Evolutionary Epistemology, Rationality and the Sociology of Knowledge
"1005169015"
"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
Evolutionary Epistemology, Rationality and the Sociology of Knowledge
"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
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Evolutionary Epistemology, Rationality and the Sociology of Knowledge
492
by Gerard Radnitzky (Editor), W. W. Bartley (Editor)
Gerard Radnitzky
![Evolutionary Epistemology, Rationality and the Sociology of Knowledge](http://img.images-bn.com/static/redesign/srcs/images/grey-box.png?v11.10.4)
Evolutionary Epistemology, Rationality and the Sociology of Knowledge
492
by Gerard Radnitzky (Editor), W. W. Bartley (Editor)
Gerard Radnitzky
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$54.00
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"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 |
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