio. Sin embargo, estudios recientes sobre atribución funcional en artefactos técnicos consideran que la actitud del diseño supone una estrategia inadecuada para entender qué hace un artefacto técnico. En particular, dos críticas han ganado visibilidad. Por una parte, Vermaas et al. (2013) señalan una inconsistencia (...) en la propuesta dennettiana de la actitud del diseño: las intenciones del diseñador a veces desempeñan un papel en la interpretación de los artefactos y a veces no lo hacen, sin tener finalmente una intuición clara sobre su rol. Por otra parte, Vaesen y Van Amerongen (2008) sostienen que la actitud del diseño admite dos interpretaciones, una descriptiva y una normativa, y que ambas son implausibles. No obstante, en este trabajo argumentamos que estas críticas son rebatibles y que el problema reside en que ambas acusaciones, i.e. inconsistencia e implausibilidad, suponen una interpretación incorrecta de la posición de Dennett. The design attitude is an interpretive strategy proposed by Dennett, which consists of treating the system, whose “behavior” is to be predicted, under the assumption that its parts fulfill functions that accomplish a satisfactory design. Recent studies on technical artifacts' functional attribution claim that the design attitude is an inadequate strategy to elicit what a technical artifact does. In particular, two criticisms have gained visibility. On the one hand, Vermas et al (2013) remark an inconsistency in Dennett’s design stance. The very designer's intentions sometimes play a role in the interpretation of artifacts and sometimes they don´t, without finally having a clear intuition about their role. On the other hand, Vaesen and Van Amerongen (2008) argue that the design stance admits two interpretations, a descriptive and a normative one and that both are implausible. However, we argue that these criticisms miss the point given that both accusations, i.e. of inconsistency and of implausibility, result from a wrong interpretation of Dennett's position. (shrink)

The dominant theory of the evolution of moral cognition across a variety of fields is that moral cognition is a biological adaptation to foster social cooperation. This chapter argues, to the contrary, that moral cognition is likely an evolutionary exaptation: a form of cognition where neurobiological capacities selected for in our evolutionary history for a variety of different reasons—many unrelated to social cooperation—were put to a new, prosocial use after the fact through individual rationality, learning, and the development and transmission (...) of social norms. This chapter begins with a brief overview of the emerging behavioral neuroscience of moral cognition. It then outlines a novel theory of moral cognition that I have previously argued explains these findings better than alternatives. Finally, it shows how the evidence for this theory of moral cognition and human evolutionary history together suggest that moral cognition is likely not a biological adaptation. Instead, like reading sheet music or riding a bicycle, moral cognition is something that individuals learn to do—in this case, in response to sociocultural norms created in our ancestral history and passed down through the ages to enable cooperative living. (shrink)

Starting from Denis Noble’s criticism on the modern synthesis, this article argues that the author’s presentation of the modern synthesis focusses too one-sidedly on the phenomenal characteristics of the living, whereby it is made easily suitable to his criticisms, but risks to remain trapped in a territory-struggle; this criticism lacks an explicit focus on logical matters, and more in particular on the synthetic principles required to situate the relevancy or irrelevancy of phenomenal characteristics beyond territory-struggles. A brief sketch of how (...) the principle of teleology calls for reflexivity allows us to reveal the tension in Noble’s account between, on the one hand, the way in which he stresses the importance of metaphors and language, and, on the other hand, the way in which he invokes empirical arguments to assess the illusory character of certain metaphors. (shrink)

Evolutionary biologists, evolutionary epistemologists, and biosemioticians have demonstrated that organisms not merely adapt to an external world, but that they actively construct their environmental, sociocultural, and cognitive niches. Denis Noble demonstrates that such is no different for those organisms that engage in science, and he lays bare several crucial assumptions that define the scientific dogmas and practices of evolutionary biology.

Jonathan Y. Tsou examines and defends positions on central issues in philosophy of psychiatry. The positions defended assume a naturalistic and realist perspective and are framed against skeptical perspectives on biological psychiatry. Issues addressed include the reality of mental disorders; mechanistic and disease explanations of abnormal behavior; definitions of mental disorder; natural and artificial kinds in psychiatry; biological essentialism and the projectability of psychiatric categories; looping effects and the stability of mental disorders; psychiatric classification; and the validity of the DSM's (...) diagnostic categories. The main argument defended by Tsou is that genuine mental disorders are biological kinds with harmful effects. This argument opposes the dogma that mental disorders are necessarily diseases that result from biological dysfunction. Tsou contends that the broader ideal of biological kinds offers a more promising and empirically ascertainable naturalistic standard for assessing the reality of mental disorders and the validity of psychiatric categories. (shrink)

The standard perception of the dichotomy between population thinking and essentialism (typological thinking) in evolutionary economics descends from the golden age of the neo-Darwinian Synthesis. Over the last few decades the received view on population thinking has been seriously challenged in biology and its philosophy. First, the strong version of population thinking that banishes essentialism witnessed important tensions stemming from the ontological status of species. These tensions have been amplified by the demise of positivism and the rise of a new (...) essentialism in philosophy of science. Second, the soft version that transforms the opposition between population thinking and essentialism to the dichotomy between ultimate and proximate causation has led to contradictory interpretations regarding the locus of ultimate causes. Taking stock of the previous discussion the paper addresses the limits to population thinking in the socio-economic realm. The upshot is that without denying the important achievements made by the application of population thinking in sub-disciplines like industrial dynamics and economic anthropology, the idea to generalize these applications into the whole socio-economic realm is problematic. The aforementioned achievements cannot come to grips with the structural aspects of capitalism, its different periods (e.g. the contemporary finance-led capitalism) and its geographical varieties. The resulting gap points to the importance of structural analysis (essentialism) and evolutionary political economy. The latter is distinguished from the rest of evolutionary economics by its project to go beyond the surface of economic phenomena and to critically analyze their underlying social structures. (shrink)

There have been repeated attempts in the history of comparative biology to provide a mechanistic account of morphological homology. However, it is well-established that homologues can develop from diverse sets of developmental causes, appearing not to share any core causal architecture that underwrites character identity. We address this challenge with a new conceptual model of Character Identity Mechanisms. ChIMs are cohesive mechanisms with a recognizable causal profile that allows them to be traced through evolution as homologues despite having a diverse (...) etiological organization. Our model hypothesizes that anatomical units at different levels of organization—cell types, tissues, and organs—have level-specific ChIMs with different conserved parts, activities, and organization. Relying on a methodology of conceptual engineering, we show how the ChIM concept advances our understanding of the developmental basis of morphological characters, while forging an important link between comparative and mechanistic biology. (shrink)

Contingency-theorists have gestured to a series of phenomena such as random mutations or rare Armageddon-like events as that which accounts for evolutionary contingency. These phenomena constitute a class, which may be aptly called the ‘sources of contingency’. In this paper, I offer a probabilistic conception of what it is to be a source of contingency and then examine two major candidates: chance variation and genetic drift, both of which have historically been taken to be ‘chancy’ in a number of different (...) senses. However,contrathe gesturing of contingency-theorists, chance variation and genetic drift are not always strong sources of contingency, as they can be non-chancy in at least one sense that opposes evolutionary contingency. The probabilistic conception offered herein allows for sources of contingency to appropriately vary in strength. To this end, I import Shannon’sinformation entropyas a statistical measure for systematically assessing the strength of a source of contingency, which is part and parcel of identifying sources of contingency. In brief, the higher the entropy, the greater the strength. This is also empirically significant because molecular, mutational, and replicative studies often contain sufficient frequency or probability data to allow for entropies to be calculated. In this way, contingency-theorists can evaluate the strength of a source of contingency in real-world cases. Moreover, the probabilistic conception also makes conceptual room for the converse of sources of contingency: ‘sources of directionality’, which ought to be recognised, as they can interact with genuine sources of contingency in undermining evolutionary contingency. (shrink)

A promising recent approach for understanding complex phenomena is recognition of anticipatory behavior of living organisms and social organizations. The anticipatory, predictive action permits learning, novelty seeking, rich experiential existence. I argue that the established frameworks of anticipation, adaptation or learning imply overly passive roles of anticipatory agents, and that a fictionalist standpoint reflects the core of anticipatory behavior better than representational or future references. Cognizing beings enact not just their models of the world, but own make-believe existential agendas as (...) well. Anticipators embody plausible scripts of living, and effectively assume neo-Kantian or pragmatist perspectives of cognition and action. It is instructive to see that anticipatory behavior is not without mundane or loathsome deficiencies. Appreciation of ferally fictionalist anticipation suggests an equivalence of semiosis and anticipation. (shrink)

Confirmation bias is one of the most widely discussed epistemically problematic cognitions, challenging reliable belief formation and the correction of inaccurate views. Given its problematic nature, it remains unclear why the bias evolved and is still with us today. To offer an explanation, several philosophers and scientists have argued that the bias is in fact adaptive. I critically discuss three recent proposals of this kind before developing a novel alternative, what I call the ‘reality-matching account’. According to the account, confirmation (...) bias evolved because it helps us influence people and social structures so that they come to match our beliefs about them. This can result in significant developmental and epistemic benefits for us and other people, ensuring that over time we don’t become epistemically disconnected from social reality but can navigate it more easily. While that might not be the only evolved function of confirmation bias, it is an important one that has so far been neglected in the theorizing on the bias. (shrink)

Corvids cooperate. Whatever else they might do in the world – squabbling at carcasses or ‘stealing’ other birds’ eggs – they also posses rich social lives that include a broad range of cooperative interactions, from working together to mob predators and rear their young, to sharing food. This chapter focuses on some cooperative ravens and the scientists that study them to explore and challenge the simplistic notion that evolution teaches us that life, at some fundamental level, is inherently selfish and (...) competitive. These ravens remind us that this simply isn’t the case. Or, more accurately, that it is only the case if we accept some very peculiar understandings of ‘selfishness’ that paper over the complexity of our living world. And yet stories about selfishness persist, in different ways, in both the scientific and the popular literatures. In this context, this chapter explores how these framings emerge and the rhetorical power that they possess. Ultimately, what emerges from taking these ravens seriously is a more hopeful account of evolution that opens up space for new kinds of animal studies scholarship that practice an appreciation for the many diverse ways that organism get on with each other to shape our living world. (shrink)

According to simulationism, the function of episodic memory is not to remember the past, but to help construct representations of possible future episodes, by drawing together features from different experiential sources. This article suggests that the relationship between the traditional storehouse view, on which the function of memory is remembering, and the simulationist approach is more complicated than has been typically acknowledged. This is attributed, in part, to incorrect interpretations of what remembering on the storehouse view requires. Further, by appeal (...) to function pluralism, the article questions both the assumption that the traditional view and simulationism are inconsistent, and the simulationist’s inference to the best explanation strategy that is based upon this assumption. The article then provides an evaluation of the simulationist argument against the traditional view, and finds it in need of further support. (shrink)

Optimality models are widely used in different parts of biology. Two important questions that have been asked about such models are: are they explanatory and, if so, what type of explanations do they offer? My concern in this paper is with the approach of Rice (2012, 2015) and Irvine (2015), who claim that these models provide non-causal explanations. I argue that there are serious problems with this approach and with the accounts of explanation it is intended to justify. The idea (...) behind this undertaking is to draw attention to an important issue associated with the recent pluralist stance on explanation: the rampant proliferation of theories of explanation. This proliferation supports a pluralist perspective on explanation, and pluralism encourages such a proliferation. But, if we are not careful about how we arrive at and how we justify new accounts of explanation — i.e., if we do not try to avoid the sort of problems discussed in this paper — we may end up trivializing the concept of explanation. (shrink)

The impressive variation amongst biological individuals generates many complexities in addressing the simple-sounding question what is a biological individual? A distinction between evolutionary and physiological individuals is useful in thinking about biological individuals, as is attention to the kinds of groups, such as superorganisms and species, that have sometimes been thought of as biological individuals. More fully understanding the conceptual space that biological individuals occupy also involves considering a range of other concepts, such as life, reproduction, and agency. There has (...) been a focus in some recent discussions by both philosophers and biologists on how evolutionary individuals are created and regulated, as well as continuing work on the evolution of individuality. (shrink)

The author reconstructs the theory of F. Varela with relevance to the hard problem of consciousness. This problem was touched by Varela in relatively late period of his work. However, the implications for dissolution of this problem can be found in his earlier works with H. Maturana. Theory of autopoietic systems ties life and cognition together, resulting in natural historical comprehension of consciousness and its functioning. Autopoiesis, understood as network of processes of production of components used as resources for maintaining (...) these processes, sets organizational invariances, distinguishing living system from its milieu. The main criterion of living system is an ability to maintain autopoietic organization while undergoing structural transformations with environment. Structural plasticity leads to multiple realizability of autopoietic organizations, which, in turn, leads to radical conclusion on nature of knowledge. One can distinguish the knower and the known only contingently, as the structure of knowledge reflects cognitive structure of the knower. This intertwinement permits Varela to introduce the enactivist program, which presupposes not simply reform in the scientific research of consciousness but also rethinking the implications of scientific knowledge itself. Cognition is a sensorimotor constitution of the world. Therefore, consciousness is not an object of material nature among other objects but provides our cognitive access to nature. Varela intended to abandon the theoretical approach to the problem of consciousness. His aim was not to provide a new argument. This is a consequence of the enactivist position which, according to theory of autopoiesis, must be applicable to the knower himself. (shrink)

The low rates of regular exercise and overall physical activity (PA) in the general population represent a significant public health challenge. Previous research suggests that, for many people, exercise leads to a negative affective response and, in turn, reduced likelihood of future exercise. The purpose of this paper is to examine this exercise–affect–adherence relationship from an evolutionary perspective. Specifically, we argue that low rates of physical exercise in the general population are a function of the evolved human tendency to avoid (...) unnecessary physical exertion. This innate tendency evolved because it allowed our evolutionary ancestors to conserve energy for physical activities that had immediate adaptive utility such as pursuing prey, escaping predators, and engaging in social and reproductive behaviors. The commonly observed negative affective response to exercise is an evolved proximate psychological mechanism through which humans avoid unnecessary energy expenditure. The fact that the human tendencies toward negative affective response to and avoidance of unnecessary physical activities are innate does not mean that they are unchangeable. Indeed, it is only because of human-engineered changes in our environmental conditions (i.e., it is no longer necessary for us to work for our food) that our predisposition to avoid unnecessary physical exertion has become a liability. Thus, it is well within our capabilities to reengineer our environments to once again make PA necessary or, at least, to serve an immediate functional purpose. We propose a two-pronged approach to PA promotion based on this evolutionary functional perspective: first, to promote exercise and other physical activities that are perceived to have an immediate purpose, and second, to instill greater perceived purpose for a wider range of physical activities. We posit that these strategies are more likely to result in more positive (or less negative) affective responses to exercise, better adherence to exercise programs, and higher rates of overall PA. (shrink)

This article critically examines one of the most prevalent metaphors in modern biology, namely the machine conception of the organism (MCO). Although the fundamental differences between organisms and machines make the MCO an inadequate metaphor for conceptualizing living systems, many biologists and philosophers continue to draw upon the MCO or tacitly accept it as the standard model of the organism. This paper analyses the specific difficulties that arise when the MCO is invoked in the study of development and evolution. In (...) developmental biology the MCO underlies a logically incoherent model of ontogeny, the genetic program, which serves to legitimate three problematic theses about development: genetic animism, neo-preformationism, and developmental computability. In evolutionary biology the MCO is responsible for grounding unwarranted theoretical appeals to the concept of design as well as to the interpretation of natural selection as an engineer, which promote a distorted understanding of the process and products of evolutionary change. Overall, it is argued that, despite its heuristic value, the MCO today is impeding rather than enabling further progress in our comprehension of living systems. (shrink)

This dissertation focuses on teleology and functions in biology. More precisely, it focuses on the scientific legitimacy of teleofunctional attributions and explanations in biology. It belongs to a multi-faceted debate that can be traced back to at least the 1970s. One aspect of the debate concerns the naturalization of functions. Most authors try to reduce, translate or explain functions and teleology in terms of efficient causes so that they find their place in the framework of the natural sciences. Our approach (...) here is radically different, as we question the premise that teleological explanations are disguised causal explanations. On the contrary, we defend that they are acceptable in natural sciences and in biology in particular. We challenge the idea that teleological explanations are immature causal explanations, as well as the idea that teleology and functions are some sort of intentional explanations. We therefore reject the accusations of anthropomorphism, vitalism and finalism. On the contrary, we defend that teleology, causality and intentionality correspond to different, autonomous and complementary modes of representation of the outside world. -/- ———[FRANÇAIS]——— -/- Ce travail de thèse porte sur la téléologie et les fonctions en biologie. Plus précisément, il porte sur la légitimité scientifique des attributions et des explications téléofonctionnelles en biologie. Il s’inscrit dans le cadre d’un débat à plusieurs facettes que l’on peut faire remonter au moins jusqu’aux années 1970 et qui est encore très actif aujourd’hui. L’un des aspects du débat porte sur la naturalisation des fonctions, c’est-à-dire sur la manière de les réduire, de les traduire ou de les expliciter en termes de causes efficientes de sorte qu’elles trouvent leur place dans le cadre des sciences de la nature. Notre approche ici est radicalement différente, car nous remettons en question la prémisse selon laquelle les explications téléologiques seraient des explications causales déguisées. Nous défendons au contraire qu’elles sont acceptables en tant que telles aussi bien de façon générale que dans le domaine scientifique et en particulier en biologie. De façon générale, nous remettons en question l’idée selon laquelle la pensée téléologique serait une pensée causale immature, ainsi que sa dépendance présumée vis-à-vis de la psychologie, c’est-à-dire de l’intentionnalité. Nous rejetons donc les accusations d’anthropomorphisme, de vitalisme et de finalisme formulées contre elle. Nous défendons au contraire que la téléologie, la causalité et l’intentionnalité correspondent à des modes différents, autonomes et complémentaires de représentation du monde extérieur. (shrink)

In evolutionary theory, we generally believe that the evolution of life is from simple to complex, from single to diverse, and from lower to higher. Thus, the idea of evolutionary progress appears obvious. However, in contemporary academic circles, some biologists and philosophers challenge this idea. Among them, Gould is the most influential. This paper first describes Gould’s seven arguments against evolutionary progress, i.e., the human arrogance argument, anthropocentric argument, no inner thrust argument, no biological base argument, extreme contingency argument, statistical (...) error argument, and bacteria (other than human beings) ruling the earth argument. Gould’s arguments against evolutionary progress have great influence in contemporary evolutionary theory. Thus, it is necessary to conduct a careful philosophical analysis of each of Gould’s arguments to reveal his philosophical mistakes. This research contends that Gould’s arguments against evolutionary progress are invalid. (shrink)

Tracing the leading role of emotions in the evolution of the mind, a philosopher and a psychologist pair up to reveal how thought and culture owe less to our faculty for reason than to our capacity to feel. Many accounts of the human mind concentrate on the brain’s computational power. Yet, in evolutionary terms, rational cognition emerged only the day before yesterday. For nearly 200 million years before humans developed a capacity to reason, the emotional centers of the brain were (...) hard at work. If we want to properly understand the evolution of the mind, we must explore this more primal capability that we share with other animals: the power to feel. Emotions saturate every thought and perception with the weight of feelings. The Emotional Mind reveals that many of the distinctive behaviors and social structures of our species are best discerned through the lens of emotions. Even the roots of so much that makes us uniquely human—art, mythology, religion—can be traced to feelings of caring, longing, fear, loneliness, awe, rage, lust, playfulness, and more. From prehistoric cave art to the songs of Hank Williams, Stephen T. Asma and Rami Gabriel explore how the evolution of the emotional mind stimulated our species’ cultural expression in all its rich variety. Bringing together insights and data from philosophy, biology, anthropology, neuroscience, and psychology, The Emotional Mind offers a new paradigm for understanding what it is that makes us so unique. (shrink)

This paper aims to provide a philosophical and theoretical account of biological communication grounded in the notion of organisation. The organisational approach characterises living systems as organised in such a way that they are capable to self-produce and self-maintain while in constant interaction with the environment. To apply this theoretical framework to the study of biological communication, we focus on a specific approach, based on the notion of influence, according to which communication takes place when a signal emitted by a (...) sender triggers a change in the behaviour of the receiver that is functional for the sender itself. We critically analyse the current formulations of this account, that interpret what is functional for the sender in terms of evolutionary adaptations. Specifically, the adoption of this etiological functional framework may lead to the exclusion of several phenomena usually studied as instances of communication, and possibly even of entire fields of investigation such as synthetic biology. As an alternative, we reframe the influence approach in organisational terms, characterising functions in terms of contributions to the current organisation of a biological system. We develop a theoretical account of biological communication in which communicative functions are distinguished from other types of biological functions described by the organisational account (e.g. metabolic, ecological, etc.). The resulting organisational-influence approach allows to carry out causal analyses of current instances of phenomena of communication, without the need to provide etiological explanations. In such a way it makes it possible to understand in terms of communication those phenomena which realise interactive patterns typical of signalling interactions – and are usually studied as such in scientific practice – despite not being the result of evolutionary adaptations. Moreover, this approach provides operational tools to design and study communicative interactions in experimental fields such as synthetic biology. (shrink)

How should we go about developing emotion taxonomies suitable for a science of emotion? Scientific categories are supposed to be “projectable”: They must support generalizations required for the scientific practices of induction and explanation. Attempts to provide projectable emotion categories typically classify emotions in terms of a limited set of modules, but such taxonomies have had limited uptake because they arguably misrepresent the diversity of our emotional repertoire. However, more inclusive, non-modular, taxonomies also prove problematic, for they struggle to meet (...) the projectability constraint. In this paper, I explain how a developmental approach to emotion, one that utilizes the notion of progressive modularization, can help us approach emotion categorization in a more inclusive and projectable manner. (shrink)

In their paper “Is psychopathy a mental disease?”, Thomas Nadelhoffer and Walter Sinnott-Armstrong argue that according to any plausible account of mental disorder, neural and psychological abnormalities correlated with psychopathy should be regarded as signs of a mental disorder. I oppose this conclusion by arguing that at least on a naturalistically grounded account, such as Wakefield’s ‘Harmful Dysfunction’ view, currently available empirical data and evolutionary considerations indicate that psychopathy is not a mental disorder.

This thesis intends to address one type of approach to evolutionary theory that seeks to criticise the neo-Darwinist account of evolution and individuation, that of symbiosis. This thesis will begin by examining current evolutionary theory through Darwin to neo-Darwinism, with a view to discerning which types of mechanisms neo- Darwinism rules out, and which it allows. This will be achieved by using a methodology which treats groups of related scientific theories or practices as research programmes. This methodological approach will allow (...) comparison between competing research programmes, and it will be possible to determine whether or not a competing research programme is really a challenge to neo-Darwinism, or simply a sub- programme which shares some of the same metaphysical commitments and mechanisms as neo-Darwinism. The second half of the thesis will assess the ‘symbiosis’ challenge to neo-Darwinism on these terms. This section will conclude that symbiosis as it is usually formulated by its proponents is not a separate research programme that rejects neo-Darwinism in any significant way, but rather it is a sub-programme of neo- Darwinism. But I will also argue that there are aspects of this programme, if they were to be made more prominent, would in fact constitute an alternative research programme which could not only be treated as a separate research programme, but a research programme that is incompatible with neo-Darwinism. Bacteria in particular are organisms which function through symbiosis and their functioning problematises neo-Darwinism’s account of individuation on a fundamental level. It will be concluded that neo-Darwinism is either a theory of very limited scope, or one which can be made into a general theory, but this can only be achieved through fundamental changes to neo-Darwinism itself. (shrink)

In this paper I present a new objection to the Aristotelian Naturalism defended by Philippa Foot. I describe this objection as a membership objection because it reveals the fact that AN invites counterexamples when pressed to identify the individuals bound by its normative claims. I present three examples of agents for whom the norms generated by AN are not obviously authoritative: mutants, aliens, and the Great Red Dragon. Those who continue to advocate for Foot's view can give compelling replies to (...) the first two of these examples, but their replies drive the view into an unwelcome result when it faces the last example. I conclude that the concept of being human, on which AN crucially depends, is not as straightforward as Foot's advocates presume. (shrink)

Mimicry is often cited as a compelling demonstration of the power of natural selection. By adopting signs of a protected model, mimics usually gain a reproductive advantage by minimising the likelihood of being preyed upon. Yet while natural selection plays a role in the evolution of mimicry, it can be doubted whether it fully explains it. Mimicry is mediated by the emergence of formally analogous patterns between unrelated organisms and by the fact that these patterns are meaningfully perceived as similar. (...) The perception of similarity is always perceiver-dependent. Similarities between for instance colours are psychophysical phenomena, and their existence is conditioned by an intimate interdependence between perceivers and perceptible reality. In this sense, mimicry is by its very nature dualistic. The analogy in form needed to establish a mimicry does not emerge out of the blue. It depends on the ecological context and the morphogenetic potential of a species. In our proposal, we take into account both the developmental generators of formally analogous structures and the perceptual and cognitive processes that lead to the emergence of mimicry. We show that some of the rather controversial and nowadays largely neglected ideas found in non-Anglo-Saxon literature on mimicry deserve closer attention. We suggest that the diversity of mimicry types is due to differences in variational properties of form-generating and perceptual systems among diverse groups of organisms. We also anticipate that processes studied within social psychology and emotion research probably take place, at least in a simplified form, also in non-human animals. Finally, we argue that these meaning-attributive processes underlie the functionality of mimicry. (shrink)

Recent debates between proponents of the modern evolutionary synthesis (the standard model in evolutionary biology) and those of a possible extended synthesis are a good example of the fascinating tangle among empirical, theoretical, and conceptual or philosophical matters that is the practice of evolutionary biology. In this essay, we briefly discuss two case studies from this debate, highlighting the relevance of philosophical thinking to evolutionary biologists in the hope of spurring further constructive cross-pollination between the two fields.

A way to argue that something plays an explanatory role in science is by linking explanatory relevance with importance in the context of an explanation. The idea is deceptively simple: a part of an explanation is an explanatorily relevant part of that explanation if removing it affects the explanation either by destroying it or by diminishing its explanatory power, i.e. an important part is an explanatorily relevant part. This can be very useful in many ontological debates. My aim in this (...) paper is twofold. First of all, I will try to assess how this view on explanatory relevance can affect the recent ontological debate in the philosophy of mathematics—as I will argue, contrary to how it may appear at first glance, it does not help very much the mathematical realists. Second of all, I will show that there are big problems with it. (shrink)

Insects have small brains and heuristics or ‘rules of thumb’ are proposed here to be a good model for how insects optimize the objects they make and use. Generally, heuristics are thought to increase the speed of decision making by reducing the computational resources needed for making decisions. By corollary, heuristic decisions are also deemed to impose a compromise in decision accuracy. Using examples from object optimization behavior in insects, we will argue that heuristics do not inevitably imply a lower (...) computational burden or lower decision accuracy. We also show that heuristic optimization may be driven by certain features of the optimization problem itself: the properties of the object being optimized, the biology of the insect, and the properties of the function being optimized. We also delineate the structural conditions under which heuristic optimization may achieve accuracy equivalent to or better than more fine-grained and onerous optimization methods. (shrink)

A common view of how-possibly explanations in biology treats them as explanatorily incomplete. In addition to this interpretation of how-possibly explanation, I argue that there is another interpretation, one which features what I term “explanatory strategies.” This strategy-centered interpretation of how-possibly explanation centers on there being a different explanatory context within which how-possibly explanations are offered. I contend that, in conditions where this strategy context is recognized, how-possibly explanations can be understood as complete explanations. I defend this alternative interpretation by (...) analyzing the explanatory value of simple physical models the nineteenth century developmental biologist Wilhelm His constructed for animal development. (shrink)

Standing in San Marco Cathedral in Venice, you immediately notice the exquisitely decorated spandrels: the triangular spaces bounded on either side by adjoining arches and by the dome above. You would be forgiven for seeing them as the starting point from which to understand the surrounding architecture. To do so would, however, be a mistake. It is a similar mistaken inference that evolutionary biologists have been accused of making in assuming a special adaptive purpose for such biological features as fingerprints (...) and chins. I argue that a mistake of just this sort is being made by ethicists who appeal to the intrinsic value of supererogatory acts in their efforts to make space for supererogation in ethical theory. Many cases of supererogatory action are simply spandrels: by-products of uncontroversial commitments elsewhere in our moral thought. This is not to downplay their value but rather to show that their value need not be the justification for making room for the supererogatory. I demonstrate this by examining two areas: rights and the distribution of burdens among a group. My argument has significance for those who take themselves to be defends of the possibility of supererogatory actions, as well as those who are committed to the contrary and those who believe themselves to be indifferent on the matter. (shrink)

What is the role of the environment, and of the information it provides, in cognition? More specifically, may there be a role for certain artefacts to play in this context? These are questions that motivate "4E" theories of cognition (as being embodied, embedded, extended, enactive). In his take on that family of views, Hajo Greif first defends and refines a concept of information as primarily natural, environmentally embedded in character, which had been eclipsed by information-processing views of cognition. He continues (...) with an inquiry into the cognitive bearing of some artefacts that are sometimes referred to as 'intelligent environments'. Without necessarily having much to do with Artificial Intelligence, such artefacts may ultimately modify our informational environments. -/- With respect to human cognition, the most notable effect of digital computers is not that they might be able, or become able, to think but that they alter the way we perceive, think and act. (shrink)

This Ph.D. thesis provides a pilosophical account of the structure of the evolutionary synthesis of the 1930s and 40s. The first, more historical part analyses how classical genetics came to be integrated into evolutionary thinking, highlighting in particular the importance of chromosomal mapping of Drosophila strains collected in the wild by Dobzansky, but also the work of Goldschmidt, Sumners, Timofeeff-Ressovsky and others. The second, more philosophical part attempts to answer the question wherein the unity of the synthesis consisted. I argue (...) that it exemplifies a weak of form of explanatory unification. (shrink)

Is there anything that members of each binary category of gender have in common? Even many non-essentialists find the lack of unity within a gender worrying as it undermines the basis for a common political agenda for women. One promising proposal for achieving unity is by means of a shared historical lineage of cultural reproduction with past binary models of gender. I demonstrate how such an account is likely to take on board different binary and also non-binary systems of gender. (...) This implies that all individuals construed as members of the category, “women” are in fact not members of the same historical kind after all! I then consider different possible means of modifying the account but conclude negatively: the problem runs deeper than has been appreciated thus far. (shrink)

A satisfactory account of the nature of health is important for a wide range of theoretical and practical reasons. No theory offered in the literature thus far has been able to meet all the desiderata for an adequate theory of health. This article introduces a new theory of health, according to which health is best defined in terms of dispositions at the level of the organism as a whole. After outlining the main features of the account and providing formal definitions (...) of ‘health’, ‘healthy’, and ‘healthier than’, I present the main strengths of the proposed account. I argue that the proposed dispositional theory accounts for all paradigm cases of health and pathology, that it circumvents a number of problems faced by rival theories, and that it makes for a naturalistic theory of health with a rigorous metaphysical underpinning. 1Introduction 2The Dispositional Account 3Further Specification of the Dispositional Account 3.1Reference classes 3.2Comparison classes 3.3Which dispositions? 4Advantages of the Dispositional view 5Three Objections and Replies 5.1Objection 1: Counter-examples 5.2Objection 2: Issues with holism 5.3Objection 3: Expediting medicalization 6Final Remarks. (shrink)

Resumen -/- El objetivo de este trabajo consiste en analizar las relaciones entre los modelos de optimalidad y la selección natural. Defenderemos que esas relaciones pueden dividirse en dos tipos, en tanto hay dos tipos de explicaciones seleccionistas, que llamaremos “históricas” y “ahistóricas”. Las explicaciones históricas revelan como una población dada adquiere un rasgo que es adaptativo en ese ambiente e involucran muchas generaciones, variación, etc. Las explicaciones ahistóricas, explican por qué, en determinado momento, ciertos tipos de organismos tienen un (...) mayor éxito reproductivo que otros. Mostraremos que los modelos de optimalidad pueden jugar un rol en la determinación del explanandum de las explicaciones histórica seleccionistas, esto es, que ayudan a reconocer qué rasgos son adaptativos. Por otra parte, mostramos que los modelos de optimalidad nos permiten determinar a veces la parte del explanans de las explicaciones ahistóricas (particularmente, el concepto de fitness). -/- Abstract -/- The goal of this paper is to analyze the relations between optimality models and natural selection. We contend that these relationships can be divided into two kinds, as there are two kinds of natural selection explanations, which we call “historical” and “ahistorical”. Historical explanations reveal how a given population acquires a trait which is adaptive in its environment, and involves many generations, variations, etc. Ahistorical ones, explain why, at a given moment, certain kinds of organisms have a greater reproductive success than others. We show that optimality models can play a role in determining the explanandum of historical selectionist explanations, that is, they help us to recognize which traits are adaptive. And, on the other hand, that optimality models sometimes allow us to determine part of the explanans of ahistorical explanations (particularly, the concept of fitness). (shrink)

Improved control of agency is likely to be a prior and more important function of episodic memory than the epistemic-communicative role pinpointed by Mahr and Csibra. Taking the memory trace upon which scenario construction is based to be a stored internal model produced in past perceptual processing promises to provide a better account of autonoetic character than metarepresentational embedding.