文化进化的meme理论及其难题

一 meme概念的内涵与文化进化理论 meme一词源自英国著名科学家理查德·道金斯(Richard Dawkins)1976年出版的<自私的基因>(The Selfish Gene),其含义是指在诸如语言、观念、信仰、行为方式等的传递过程中与基因在生物进化过程中所起的作用相类似的那个东西.为了读上去与gene(基因)一词相似,道金斯去掉希腊字mimeme(原意是模仿的意思)的词头mi,把它变为meme,这样的改变很容易使人"联想到跟英文的记忆(memory)一词有关,或是联想到法文的 同样'或'自己'(meme)一词."[1]     

上帝是一种幻觉——评理查德·道金斯《上帝的迷思》

道金斯,当代著名的动物行为学家,自然选择理论的辩手,坚定的无神论者,并为自己拥有彻底的无神论思想而自豪。上帝是否存在?道金斯明确表明:上帝就是一种错觉。无论是宇宙的起源与运行,生命的发生与演变,还是道德的敬畏与维护,心灵的抚慰与激励,诸如此类问题大可不必由宗教来回答或承担。从科学观出发逐一废黜上帝在人类心目中的位置。     

道金斯如何为无神论辩护

本文指出:犹太-基督教体系与科学存在密切关联。近代科学的兴起得益于这种关联,但同时科学的强大却又在摧毁这种关联。但宗教并不会因此而消亡。这是因为宗教的起源与人性及其人类所处的遭遇有关。本文以当代两位著名科学家道金斯和柯林斯为例,在论证宗教存在的人性基础的同时,尤为强调指出,道金斯为无神论信仰所做的辩护对于当下的国情来说,更具现实意义。     

商品生产一般和特殊

在商品生产和价值规律问题的讨论中,有一个值得特别重视的分歧——方法论的分歧。这个分歧的存在,妨碍着其他问题的认识的统一,很有深入讨论的必要。本文拟就商品生产一般和特殊,谈几点粗浅的看法。     

批判性重建马克思本体论的典范之作——评古尔德《马克思的社会本体论》

古尔德所著《马克思的社会本体论》不仅是对马克思《大纲》的系统解读,而且是对哲学向绝对主义回归的响应。通过辩证的解释方法,她把马克思哲学批判性地重建为社会本体论。继而,她深入地探讨了社会、劳动、因果性、自由和正义等核心概念,并系统地阐述了如下观点:社会关系中的个人是社会的基本实体;作为对象化活动的劳动是时间的尺度;作为过程的劳动是因果关系的基础;自由是人在劳动中的自我实现;社会关系中的正义是自由得以全面实现的条件。虽然古尔德对马克思本体论的创造性解读堪称典范,但是其著作在贡献之余也有几处值得商榷。     

客观真理是没有阶级性的

真理有没有阶级性?周抗同志和方昕同志的观点是对立的(见《哲学研究》1978年第8、10期)。前者认为,反映客观规律的真理没有阶级性;后者从文章内容看,至少认为社会领域的真理有阶级性。讨论这个问题是讨论真理标准问题的继续。真理是什么?有没有阶级性?这是一个前提。在这个问题上有分歧,在真理内容及其检验标准问题上就会有分歧。     

元伦理学非认知主义视阈下的道德分歧

史蒂文森主张道德分歧是态度分歧,而吉伯德认为道德分歧是计划分歧。他们的理论都与事实不相符,因为两个人之间有对立态度或者计划有差异并不代表两人之间一定有道德分歧。道德分歧应该是规定分歧,是假想情况下和理想情况下分歧双方的规范性讨论,而不是实际存在的态度对立或者计划分歧。同样,信念分歧也可以理解为假想和理想条件下的规范性讨论。规定分歧理论比史蒂文森和吉伯德的理论都更完善,它能解释后者不能解释的、直觉上的分歧,同时它为道德分歧和信念分歧提供了一个统一的理论。     

生命进化动力之哲学思考

对生命进化的本质问题作了新的哲学思考,提出进化的本质是物种在生存的驱动下生存效率的优化过程,是原始细胞自主性与环境选择的双向过程.同时提出推动物种进化的动力在于生存资源稀缺性与物种自私性之间的矛盾和多细胞物种效率优化过程中自身的局部利益与整体利益之间的矛盾.     

论麦金太尔对道德分歧的解决 ——基于《追寻美德》的分析

如何解决道德分歧问题不仅是当代伦理学中的热点话题,也是麦金太尔在《追寻美德》一书中关注的焦点问题。麦金太尔在《追寻美德》一书中首先描述了当今社会道德分歧普遍流行的现象,接着对道德分歧的原因进行了分析,并对如何解决当今社会的道德分歧问题进行了思考。麦金太尔认为,我们只有通过回到亚里士多德主义的美德伦理传统中才能更好地解决当今社会的道德分歧问题。麦金太尔在追寻整个西方美德伦理思想传统的基础上构建了一套基于实践内在善、人生统一性和传统的美德伦理学说。然而,麦金太尔所提出的解决思路并不为当代人们所信服,很多当代学者批评麦金太尔不仅没有解决道德分歧问题,反而陷入了道德相对主义的指责之中。麦金太尔所提出的解决方案在当今社会面临很多困难和挑战。     

实质的分歧是什么?——答冯友兰先生

关于思想的“普遍性形式”问题,冯友兰先生最近又陆续发表四篇文章,进一步阐释自己的观点,并且有了若干新的发展。冯友兰先生提出了和我的分歧的问题,我不同意冯先生对分歧的看法,因为他以枝节的问题,掩盖了实质的分歧之所在。所以,我认为有必要就这个问题再谈一些自己的意见。     

人类行为的进化论解释及其特征

进化论用于解释人类行为的合理性依赖于对进化论结构的理解,而不能通过直接肯定或否定人类行为有无某种生物学的结构基础来回答.如果进化论是对现象系统的描述,那它在原则上就不能用于对人类行为进化的研究.进化论应被看作是对一类物理系统的定义,理论定义系统与现象系统也只能在现象层面上同构.人类行为进化解释的恰当性,就在于人类行为系统与进化论定义系统在经验上的适合达到了期望的程度.     

Evolutionary consumer psychology: Ask not what you can do for biology,but…

The commentaries raise questions about modularity, and about the evidence required to establish evolutionary influences on behavior. We briefly discuss evidence leading evolutionary psychologists to assume that human choices reflect evolutionary influences, and to assume some degree of modularity in human information processing. An evolutionary perspective is based on a multidisciplinary nomological network of evidence, and results of particular experiments are only one part of that network. The precise nature of, and number of, information processing systems, is an empirical question. Consumer psychologists need not retrain as biologists to profit from using insights and findings from evolutionary biology to generate new hypotheses, and to contribute novel insights and findings to the emerging nomological network of modern evolutionary science.     

The Fifth R: Jesus as Evolutionary Psychologist

The historical Jesus seems to have known about human nature as described by evolutionary psychology. He addresses the dispositions of human nature that evolutionary psychology says are central: resources, reproduction, relatedness (kinship), and reciprocity. In doing so he answers Aristotle's question, how can human beings flourish? His answer opens a window onto the divine.     

Perfecting not Perfect: Christology and Pneumatology within an Imperfect Yet Purposeful Creation

Abstract

The issue of evolutionary theodicy remains an area of difficulty within the science–theology dialogue. The evolutionary understanding of life identifies a process where suffering and extinction are intrinsic; however, theology seeks to articulate God's loving goodness towards creation. Therefore the central question of evolutionary theodicy becomes: “How can a loving God act by such a process?” Within the view of theistic evolution, evolutionary theodicy has resulted in a deeper understanding of Christology and Pneumatology, as the whole of creation is understood to be moving towards its eschatological perfection in Christ.     

Expressivism,question substitution and evolutionary debunking

Expressivism is a blossoming meta-semantic framework sometimes relying on what Carter and Chrisman call “the core expressivist maneuver.” That is, instead of asking about the nature of a certain kind of value, we should be asking about the nature of the value judgment in question. According to expressivists, this question substitution opens theoretical space for the elegant, economical, and explanatorily powerful expressivist treatment of the relevant domain. I argue, however, that experimental work in cognitive psychology can shed light on how the core expressivist maneuver operates at the cognitive level and that this: (a) raises worries about the aptness of the expressivist question substitution and (b) supports an evolutionary debunking argument against expressivism. Since evolutionary debunking arguments are usually run in favor of expressivism, this creates an obvious puzzle for expressivists. I wrap up by briefly responding to the objection that the debunking argument against expressivism overgeneralizes and, therefore, should be rejected.     

Evolutionary Ethics: What Can We Learn From from the Past?

In this paper I look at the question of the derivation of ethics from evolutionary biology, and I do so by considering both historical attempts to make such a derivation and contemporary work.     

CHANCE,NECESSITY, LOVE: AN EVOLUTIONARY THEOLOGY OF CANCER

In his 1970s work Chance and Necessity, Jacques Monod provided an explanatory framework not only for the biological evolution of species, but, as has become recently apparent, for the evolutionary development of cancers. That is, contemporary oncological research has demonstrated that cancer is an evolutionary disease that develops according to the same dynamics of chance (that is, random occurrences) and necessity (that is, law‐like regularities) at work in all evolutionary phenomena. And just as various challenges are raised for religious thought by the operations of chance and necessity within biological evolution, so this particular theological question is raised by the findings of contemporary cancer science: Where is love, divine and human, within the evolutionary chance and necessity operative in all dimensions of cancer? In this article, we contribute to the dialogue in science and religion by offering the following responses to this question: (1) the thought of Arthur Peacocke to claim that divine love may be understood to be at work in, with, and under our very efforts to make theological meaning of the chance and necessity that inform the evolution of cancers; and (2) Charles Sanders Peirce's evolutionary philosophy to make this claim: that the work of scientific communities of inquiry to understand and to find better ways to cope with the disease of cancer is itself the work of divine love amid the chance and necessity of cancer.     

ISOLATING THE INDIVIDUAL: THEOLOGY,THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION,AND THE PROBLEM OF ABSTRACT INDIVIDUALISM

Debates about the theological implications of recent research in the cognitive and evolutionary study of religion have tended to focus on the question of theism. The question of whether there is any disagreement about the conceptualization of the individual human being has been largely overlooked. In this article, I argue that evolutionary and cognitive accounts of religion typically depend upon a view of cognition that conceptually isolates the mind from its particular social and physical environmental contexts. By embracing this view of the mind, these accounts also unwittingly embrace an abstract individualist view of individual personhood that Christian theologians have explicitly battled against. Taken as a whole, the field leaves sufficient room for supplementary theories that are compatible with theological accounts of the relational individual, but in practice, no effort has been made to engage, or even to accommodate, any other view of individual personhood.     

Debunking Morality: Lessons from the EAAN Literature

This article explores evolutionary debunking arguments as they arise in metaethics against moral realism and in philosophy of religion against naturalism. Both literatures have independently grappled with the question of which beliefs one may use to respond to a potential defeater. In this article, I show how the literature on the argument against naturalism can help clarify and bring progress to the literature on moral realism with respect to this question. Of note, it will become clear that the objection that the moral realist begs the question, when appealing to the truth of some of her moral beliefs, is unsuccessful.     

When Do Replies to the Evolutionary Debunking Argument Against Moral Realism Beg the Question?

Some proponents of the evolutionary debunking argument against moral realism believe that replies that assume substantive moral claims beg the question. In this paper, I give a new account of what's wrong with such replies. On this account, many realists beg the question when they rely on substantive moral claims in their replies to the argument, but naturalists do not. While this account generalizes to some other domains, it allows perceptual and inductive realism to remain undebunked.