This article takes an evolutionary “reverse engineering” standpoint on Homo discens, learning man, to track down the mechanisms that played a pivotal role in the natural selection of human being. The approach is “evolutionary sociological”—as opposed to gene-centred or psychologising—and utilises notions of co-evolutionary organism–environment transactions and niche construction. These are compatible with a Deweyan theory of action, which entails that in action one cannot but learn and one can only learn in action. Special attention is paid to apprentice-like learning-by-doing (...) peculiar to human socio-cultural niches since the Pleistocene, which has permitted each subsequent generation to learn the many habits and skills needed in utilising the affordances of action that constitute their ecological niche. Affordances and actions have changed over the history of human–environment transactions, but the core mechanisms of human learning have not changed much. It is increasingly important to appreciate these mechanisms now in the global age “knowledge society,” which is in a way similar to the Pleistocene era: characterised by uncertainty and life-determining problem-situations without any ready-made solutions, it calls for capacities to adapt to changing circumstances, and thus apprentice-like learning in action supported by savvy epistemological engineering of learning environments. (shrink)

Imitation has been understood in different ways: as a cognitive adaptation subtended by genetically specified cognitive mechanisms; as an aspect of domain general human cognition. The second option has been advanced by Cecilia Heyes who treats imitation as an instance of associative learning. Her argument is part of a deflationary treatment of the “mirror neuron” phenomenon. I agree with Heyes about mirror neurons but argue that Kim Sterelny has provided the tools to provide a better account of the nature and (...) role of human imitation. What we call imitative learning is an instance of social learning. It has little to do with empathy, emotional contagion, or mind reading. (shrink)

Here I outline the argument in Kim Sterelny’s book The Evolved Apprentice. I present some worries for Sterelny from the perspective of modelers in behavioral ecology. I go on to discuss Sterelny’s approach to moral psychology and finally introduce some potential new applications for his evolved apprentice view.

Encounters with art can change us in ways both big and small. This paper focuses on one of the more dramatic cases. I argue that works of art can inspire what L. A. Paul calls transformations, classic examples of which include getting married, having a child, and undergoing a religious conversion. Two features distinguish transformations from other changes we undergo. First, they involve the discovery of something new. Second, they result in a change in our core preferences. These two features (...) make transformations hard to motivate. I argue, however, that art can help on both fronts. First, works of art can guide our attempt to imagine unfamiliar ways of living. Second, they can attract us to values we currently reject. I conclude by observing that what makes art powerful also makes it dangerous. Transformations are not always for the good, and art's ability to inspire them can be put to immoral ends. (shrink)