The Truth-Conduciveness Problem of Coherentism and a Sellarsian Explanatory Coherence Theory

According to the truth-conduciveness problem of coherentism, the coherence theory of justification can hardly show that coherentist justification is truth-conducive. This problem is generally conceived as the most recalcitrant problem with the coherence theory. The purpose of this paper is to show that it does not pose a serious problem for a certain version of coherentism, namely a Sellarsian explanatory coherence theory of justification combined with the deflationary theory of truth. On this version of coherentism, our epistemic goal is to gradually improve our conceptual framework so as to maximize its explanatory coherence, and there is no substantial norm of truth independent of the norms of justification, so that we cannot evaluate the truth-conduciveness of a belief independently of the norms of justification. I argue that this version of coherentism can cope with the truth-conduciveness problem.     

Evaluating Elizabeth Grosz's Biological Turn

Elizabeth Grosz's interpretation of Darwinian evolutionary theory to ground a feminist ontology of biology has been particularly controversial. Most critics have understood Grosz as supporting her theory with empirical evidence, and they criticize her for being either inaccurate or uncritical of and overly dependent on science. I argue that Grosz reads Darwin as a philosopher in a Deleuzian and Irigarayan sense, and that Grosz's project is therefore better understood in terms of its ethical and political goals rather than in terms of empirical adequacy. Employing this evaluative framework leads to a novel route for critique of Grosz's ontology in terms of its reliance on the Darwinian distinction between organism and environment. I conclude that Grosz's work is valuable for the way it maintains ethical and political considerations in feminist ontological debates, and that introducing a more sensitive understanding of the organism–environment relation will lead us closer to a truly feminist ontology of biology.     

Freud's "bad conscience": The case of Nietzsche's Genealogy

This article develops the argument that Friedrich Nietzsche influenced several aspects of Freud's later writings by illustrating, in particular, the impact of Nietzsche's On the Genealogy of Morals on Freud's Civilization and its Discontents. The theoretical and conceptual schemes represented in Freud's Discontents are found to bear a remarkable similarity to Nietzsche's Genealogy on a number of highly specific points. It is suggested that "DAS ES," "Uber-ich," and "bad conscience," concepts central to Freud's moral theory of mind, are at least partly derived from Nietzsche. Moreover, Freud's phylogenetic theory of guilt is based upon premises found in Nietzsche, as are specific details relating to ideas on human prehistory and the ancestral family. Based on this evidence, a re-examination of the moral and social dimensions of Freud's "structural" model may be in order.     

Informational Darwinism

The Theory of Evolution has, since Darwin, been sustained by contributions from many sciences, most especially from molecular biology. Philosophers, like biologists and the man in the street, have accepted the idea that the contemporary form of evolutionary theory has arrived at a convincing and final structure. As it now stands, natural selection is thought to work through the information-handling mechanism of the DNA molecule. Variation in the genome?s constructive message is achieved through random errors of processing called mutations. How that mechanism and its revision works, and how much information it can hold are fundamental questions for the Neo-Darwinian theory to face. It is argued here that neither the operation nor the data content of the genome, as science understand them, can underpin the role Darwinism assigns to natural selection. It follows that we cannot put our confidence in the explanatory force of Darwinian reasoning, but neither is there an alternative to it.     

Two-dimensional semantics and the articulation problem

David Chalmerss version of two-dimensional semantics is an attempt at setting up a unified semantic framework that would vindicate both the Fregean and the Kripkean semantic intuitions. I claim that there are three acceptable ways of carrying out such a project, and that Chalmerss theory does not coherently fit any of the three patterns. I suggest that the theory may be seen as pointing to the possibility of a double reading for many linguistic expressions (a double reading which, however, is not easily identified with straightforward semantic ambiguity).     

Resolving the paradox of common, harmful, heritable mental disorders: which evolutionary genetic models work best?

Given that natural selection is so powerful at optimizing complex adaptations, why does it seem unable to eliminate genes (susceptibility alleles) that predispose to common, harmful, heritable mental disorders, such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder? We assess three leading explanations for this apparent paradox from evolutionary genetic theory: (1) ancestral neutrality (susceptibility alleles were not harmful among ancestors), (2) balancing selection (susceptibility alleles sometimes increased fitness), and (3) polygenic mutation-selection balance (mental disorders reflect the inevitable mutational load on the thousands of genes underlying human behavior). The first two explanations are commonly assumed in psychiatric genetics and Darwinian psychiatry, while mutation-selection has often been discounted. All three models can explain persistent genetic variance in some traits under some conditions, but the first two have serious problems in explaining human mental disorders. Ancestral neutrality fails to explain low mental disorder frequencies and requires implausibly small selection coefficients against mental disorders given the data on the reproductive costs and impairment of mental disorders. Balancing selection (including spatio-temporal variation in selection, heterozygote advantage, antagonistic pleiotropy, and frequency-dependent selection) tends to favor environmentally contingent adaptations (which would show no heritability) or high-frequency alleles (which psychiatric genetics would have already found). Only polygenic mutation-selection balance seems consistent with the data on mental disorder prevalence rates, fitness costs, the likely rarity of susceptibility alleles, and the increased risks of mental disorders with brain trauma, inbreeding, and paternal age. This evolutionary genetic framework for mental disorders has wide-ranging implications for psychology, psychiatry, behavior genetics, molecular genetics, and evolutionary approaches to studying human behavior.     

Evolutionary Theology and God–Memes: Explaining Everything or Nothing

It is not uncommon for Darwinists and memeticists to speculate not only that god–memes (cultural units for belief in a god) evolved as maladaptive traits but also that these memes do not correspond to anything real. However, a counter–Darwinian argument exists that some god–memes evolved as adaptive traits and did so with a metaphysical correspondence to reality. Memeticists cannot disallow these positive claims, because the rules they would use to disallow them would also disallow their negative claims. One must either accept that positive Darwinian theological claims can fall within the bounds of science (and therefore be judged on their explanatory merits alone) or must disallow both sets of arguments, including any claims that god–memes fail to correspond to reality. Given that many Darwinists do not appear to accept a modest version of science that avoids negative metaphysical claims, precedence exists in memetic and Darwinian discourse for making positive metaphysical claims as well.     

Abstract argumentation and explanation applied to scientific debates

Abstract argumentation has been shown to be a powerful tool within many fields such as artificial intelligence, logic and legal reasoning. In this paper we enhance Dung’s well-known abstract argumentation framework with explanatory capabilities. We show that an explanatory argumentation framework (EAF) obtained in this way is a useful tool for the modeling of scientific debates. On the one hand, EAFs allow for the representation of explanatory and justificatory arguments constituting rivaling scientific views. On the other hand, different procedures for selecting arguments, corresponding to different methodological and epistemic requirements of theory evaluation, can be formulated in view of our framework.     

Mate choice turns cognitive

Evolutionary psychology has revolutionized research on human mate choice and sexual attraction in recent years, combining a rigorous Darwinian framework based on sexual selection theory with a loosely cognitivist orientation to task analysis and mechanism modelling. This hard Darwinian, soft computational approach has been most successful at revealing the adaptive logic behind physical beauty, demonstrating that many sexual cues computed from face and body shape are not arbitrary, but function as reliable indicators of phenotypic and genetic quality. The same approach could be extended from physical to psychological cues if evolutionary psychology built stronger ties with personality psychology, psychometrics and behavioral genetics. A major challenge for mate choice research is to develop more explicit computational models at three levels, specifying: (1) the perceptual adaptations that register sexual cues given sensory input, (2) the judgment adaptations that integrate multiple cues into assessments of overall attractiveness, and (3) the search strategies that people follow in trying to form mutually attracted pairs. We describe both recent efforts and possible extensions in these directions. The resulting confluence between evolutionary principles, cognitive models and game-theoretic insights can put mate choice research at the vanguard of an emerging `evolutionary cognitive science' more concerned with domain-specific mental adaptations than with domain-general intelligence.     

Why Social Science is Biological Science

The social sciences need to take seriously their status as divisions of biology. As such they need to recognize the central role of Darwinian processes in all the phenomena they seek to explain. An argument for this claim is formulated in terms of a small number of relatively precise premises that focus on the nature of the kinds and taxonomies of all the social sciences. The analytical taxonomies of all the social sciences are shown to require a Darwinian approach to human affairs, though not a nativist or genetically driven theory by any means. Non-genetic Darwinian processes have the fundamental role on all human affairs. I expound a general account of how Darwinian processes operate in human affairs by selecting for strategies and sets of strategies individuals and groups employ. I conclude by showing how a great deal of social science can be organized in accordance with Tinbergen’s approach to biological inquiry, an approach required by the fact that the social sciences are all divisions of biology, and in particular the studies of one particular biological species.     

A Type Hierarchy of Selection Processes for the Evaluation of Evolutionary Analogies

In this paper I propose a type-hierarchy approach to provide an intersubjective framework for the evaluation of evolutionary analogies. This approach develops David Hull’s and others’ attempts to provide full generalisation for selection processes, in order to show that sociocultural development and, particularly, scientific change can be considered as an instance of Darwinian selection. I argue that the recent work by Eileen Cornell Way on type hierarchies can offer the kind of generalisation needed to solve the main problems that still affect Hull’s theory and to show that the evolutionary analogy is, after all, only a particular way of grouping phenomena together. If Hull’s main objective is a unified theory of selection, which supports the idea that science selection and natural selection obey the same laws, I also argue that the type hierarchy approach to models shows that this objective is unsustainable as it stands, and is in need of further development. I will firstly introduce the general outline of the type hierarchy approach to models. Then, after a brief recapitulation of Hull’s main points and difficulties, I will try and construct a hierarchy for a general abstraction of selection processes. Finally I will introduce the main criticisms that Hull’s work has faced from philosophers and scientists, and show how they compare with my proposal.     

Behavioral variability in an evolutionary theory of behavior dynamics

McDowell’s evolutionary theory of behavior dynamics (McDowell, 2004) instantiates populations of behaviors (abstractly represented by integers) that evolve under the selection pressure of the environment in the form of positive reinforcement. Each generation gives rise to the next via low‐level Darwinian processes of selection, recombination, and mutation. The emergent patterns can be analyzed and compared to those produced by biological organisms. The purpose of this project was to explore the effects of high mutation rates on behavioral variability in environments that arranged different reinforcer rates and magnitudes. Behavioral variability increased with the rate of mutation. High reinforcer rates and magnitudes reduced these effects; low reinforcer rates and magnitudes augmented them. These results are in agreement with live‐organism research on behavioral variability. Various combinations of mutation rates, reinforcer rates, and reinforcer magnitudes produced similar high‐level outcomes (equifinality). These findings suggest that the independent variables that describe an experimental condition interact; that is, they do not influence behavior independently. These conclusions have implications for the interpretation of high levels of variability, mathematical undermatching, and the matching theory. The last part of the discussion centers on a potential biological counterpart for the rate of mutation, namely spontaneous fluctuations in the brain's default mode network.     

"达尔文模块"与认知的"瑞士军刀"模型

本文在描述“达尔文模块”的基本特征以及进化心理学家对这种模块的理论辩护的基础上,论证了所谓达尔文模块并不是真实的心理模块;由达尔文模块所构造的认知的“瑞士军力”模型也不具有现实的合理性。     

REJOINDER: Picasso's Guernica Creativity as a Darwinian Process: Definitions,Clarifications, Misconceptions,and Applications

The author responds to four commentaries on Simonton (this issue). The response deals with two sets of issues. First are criticisms of the Darwinian theory of creativity, especially as applied to Picasso's sketches for the Guernica. These criticisms range from the presumed role of associative processes to the essential nature of any Darwinian model. The second set of issues pertains to diverse methodological objections with respect to measurement and data analysis. The author responds to each and every point. The author concludes not only that Picasso's creative process is best described as Darwinian, but also that the Darwinian theory of creativity has been notably strengthened by the current exchange.     

The folk psychology of souls

The present article examines how people's belief in an afterlife, as well as closely related supernatural beliefs, may open an empirical backdoor to our understanding of the evolution of human social cognition. Recent findings and logic from the cognitive sciences contribute to a novel theory of existential psychology, one that is grounded in the tenets of Darwinian natural selection. Many of the predominant questions of existential psychology strike at the heart of cognitive science. They involve: causal attribution (why is mortal behavior represented as being causally related to one's afterlife? how are dead agents envisaged as communicating messages to the living?), moral judgment (why are certain social behaviors, i.e., transgressions, believed to have ultimate repercussions after death or to reap the punishment of disgruntled ancestors?), theory of mind (how can we know what it is "like" to be dead? what social-cognitive strategies do people use to reason about the minds of the dead?), concept acquisition (how does a common-sense dualism interact with a formalized socio-religious indoctrination in childhood? how are supernatural properties of the dead conceptualized by young minds?), and teleological reasoning (why do people so often see their lives as being designed for a purpose that must be accomplished before they perish? how do various life events affect people's interpretation of this purpose?), among others. The central thesis of the present article is that an organized cognitive "system" dedicated to forming illusory representations of (1) psychological immortality, (2) the intelligent design of the self, and (3) the symbolic meaning of natural events evolved in response to the unique selective pressures of the human social environment.     

Can Darwinian Feminism Save Female Autonomy and Leadership in Egalitarian Society?

As a Darwinian feminist I welcome any attempt at correcting the historical neglect of women’s roles in human evolution, as Rebecca J. Hannagan (2008, in this issue) does in her paper “Gendered Political Behavior: A Darwinian Feminist Approach.” There is much to be said for the view that women’s political agency in foraging societies has systematically been underestimated, due to a combination of researcher bias and the lesser visibility of women’s political strategies. As a feminist Darwinian, however, I must conclude that wishful thinking seems to have led Hannagan into overestimating the degree of female autonomy and leadership in these societies.