Evolutionary Epistemology, Rationality and the Sociology of Knowledge

by Gerard Radnitzky (Editor), W. W. Bartley (Editor)

Overview

"Bartley and Radnitzky have done the philosophy of knowledge a tremendous service. Scholars now have a superb and up-to-date presentation of the fundamental ideas of evolutionary epistemology."

—Philosophical Books

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780812690392
Publisher:	Open Court Publishing Company
Publication date:	03/19/1993
Pages:	492
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.10(d)

Table of Contents

	Introduction	1
Part I	Evolutionary Epistemology	5
Chapter I.	Philosophy of Biology versus Philosophy of Physics	7
1.	Philosophy of Biology versus Philosophy of Physics	7
2.	Philosophy of Physics versus Biology	7
3.	Leading Themes of the Dominant Philosophy of Physics	8
4.	Mach's Philosophy of Physics: Presentationalism	9
5.	Presuppositions of Presentationalism	11
6.	The Scientific Background to Presentationalism: Philosophy of Physics versus Physics	13
7.	Presentationalism: Metaphysics Masquerading as Anti-Metaphysical Science	16
8.	The Challenge of Evolutionary Epistemology	17
9.	The Development of Popper's Thought	18
10.	The Evolutionary Epistemologists	20
11.	Presentationalism is Lamarckian	23
12.	Sensation is Not Authoritative	25
13.	The Evolution of Sensation: Campbell versus Wachtershauser	26
14.	The Comparative Study of Cognitive Structures	34
15.	About a Frog, Idealistically Disposed	36
16.	A Summary of the Argument	38
17.	Why All This Ought Not to be Surprising--And Why It is	40
Chapter II.	Evolutionary Epistemology	47
1.	The Selective Elimination Model	48
2.	Locating the Problem of Knowledge	51
3.	A Nested Hierarchy of Selective-Retention Processes	54
1.	Nonmnemonic problem solving	57
2.	Vicarious locomotor devices	58
3.	Habit and 4. Instinct	60
5.	Visually supported thought	62
6.	Mnemonically supported thought	62
7.	Socially vicarious exploration: observational learning and imitation	67
8.	Language	68
9.	Cultural cumulation	70
10.	Science	70
4.	Historical Perspectives on Evolutionary Epistemology	73
5.	Kant's Categories of Perception and Thought as Evolutionary Products	79
6.	Pragmatism, Utilitarianism, and Objectivity	85
	Summary	89
Chapter III.	Blind Variation and Selective Retention in Creative Thought as in Other Knowledge Processes	91
1.	Introduction	91
2.	Review of the Theme in Lower Knowledge Processes	93
3.	Creative Thought	96
4.	Objections to the Model	101
	The Gestalt Protest	101
	Individual Differences and Genius	103
	The enormous Domain of Possible Thought-Trials to be searched	105
5.	Status as a Theory	108
6.	Summary	111
Chapter IV.	Campbell on the Evolutionary Theory of Knowledge	115
Chapter V.	Light and Life: On the Nutritional Origins of Sensory Perception	121
A.	Introduction	121
B.	The Coevolution of Photosynthesis and Vision--a Speculative Tale	122
1.	The origin of active locomotion	122
2.	Photosynthesis and vision under a friendly sun	123
3.	Photosynthesis and vision under a hostile sun	124
4.	The advent of oxygen or the blue-green revolution	125
5.	The parasitic origin of animal vision	126
C.	Confrontation with Some Facts of Biology and Biochemistry	127
1.	The photochemical unity of animal vision	127
2.	The algal connection of animal vision	128
3.	The biochemical connection between pigments of photosynthesis and animal vision	130
4.	The generalized connection between photosynthesis and photocontrol pigments	131
D.	The Narrow Band of Visible Light--A Test for Explanatory Power	133
1.	The window of the atmosphere--a case of make-believe adaptation	133
2.	The coincidence between the bands of vision and photosynthesis	134
3.	The Campbell coincidence	136
E.	There is More to Vision than Meets the Eye	137
Chapter VI.	Natural Selection and the Emergence of Mind	139
1.	Darwin's Natural Selection versus Paley's Natural Theology	140
2.	Natural Selection and Its Scientific Status	143
3.	Huxley's Problem	147
4.	Remarks on the Emergence of Mind	150
Appendix	On Light and Life	154
Chapter VII.	Emergence, Reduction, and Evolutionary Epistemology	157
Chapter VIII.	On Supposed Circularities in an Empirically Oriented Epistemology	163
A.	"Epistemology is impossible."	163
1.	"We lack a criterion of knowledge."	164
2.	"Self-reference leads to contradictions."	165
3.	"But Godel says..."	167
4.	"No system can explain itself."	170
B.	"Epistemology is possible, but any empirically oriented epistemology is circular."	173
1.	The argument	173
2.	The task of epistemology	174
3.	The existence of virtuous circles	176
4.	The nature of the supposed circularity	182
C.	"Epistemology might be based on empirical knowledge, but evolutionary epistemology, at least, is circular."	188
1.	"Hypothetical realism is self-refuting."	188
2.	"The real world is nothing but the world of our experience."	189
3.	"The theory of evolution is circular."	194
4.	"Evolution cannot lead to more complexity."	196
	Conclusion	200
Part II.	Theory of Rationality and Problems of Self Reference	203
Chapter IX.	Theories of Rationality	205
1.	Introduction	205
2.	Theories of Rationality: Comprehensive Rationality	206
3.	Limited Rationality	208
4.	Pancritical Rationality	210
5.	The Ecology of Rationality	213
Chapter X.	The Possible Liar	217
Chapter XI.	Paradox in Critical Rationalism and Related Theories	223
1.	Introduction	223
2.	Formulating CR	225
3.	Criticizability	228
4.	Proof	234
5.	Incompleteness	238
6.	Related Theories	240
7.	CCR	242
8.	Self-Reference	244
9.	Analyticity	248
Chapter XII.	A Godelian Theorem for Theories of Rationality	253
1.	Background	253
2.	The Form of the Theorem	257
3.	Possible Objections	258
4.	An Application to the Rationality of People	262
	Addendum 1985	265
Chapter XIII.	Comprehensively Critical Rationalism: a Retrospect	269
1.	Bartley's Original Problem	269
2.	Bartley's Original Solution	270
3.	The Tricky Question of Uncriticizability	271
4.	My 1971 Refutation Updated	273
5.	Conclusion	277
Chapter XIV.	In Defense of Self-Applicable Critical Rationalism	279
0.	The Problem: Explication of the Concept of Rationality, and of Rationality in Inquiry in Particular	279
1.	Performance on the Object Level of the Two Global Approaches, the Justificationist and the Nonjustificationist Approaches	281
2.	The Meta-Level: The Level on which the Question of the Self-Applicability of the Justificationist and of the Criticist Context is Raised	293
3.	On the Alleged Semantical Paradoxes of Self-Applicable Critical Rationalism	306
4.	Concluding Remarks	309
Chapter XV.	A Refutation of the Alleged Refutation of Comprehensively Critical Rationalism	313
1.	Prospectus	314
2.	The Background of the Debate	316
3.	What Did I Mean in Declaring that Everything Is Open to Criticism?	318
4.	A Postian Paradox	320
5.	An Argument Against Post	320
6.	Post's Own Alternative	323
7.	What if Post Were Right about the Paradoxes?	325
8.	A Review of Post's Earlier Formulations	327
9.	The Rationality of Statements versus the Rationality of People	329
10.	The Problem of the Specification of Criticism	330
11.	The Paradox Reconsidered	333
12.	The Paradox Reformulated	333
13.	Necessary or Sufficient?	334
14.	Criticizability Is Not Captured by Possible Falsity Alone	335
15.	On Watkins	337
Part III.	Pationality and the Sociology of Knowledge	343
Chapter XVI.	Philosophy and the Mirror of Rorty	345
1.	Rorty, champion of Oakeshott and Foucault, becomes a knight errant in quest of culture. Culture as relativism, historicism, conversations and parlour-games	345
2.	Our hero's astonishing craftsmanship and some trivial fallacies	350
3.	The mirror philosophers and their failings: a good diagnosis of a timely demise. Much ado about nothing	353
4.	Heroic alternatives: language games, speech communities and epistemic authority. Who is in, who is out and who does the deciding? Is kibitzing valuable?	361
5.	The case of Hans-Georg Gadamer	367
6.	Adhering to justificationism through thick and thin, our hero has to flee from the dread reflection he sees in his mirror and hides behind the epistemic authorities. Karl Popper's pleas for non-authoritarian hypothetical realism are cruelly ignored	370
7.	Since the conclusions are identical with the presuppositions, there is no room for maneuver and our hero is forced into a studied neglect of evolutionary epistemology	374
8.	The proof of this pudding is not in the eating but, supposedly, in the history of philosophy. In the excitement generated by the effort to conceal his vicious circle, it has escaped our hero that in eschewing knowledge as the philosophers' domain, he has deprived himself of the right to appeal to historical knowledge	379
9.	The Conversation of Mankind. A tragi-comedy entitled Kibitzing in one act. The resemblance between the opinions expressed by the characters and some real opinions is not accidental	387
Chapter XVII.	Must Naturalism Discredit Naturalism?	401
1.	Preface	401
2.	Explanation as the Answer to Questions	402
3.	There is no Knowledge; They Know?	406
4.	Knowing Presupposes Choosing	411
5.	Only Choosers Know either Choice or Necessity	416
6.	Epilogue	421
Chapter XVIII.	Alienation Alienated: The Economics of Knowledge versus the Psychology and Sociology of Knowledge	423
1.	A Problem Shift in the Discussion of Marxism	423
2.	Marx's Paris Manuscripts	426
3.	Marx on Alienation	428
4.	A Moment with Freud	430
5.	Why We Never Know What We Are Talking About or What We Are Doing	432
6.	Marx, Alienation, Autonomy, and Knowing What We Are Talking About	435
7.	Why Our Products Must Escape Our Control	438
8.	Acknowledgement and Alienation	440
9.	The Sociology of Knowledge	441
10.	Sociology of Knowledge Does Not Go Far Enough	443
11.	Marked Knowledge, Defective Knowledge	449
12.	Concluding Remarks	451
	Name Index	453
	Subject Index	463
	Contributors	473