Evolutionary Epistemology

Prevailing views about what constitutes organisational knowledge need to be systematically evaluated at deep epistemological levels. We argue there is a need is to establish a new paradigm comprising of both a theoretical and an ontological foundation for thinking about knowledge epistemologies. We think, along with Bill McKelvey, (1997, 2002) that the “science of management” as it relates to organisations seems to be greatly wanting.Our approach is based on an evolutionary theory of knowledge contained within Karl Popper’s later epistemological works beginning with his 1972 “Objective Knowledge – an evolutionary approach” and a framework of organisational theory based on Maturana and Varela's concept of self-producing complex systems ("autopoiesis"). We have drawn upon this combined approach in order to understand how best to integrate understandings of personal and objective knowledge and the notion of “living organisations” into a new paradigm of organisational know...

Presentation at “The Way We Think: A Research Symposium on Conceptual Integration and the Nature and Origin of Cognitively Modern Humans.” University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Demark, August 19-23,  2002. Document includes Supplemental Materials: Resource Guide and Commentaries
In recent years the relationship between language change and biological evolution has captured the attention of investigators operating in different disciplines, particularly evolutionary biology, AI and A-Life (Zeimke 2001, Hull 2001), as well as linguistics (Croft 2000; Sinha 1999), with each group often bringing radically different conceptualizations of the object under study, namely, “language” itself, to the debate.  Over the centuries, meanings associated with the expression “language” have been influenced by mappings of conceptual frames and inputs from the biological sciences onto the entity referred to as “language”. At the same time the prestige of the “science of linguistics” created a feedback mechanism by which the referentiality of “language”, at each stage, was mapped back into the field of evolutionary biology along with the emergent structure(s) of the resulting “blend”. While significant energy has been spent on identifying ways in which biological evolution has been linked to concepts of language evolution (Dörries 2002), little attention has been directed to the nature of the conceptual integration networks that have been produced in the process. This paper examines the way conceptual integration theory can be brought to bear on the “blends” that have been created, focusing primarily on examples drawn from 19th century debates concerning the “language-species-organism analogy” in the emerging field of comparative-historical philology.

(M.A.-Abschlussarbeit, Wiener Rupert-Riedl-Preis 2019)

Schon Erwin Schrödinger hat sich mit der Frage der Gesetzlichkeit der Natur auseinandergesetzt, wie ein endlicher menschlicher Geist zu einer Formulierung von Gesetzen der Natur gelangen kann, worin der konstruktive Beitrag der menschlichen Subjektivität zu unserem objektiven Bild von der Natur besteht, worin die Relationen zwischen Erkenntnissubjekt und Naturobjekten bestehen, welche uns eine Wirklichkeitserschließung möglich machen. Es fragt sich, wie das Bild von der Natur im Denken des menschlichen Ichs überhaupt entstehen kann und wie die Welt durch die Betrachtung des menschlichen Geistes Bedeutung erlangen kann.

Es lässt sich außerdem mit Erwin Schrödinger fragen, wie natürliche Außenwelt und Bewusstsein aufeinander bezogen sind und in welchem Verhältnis sie aus der Perspektive des menschlichen Denkens und Vorstellens zueinander stehen. Bei der Reflexion dessen lässt sich die Annahme von Moritz Schlick stark machen, dass das philosophisch Geistige in der naturwissenschaftlichen Erkenntnis selbst zu suchen ist. Ebenso kann man sich bei der Reflexion solcher Fragen der Annahme von Karl Raimund Popper anschließen, dass es sich bei den von uns vorgestellten Gesetzen der Natur um vom menschlichen Geist erschaffene Idealisierungen der Welt handelt, welche wir als Fangnetze auswerfen, um den Kosmos einzufangen, wodurch wir versuchen analog zu einem Musikstück die Natur in den Rhythmen ihrer Strukturen zu erfassen.

Ähnlich ließe sich mit Werner Heisenberg vermuten, dass etwa die Quantentheorie sich als bedeutsam für ein umfassendes Weltverständnis erweist, indem sie auf die für diese Welt grundlegenden Strukturen und platonischen Ideen hinweist. Damit muss auch das Verhältnis von Geist und Materie neu bestimmt werden, wobei jemand wie Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker diesbezüglich auf das durch die moderne Physik gewandelte Bild vom Ganzen dieser Wirklichkeit eingegangen ist, indem er versucht hat die Einheit der Natur zu rekonstruieren auf der Grundlage der Auffassung, dass die Quantentheorie als fundamentale Theorie für unsere Naturerkenntnis in der Gegenwart anzusehen ist und damit auch eine Theorie des menschlichen Wissens über die Welt insgesamt darstellt.

Damit stellt Weizsäcker schließlich die Frage nach dem Verhältnis von Sein und Wissen überhaupt, wobei die Zeit als Horizont menschlichen Wissens auftrete und die Quantentheorie als eine Logik der Zeitlichkeit die Bedingungen für die Möglichkeit von Wissen angebe und eben dadurch das Sein in seiner naturgesetzlichen Einheit bestimme. Die verschiedenen Erscheinungen der Welt stellen sich dann nach Weizsäcker als zeitliche Erscheinungen des Seienden im Bewusstsein dar. Die Wissenschaft untersuche die Realität in ihrer Vielfalt als Gegenstand des Wissens, welches menschlichen Subjekten zukommt und sich zeitlich entwickelt, wobei die Natur selber eine geschichtliche Bedingung für die Möglichkeit von wissenden Subjekten darstellt und ein philosophisches Bewusstsein die Zeitlichkeit allen Wissens zu bedenken hat.

Jene Geschichtlichkeit der Natur zeigt sich seit jeher im Bereich des Organischen, in welchem die der natürlichen Auslese entspringende evolutionäre Variation und die Unvorhersagbarkeit zukünftiger Phänomene als besonders kennzeichnend in das Blickfeld rücken, wobei sich offenbart, um mit Ernst Mayr zu sprechen, dass das Lebewesen Mensch als sehr unwahrscheinlich erscheinen muss und dennoch dem Planeten Erde mehr oder weniger bloß „passiert“ ist. Jener Mensch untersteht dabei, wie auch Jacques Monod ausgeführt hat, genauso wie alle anderen Lebewesen in der Evolution der Zusammenwirkung von Zufallsereignissen auf der mikroskopischen Ebene und Selektionsbedingungen auf der makroskopischen Ebene.

Somit lässt sich dann auch mit Konrad Lorenz der konsequente Schluss ziehen, dass auch der menschliche Erkenntnisapparat als ein Objekt der Realität mit seinen Denkformen und Anschauungsweisen aus der Auseinandersetzung mit der Umwelt und der Anpassung an ihre Bedingungen hervorgegangen ist. Damit lässt sich auch etwa mit Adolf Portmann der Glaube, dass die Natur den Menschen „entlassen“ haben, durchaus bezweifeln.

So hat dann Rupert Riedl jene „Strategien“ der Evolution aufgedeckt, welche bei der Entwicklung der Komplexität dieser Realität von der materiellen und der organischen Ebene bis hin zur geistigen und soziokulturellen Ebene maßgeblich sind und durch welche sich das Leben organisiert. Dabei zeigt sich nach Riedl, dass der geschichtlichen Ordnung der Natur und der in ihr waltenden Auslese auch die Ordnung des menschlichen Denkens entspringt, wodurch die organische Evolution zur Ausdifferenzierung eines bestimmten Hypothesensystems in uns geführt hat. So zeigt also Riedl, wie sich entlang materieller Gesetzlichkeiten der menschliche Geist entwickelt und differenziert hat und durch die Stammesgeschichte auch das menschliche Vorstellen in seinem Vermögen ausgeformt worden ist.

Nach Weizsäcker zeichnet sich Materie durch die Eigenschaft aus, dass sie möglicher Gegenstand des menschlichen Denkens sein kann. Weizsäcker zufolge hat die moderne Physik philosophisch gesehen das Verdienst, erkannt und wieder der Aufmerksamkeit zugeführt zu haben, dass bezüglich des Seins „überhaupt eine Frage zu stellen“ ist, weshalb das Problem der modernen Physik ein solches der Ontologie wäre. Die Quantenphysik könnte sich nach Weizsäcker als jene „Theorie des überhaupt begrifflich Erkennbaren“ und „allgemeine Wissenschaft des Verstandes“ herausstellen. Die Quantenphysik als „Logik objektivierbarer Erfahrung“ bietet nach Weizsäcker eine neue Herangehensweise an „das Seiende zu verstehen“.

Riedl sieht in der Evolutionsbiologie die Möglichkeit einer objektiven Betrachtung des „Werdens der Vernunft“ im Sinne eines kosmischen Prozesses, indem sie es ermögliche den „stammesgeschichtlichen Grundlagen“ der menschlichen Vernunft nachzugehen, um zu erfahren, für die Bewältigung welcher Art von Lebensaufgaben die menschlichen Anschauungsformen von der Selektion ausgewählt worden sind. So hätten sich nach Riedl auch im Menschen bestimmte „ratiomorphe Anlagen“ ausgebildet, durch welche die Grundstrukturen der Welt gespiegelt werden, wodurch der Erkenntnismechanismus des menschlichen Bewusstseins auf einem angeborenen Lehrmeister beruht. So wendet sich Riedl in seiner „evolutionären Theorie der Erkenntnis“ einer objektiven Beschreibung der „naturgesetzlichen Evolution des Bewusstseins“ zu, wobei die individuell „angeborenen Anschauungsformen“ des menschlichen „Weltbildapparates“ als aposteriorische „Selektionsprodukte“ des genetischen Lernens beschrieben werden.

Weizsäcker empfiehlt ausgehend von der mathematischen Physik der Gegenwart eine Rückbesinnung auf den Kantianismus und den Platonismus und sieht durch das gewandelte Denken der modernen Naturwissenschaft eine idealistische Erkenntnistheorie als bekräftigt an. Riedl sieht ausgehend von der Evolutionsbiologie und durch die Möglichkeit der natürlichen Erklärung menschlichen Denkens eine idealistische Erkenntnistheorie sowie platonistische und kantianische Ansätze als überholt an.

Weizsäcker und Riedl versuchen in ihrem Blick auf die logisch-empiristische Erkenntnis- und Wissenschaftstheorie eines Carnap und eines Popper bei der Besprechung von Fragen nach der Möglichkeit menschlicher und wissenschaftlicher Erkenntnis alternative Wege zu gehen, indem Weizsäcker gegenüber den analytisch-empiristischen Zugängen der konventionellen Wissenschaftstheorie einen mehr transzendentalen und holistischen Zugang vorzieht und Riedl im Kontrast zu den „logizistischen“ Zugängen der etablierten Wissenschaftstheorie für einen evolutionären und mehr dynamisch-systemischen Zugang zur philosophischen Diskussion menschlichen und wissenschaftlichen Wissens plädiert.

Thomas BERRY was a cultural historian and Passionist priest, a leading exponent of ecological spirituality in the tradition of Jesuit paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Some called him "the bard of the new cosmology. A central tenet in his teaching was that in order to successfully deal with the challenges confronting the contemporary world, humanity will have to achieve a deep understanding of the history and workings of the universe, informed by the new scientific perspectives acquired in our era but enriched with a vision of their human and spiritual meaning. The essay presented here, written some forty years ago, exemplifies the extraordinary breadth of his historical vision and offers us elements that can guide us in the search for a path into the future.

1 Einleitung …………….............…………. 3
2 Erste Jeremiade …………...........….  3
3 Zweite Jeremiade ………...........….  4
4 Dritte Jeremiade ………...…...........  6
5 Vierte Jeremiade ……..…...........…  6
6 Der ratiomorphe Apparat ..........  9
7 Die Abgrenzungskriterien .......... 10
8  Der Informationsbegriff ……….... 11
9  Das Theorem der Homologie .. 16
10 Die Wurzeln des Denkens ……... 19
11 Die Tradierungshypothese …..… 22
12 Mängel unserer ratiomorphen
        Dependenzhypothesen …….…. 23
13 Fazit ……………………………….......……. 24

In this paper videogames and transmedia are examined from the perspectives of both creation (game design) and audience reception (gameplay experience), in light of the theories of the DPFi (Domain, Person Field interaction) systems model of creativity (Csikszentmihalyi 1988, 1996, 2006, 2014); its herein contended theoretical equivalent, evolutionary epistemology (Popper 1963, DT Campbell 1974, Simonton 2010) and the inherent biocultural evolutionary creative algorithm of selection, variation and transmission-with-heredity; ‘flow’ theory in creativity (Csikszentmihalyi 1975, 1990, 1996) as a determinant of ‘fun factor’ in games; ‘narrative transportation’ theory in fiction (Gerrig 1993, Green & Brock 2000, Van Laer et al 2014) as an additional (necessary but not sufficient) determinant of ‘fun-factor’ in ‘story’ videogames; and Boyd‘s (2009) general theory of creativity in the arts as ‘cognitive play with pattern’ – ultimately arguing that game play of any kind may potentially enhance animal intelligence, and therefore that videogames as an art form may potentially enhance human intelligence.

Criticisms of Karl Popper’s critical rationalist epistemology are often confused and misleading. In part that is due to Popper’s somewhat lax use of language, in which technical terms are used in more than one sense. I attempt to clarify Popper’s views by regimenting his terminology. The result is offered as a clear and concise exposition of the main points of Popper’s epistemology.

В антологию включены работы основателей эволюционной эпистемологии — К. Лоренца, К. Поппера, Д. Кэмпбелла, статьи Р. Ридля, Г. Фолльмера, Э. Эзера, Ф. Вукетича как основных представителей эволюционной эпистемологии и последователей К. Лоренца. Книга содержит разделы, представляющие важные для эволюционной эпистемологии смежные направления - теорию геннокультурной коэволюции (Ч. Ламсден, А. Гушурст и др.) и нейробиологию (Дж. Эдельман, Г. Рот). В разделе «Эволюционная эпистемология в России» публикуются работы И. П. Меркулова, A.B. Кезина, E.H. Князевой, И.А. Бесковой, И.А. Герасимовой.

Книга адресована специалистам в области эпистемологии и философии науки.

"The prospects of development of evolutionary epistemology
in the light of the modern discussions about possibilities of naturalistic approaches to understanding of functioning and development of consciousness, perception, thinking, embodiness and spirituality of a human being are under consideration in the book. The naturalistic approach
is stimulated by the modern preferences for doing transdisciplinary researches. It is shown that one of emerging trends is a combination of evolutionary epistemology with cognitive biology which embodies approaching of cognitive sciences and life sciences. The interconnection of evolution and development, phylogenesis and ontogenesis what is designated nowadays as the evo-devo-perspective is studied. The cognition is considered as an appearance of emergent properties of brain-body-consciousness in its physical and biosocial inbuilding
into environment rather than the building of representations of
the external world.

В сборнике обсуждаются перспективы развития эволюционной эпистемологии в свете современных дискуссий о возможностях натуралистических подходов к пониманию функционирования и развития сознания, восприятия, мышления, телесности и духовности человека. Натуралистический подход стимулируется современными предпочтениями к проведению трансдисциплинарных
исследований. Показывается, что один из наметившихся трендов - это соединение эволюционной эпистемологии с когнитивной биологией, которое олицетворяет сближение когнитивных наук и наук о жизни. Исследуется взаимосвязь между эволюцией и развитием, между филогенезом и онтогенезом, что обозначается сегодня как evo-devo-perspective. Познание рассматривается не столько как по-
строение репрезентаций внешнего мира, сколько как возникновение эмерджентных свойств мозга-тела-сознания в его физическом и биосоциальном встраивании в окружающую среду."

Содержание

Предисловие

Князева Е.Н. Эволюционная эпистемология на перекрестках развития

Бескова И.А. Эволюционная эпистемология: сфера возрастающей сложности

Смирнова Н.М. Эволюционная эпистемология в контексте современных дискуссий

Ивин А.А. Некоторые проблемы эволюции современного научного метода

Шульга Е.Н. Метафизические горизонты и герменевтические границы эволюционной эпистемологии

Моркина Ю.С. Автопоэзис творческого сознания: эволюционно-эпистемологический подход

Филипенок С.А. Представления о личностном знании в концепции Ж.Пиаже

Горелов А.А., Дрогунов С.В. Проблема истины в эволюционной эпистемологии

Солоненко М.А. Проблема восприятия времени: эволюционно-эпистемологический анализ

Майданов А.С. От демиургии к творящему огню: эволюция космогонического мышления в индийских ведах

Алексеев А.Ю. Идеи эволюционной эпистемологии в построении искусственного интеллекта

Table of contents

Preface

Helena N. Knyazeva. Evolutionary Epistemology at the Crossroads of Development

Irina A. Beskova. Evolutionary Epistemology: A Sphere of Increasing Complexity

Natalia M. Smirnova. Evolutionary Epistemology in the Context of the Modern Discussions

Alexander A. Ivin. Some Problems of Evolution of the Modern Scientific Method

Elena N. Shulga. The Metaphysical Horisons and Hermeneutic Boundaries of Evolutionary Epistemology

Julia S. Morkina. Autopoiesis of Creative Consciousness: Evolutionary Epistemological Approach

Stanislava A. Filipenok. Notion of Personal Knowledge in Jean Piaget’s Conception

Anatoly A. Gorelov, Sergey V. Drogunov. The Problem of Truth in Evolutionary Epistemology

Maxim A. Solonenko. The Problem of Time Perception: The Evolutionary Epistemological Analysis

Anatoly S. Maidanov. From Demiurge’s Activity to Creative Fire: Evolution of Cosmogonical Thinking in the Indian Vedas

Andrey Ju. Alexeev. Ideas of Evolutionary Epistemology in Building of Artificial Intelligence


Предисловие

Эволюционная эпистемология является направлением современной неклассической эпистемологии. Получив мощный стимул для своего развития благодаря работам выдающегося австрийского ученого Конрада Лоренца и его учеников и последователей в Австрии, Германии и других странах во второй половине XX века, эволюционная эпистемология не так часто фигурирует в названиях научных статей и книг в последние 10-15 лет. Это, однако, не означает, что сама исследовательская программа потеряла свои ориентации и смыслы. Эволюционная эпистемология как версия натуралистической (или натурализованной) эпистемологии, вбирает ныне достижения естествознания и отвечает на вызовы современной когнитивной науки, в которой исследуются познавательные способности человека, a именно то, как человек воспринимает, мыслит, познает и творит окружающий его мир. Особое значение приобретает в настоящее время изучение когнитивных и креативных способностей человека, способов его познания и коммуникации в контексте изысканий в области нейрофизиологии, когнитивной психологии и когнитивной биологии, социобиологии и биополитики.  Именно здесь возможны, на мой взгляд, новые существенные прорывы в понимании мира и природы человека, в разгадке тайны познаваемости мира, прилаженности и взаимной подстройки человека и мира, а также сущности истины.
Уже в течение 20 лет, с 1992 года в Институте философии РАН существует сектор эволюционной эпистемологии. Сотрудниками сектора было подготовлено ряд трудов по проблемам истины, творчества, телесности в эпистемологии, но уже достаточно долгое время они не концентрировали свои коллективные усилия на проблемах собственно эволюционной эпистемологии, ее актуальных проблемах, состоянии современных исследований и путях ее дальнейшего развития. Замысел настоящего сборника состоял в том, чтобы попытаться ликвидировать этот пробел. Сотрудники сектора развивают здесь различные взгляды и осмысливают перспективы развития эволюционной эпистемологии каждый со своей позиции, определяемой собственным опытом философских размышлений и исследований. Читатели сборника могут проследить этот неявный и порой напряженный диалог об открытых проблемах, статусе и путях развития эволюционной эпистемологии с различных концептуальных точек зрения.
Е.Н. Князева

This collection of essays and notes attempts to tread the invisible borders between mythos, the neoliberal-Christian-nationalist 'world view' and socio-political trends in the rise of Trump, the Red Hats and the Evangelicals to political dominance in the United States.

Desde  que  Kant  planteó  la  distinción  entre  autonomía  y  heteronomía,  estos  términos  se  han  convertido  en  fecundos  criterios  para  la  reflexión  en  torno  a  la  cuestión  moral.    El presente  trabajo  analiza  sus  definiciones  a la  luz  del  desarrollo  de  la  sociología  de 
Durkheim y de la epistemología y psicología
genéticas desarrolladas por Jean Piaget.  De
este  modo,  y  a  manera  de  introducción  al  tema,  se  intenta  favorecer  una  perspectiva  que articule  distintos campos del conocimiento.

La seguente analisi, nata in contesto universitario, prende le mosse dalla celeberrima riflessione di Popper sulla televisione cercando di contestualizzarla all'interno della sua teorizzazione epistemologica e della torsione evoluzionistica che questa ha assunto nel pensiero popperiano. Indagandone anche l'imprescindibile ricaduta politica, emerge la stingente attualità del messaggio di Popper, applicabile oggi alla questione del ruolo dei nuovi media, i social media, nelle democrazie, e del pericolo che queste corrono, e di come il tema sia imprescindibile per definirne statuto e limiti. e, soprattutto, cosa ragionevolmente (e qui vi è tutta la questione di cosa sia scienza)  possiamo fare per per salvarle.

.....the double bind as constituting an entirely new, non-material, principle of evolution, major conceptual revisions may need to be made in our general understanding of evolution as contained within the “modern evolutionary synthesis”.

KEYWORDS:
behavior, communication, context, contradiction, deutero-learning, double bind, epistemology, evolution, incompleteness theorum, kinesics, learning, logical type theory, metacommunication, metamessages, metatheory, mystification, paradox, relationships, schismogenesis, schizophrenia,  scientific elegance, symmathesy, teleology, temporality, transcontextual, transdisciplinary, trauma

En este libro se analiza el giro de la filosofía de K. Popper a partir de la década del 60 del siglo pasado y que, más que romper con sus escritos anteriores, redefine la idea inicial de una epistemología sin sujeto, aunque ahora en clave de una epistemología evolucionista, es decir tomando como modelo explicativo a la teoría darwiniana de la evolución. Las epistemologías evolucionistas –la de Popper es solo una de ellas- representan uno de los resultados de los intensos debates de la filosofía de la ciencia de la segunda mitad del siglo XX.

A Memética é, então, a ciência que estuda como memes se propagam. O que a genética faz com os genes, a Memética faz com os memes. Ou, mais precisamente, o que a genética de populações e a epidemiologia fazem com as informações genéticas, a Memética faz com as informações culturais. O ponto a ser discutido então é apenas se os modelos matemáticos aplicados na primeira podem também ser usados na segunda. Isso, é claro, levanta enormes problemas. Será que a cultura realmente pode ser dividida em unidades de informação? De que são feitos os memes? Como eles são passados? Como saber se eles foram realmente passados ou não? O que determina que um meme vai infectar a mente de uma pessoa e de outra não? Quem manda no meu comportamento sou eu ou meus memes? Eu posso escolher quais memes vão me infectar? Utilizar modelos biológicos para tratar a cultura não seria reducionista e mecanicista? [...] É com este espírito que o livro foi escrito. Mas, antes de tudo, é um livro de divulgação científica. Pretende dar ao leitor a fundamentação filosófica e científica para discutir os conceitos aqui tratados. Pode, então, ser lido por um não-filósofo que só sabe de biologia aquilo que aprendeu na escola

Índice

Introducción

1. De cómo la epistemología se encontró con la teoría de la evolución
1.1. Las tareas de la epistemología
1.2. La naturalización de la epistemología
1.3. El surgimiento de la epistemología evolucionista
1.4. El enfoque no-adaptacionista en epistemología evolucionista
1.5. ¿Puede realmente ofrecerse una explicación evolucionista de la mente?

2. Origen evolutivo de la mente
2.1. Cognición y vida
2.2. Los sistemas cognitivos como sistemas representacionales
2.3. ¿Cuándo hay representaciones mentales?
2.4. Mente y lenguaje

3. La evolución de la inteligencia humana
3.1. La inteligencia de los primates no humanos
3.2. Lo peculiar de la inteligencia humana
3.3. Evolución de las capacidades cognitivas humanas

4. ¿Está la verdad ahí fuera?
4.1. Caracterización del realismo
4.2. El realismo semántico
4.3. El realismo ontológico
4.4. El realismo epistemológico
4.5. ¿Es la verdad más adaptativa que la falsedad?
4.6. El argumento antinaturalista de Alvin Plantinga

5. Nietzsche, la verdad, la evolución y el peor argumento del mundo
5.1. La Joya y el Principio Ismael
5.2. La epistemología evolucionista de Nietzsche
5.3. Perspectivismo y falsificación
5.4. Nietzsche y el peor argumento del mundo

Bibliografía

Naturalistic epistemology begins with the assumption that human inquiry (epistemology itself) could have arisen only from and exist only within the world of time and space, the evolving physical universe, the evolving human organism. Knowing and not knowing (epistemologizing) emerged as an embodied action, a manifestation of survival, a life-process in time and space.

Naturalistic epistemology has emerged in  dynamic relation with philosophy, sociology, psychology, biology and genetics. Naturalistic epistemology understands itself as striving to understand the bio-physiological processes that manifest the human activity of thought and emotion – the processes that are involved in the human ability to say “I know”, “I understand”, “I imagine”, “I accomplish”, “I invent”, “I am inspired”. Naturalistic epistemology is rooted in the traditions of realism, the physical sciences, pragmatism. This essay outlines some of the major theoretical approaches to this area of study.

Consciousness is a virtual-reality display, created by an internal executive agent, which human beings experience as the self. This display serves to monitor and manage the state of the organism in relation to the world. Conscious experience serves a different function than unconscious processing. It is therefore not superfluous but has limited causal powers within the organism: the causality of agency, rather than the passive (efficient) causality of physics.

"Michel Weber (ed.), After Whitehead: Rescher on Process Metaphysics, Frankfurt / Lancaster, ontos verlag, Process Thought I, 2004. (339 p. ; ISBN 3-937202-49-8 ; 89 €)
When Rescher’s Process Metaphysics (1996) was published, it was widely acclaimed as a major step towards the academic recognition of a “mode of thought” that has otherwise been confined within sharp scholarly boundaries. Of course it is not an easy book: despite its stylistic clarity, it remains the complex outcome of a life’s work in most areas of philosophy. The goal of the present volume is to systematically unfold the vices and virtues of Process Metaphysics, and thereby to specify the contemporary state of affairs in process thought. To do so, the editor has gathered one focused contribution per chapter, each paper addressing specifically and explicitly its assigned chapter and seeking to promote a dialogue with Rescher. In addition, the volume features Rescher’s replies to the papers.
« Whenever Nicholas Rescher writes, wise philosophers take note. This volume bears witness to that fact. Its essays not only engage Rescher's wrestling with Alfred North Whitehead and process metaphysics in helpful ways but also make distinctive and instructive contributions of their own. This book advances the development of an important and lively philosophical tradition. » John K. Roth, Edward J. Sexton Professor of Philosophy and Director of The Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Human Rights, Claremont McKenna College, USA.
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Este estudo tem por objetivo oferecer uma análise sobre a natureza da informação, dado e conhecimento, procurando distingui-los e defini-los conceitualmente a partir da contraposição de conceitos filosóficos, dentro de uma perspectiva fenomenológica da Teoria do Conhecimento, com propriedades e resultados experimentais da Física e da Neurofisiologia. Para atingir os objetivos propostos acima, será empregada a ideia de um experimento mental, inspirado em Einstein, no qual o leitor será levado a imaginar-se acompanhando a viagem de um fóton, desde sua emissão por algum objeto do mundo real, como o Sol ou uma lâmpada, o percurso pelo espaço que o separa de um observador, sua captação pelas células fotorreceptoras da retina desse sujeito, e a análise do processo cognitivo subjetivo, que resulta na formação do conhecimento que representa o objeto observado.

Simandan D (2005) "Pragmatic Scepticism and the Possibilities of Knowledge" Timisoara, Editura Universitatii de Vest/West University Press, 256 pp.

This book distiled my own way of understanding the relation between epistemology, ontology, and politics, and the best name I found for labelling that way is pragmatic scepticism. Throughout the book, I stay away from the temptation to give a dictionary-like definition of this philosophy. I do not even like to think of it as a philosophy. Instead, I see pragmatic scepticism as a way of being and as a way of relating. A way of being human, i.e. enmeshed in language and limited by our senses; and a way of relating, i.e. crafted by the happy and sad encounters with theories, things, and lifeís happenings. The book is structured in three parts, which together give a sense of the potentials of pragmatic scepticism: as a way of thinking about the world, as a way of approaching theoretical dilemmas, as a way of mapping one's inner contradictions. The first part of the book introduces pragmatic scepticism in relation to the general questions underwriting the philosophy of knowledge and the study of science. The second part is more specific in that it deploys the pragmatic sceptical attitude to the central metatheoretical questions of the discipline of geography. The last part of the book groups under the heading "philosophies of struggle" two more applied essays on the political economy and the political epistemology of conflicts over knowledge in the globalised landscape of higher education in general and geography in particular.

This paper critically reviews the current status of the concept of distance in human geography in order to argue that recent experimentally-driven work in construal-level theory offers ample opportunities for recasting distance as a key geographical trope. After analysing the four entangled dimensions of distance revealed by construal-level theory (spatial distance; temporal distance; social distance; and hypothetical distance), the paper articulates this research program from experimental psychology with geographical work on non-representational theory, geographical imaginations/imaginative geographies, learning as a geographical process, TimeSpace theorizing, and ontogenetic understandings of space. It is argued that the subjective understanding of distance afforded by construal-level theory can rescue distance from its entrenched association with positivistic geography and spatial analysis. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2016.07.018

Chapter 1 (To know in order to survive) and 2 (A critique of evolved reason) are about the evolution of knowledge and why it matters as a justification and critique of knowledge. Chapter 3 (Why consciousness evolved) is about the nature and evolution of consciousness. Chapter 4-5 are about the evolution of culture (Chapter 4, the origins of sociobiology, Chapter 5, Culture: the human arena, Chapter 6, Genes, memes and the environment). They claim that we should at least analyse 4 levels: genes, brains, culture, and the environment. Culture is maintained because it offers so much benefits to societies as a whole and to its succesful users in particular. Chapter 7 and 8  are about human evolution. They offer a multicausal, multistage model of human evolution in which our ancestors at some point became ecological dominant predators and became entrapped in autokatalytic arms races which reinforced cooperation within groups.

An environment conducting a flux of energy and materials between temporally or spatially separated sources and sinks may become more complexly structured due to the emergence of cyclical, dissipative transport systems. Selection favors transport systems able to stabilize themselves against environmental perturbations through feedback. Continuing selection for self-stabilization over long periods of time may eventuate in the emergence of an autopoietic assembly of subsystems (i.e., an autocatalytic set). The stabilizing 'control information' inherent in the instantaneous structure of the autopoietic system represents a form of knowledge that enables the stabilized system to continue an existence as a living and evolving entity. Such self-referential knowledge (defined by Karl Popper as "solutions to problems of life") is integral to the differential survival of nascent autopoietic systems. Maturana and Varela developed the concept of autopoiesis for the autopoietic cybernetics of self-maintenance and self-production. They also equated the cybernetics of autopoiesis with cognition. Concepts of "meaning", "memory", "learning" and "heredity" can also be derived from this framework of Popperian autopoiesis. Hall has argued that autopoiesis has emerged at cellular, (multicellular) organismic, and economic organizational levels. Given an acceptance that different orders of autopoiesis exist, it follows that forms of regulatory knowledge (i.e., solutions to problems of life) exist at each organizational level where autopoiesis occurs. Knowledge may be "tacit", "implicit" or "explicit".

Download available at https://rdcu.be/cl0vS.
Applied Evolutionary Epistemology is a scientific-philosophical theory that defines evolution as the set of phenomena whereby units evolve at levels of ontological hierarchies by mechanisms and processes. This theory also provides a methodology to study evolution, namely, studying evolution involves identifying the units that evolve, the levels at which they evolve, and the mechanisms and processes whereby they evolve. Identifying units and levels of evolution in turn requires the development of ontological hierarchy theories, and examining mechanisms and processes necessitates theorizing about causality. Together, hierarchy and causality theories explain how biorealities form and diversify with time. This paper analyzes how Applied EE redefines both hierarchy and causality theories in the light of the recent explosion of network approaches to causal reasoning associated with studies on reticulate and macroevolution. Causality theories have often been framed from within a rigid, ladder-like hierarchy theory where the rungs of the ladder represent the different levels, and the elements on the rungs represent the evolving units. Causality then is either defined reductionistically as an upward movement along the strands of a singular hierarchy, or holistically as a downward movement along that same hierarchy. Upward causation theories thereby analyze causal processes in time, i.e. over the course of natural history or phylogenetically, as Darwin and the founders of the Modern Synthesis intended. Downward causation theories analyze causal processes in space, ontogenetically or ecologically, as the current eco-evo-devo schools are evidencing. This work demonstrates how macroevolution and reticulate evolution theories add to the complexity by examining reticulate causal processes in space–time, and the interactional hierarchies that such studies bring forth introduce a new form of causation that is here called reticulate causation. Reticulate causation occurs between units and levels belonging to different as well as to the same ontological hierarchies. This article concludes that beyond recognizing the existence of multiple units, levels, and mechanisms or processes of evolution, also the existence of multiple kinds of evolutionary causation as well as the existence of multiple evolutionary hierarchies needs to be acknowledged. This furthermore implies that evolution is a pluralistic process divisible into different kinds.

k e y w o r d s Origin and evolution of language Units and levels of evolution Evolutionary mechanisms Processes Hierarchies Extended Synthesis Applied Evolutionary Epistemology Philosophy of biology
a b s t r a c t Modern evolutionary biology is currently characterized by epistemological divergence because, beyond organisms and genes, scholars nowadays investigate a plurality of units of evolution, they recognize multilevel selection, and especially from within the Extended Synthesis, scholars have identified a plurality of evolutionary mechanisms that besides natural selection can explain how the evolution of anatomical form and functional behavior occur. Evolutionary linguists have also implicated a multitude of units, levels and mechanisms involved in (aspects of) language evolution, which has also brought forth epistemological divergence on how language possibly evolved. Here, we examine how a general evolutionary methodology can become abstracted from how biologists study evolution, and how this methodology can become implemented into the field of Evolutionary Linguistics. Applied Evolutionary Epistemology (AEE) involves a systematic search and analysis of the units (that what evolves), levels (loci where evolution takes place), and mechanisms (means whereby evolution occurs) of language evolution, allocating them into ontological hierarchies, and distinguishing them from other kinds of evolution. In this paper in particular, we give an in-depth analysis of how AEE enables an identification, examination, and evaluation of levels and mechanisms of language evolution, and we hone in on how hierarchies and mechanisms of language (evolution) can and have been defined differentially. For an in-depth analysis of units of language evolution, we refer the reader to Gontier (2017) for which this paper functions as a follow-up. Thus, rather than present a specific theory of how language evolved, we present a methodology that enables us to unite existing research programs as well as to develop theories on the subject at hand.

La relación del naturalista inglés Charles R. Darwin (1809-1882) con la Argentina puede analizarse desde varios aspectos. En primer lugar porque en su juventud realizó un extenso viaje alrededor del mundo durante cinco años (desde el 27 de diciembre de 1831 al 2 de octubre de 1836), en el cual, recorrió el actual territorio argentino por aproximadamente un año, y de lo cual dejó extensas referencias en su obra, además de que ese episodio resultó de cierta significación para la elaboración posterior de la teoría de la evolución; en segundo lugar por la forma en que los científicos, políticos y hombres de la cultura argentina han leído y recibido la principal obra del inglés luego de 1859 en que fue publicada; tercero, por la expansión del darwinismo bajo algunas formas como el movimiento eugenésico argentino, cuyas vinculaciones con la teoría darwiniana de la evolución y con el pensamiento del propio Darwin resultan discutibles y complejas, pero innegables; finalmente por la forma en que algunos debates ideológicos y políticos acerca de la evolución adquieren hoy en la Argentina (y en el mundo) y su repercusión sobre el sistema educativo y en la comunicación pública de la ciencia.

Both biosemiotics and evolutionary epistemology are concerned with how knowledge evolves. (Applied) Evolutionary Epistemology thereby focuses on identifying the units, levels, and mechanisms or processes that underlie the evolutionary development of knowing and knowledge, while biosemiotics places emphasis on the study of how signs underlie the development of meaning. We compare the two schools of thought and analyze how in delineating their research program, biosemiotics runs into several problems that are overcome by evolutionary epistemologists. For one, by emphasizing signs, biosemiotics needs to delineate a semiotic threshold, which is a problem not encountered by evolutionary epistemologists. Instead, the latter recognizes that all organisms are knowers that evolve knowledge, which they recognize to extend toward phenomena produced by organisms such as behavior, cognition, language, culture, science, and technology. Secondly, biosemiotics attempts at continuing adaptationist notions on how organisms relate to their environment, while especially Applied Evolutionary Epistemology comes to redefine the nature of the organism-environment relationship in such a way that it recognizes the spatiotemporal boundedness of existence, which in turn makes adaptationist accounts obsolete.

What, if any, are the limits of human understanding? Epistemic pessimists, sobered by our humble evolutionary origins, have argued that some truths about the universe are perennial mysteries and will forever remain beyond our ken. Others have brushed this off as premature, a form of epistemic defeatism. In this paper we develop a conceptual toolbox for parsing different forms of cognitive limitation that are often conflated in the literature. We distinguish between representational access (the ability to develop accurate scientific representations of reality) and intuitive understanding (the ability to comprehend those representations). We also distinguish different modalities of cognitive limitation. If the scientific endeavor ever comes to a halt, will this feel like slamming into a brick wall, or rather like slowly getting bogged down in a swamp? By distinguishing different types and modalities of human cognitive limitation, we soften up the hypothesis of 'cognitive closure&#...

Der Idealismus wird oftmals als dem evolutionären Weltbild widersprechend angesehen. Er stehe der Idee einer Transmutation der Arten und einer entsprechenden Dynamisierung des Naturbildes skeptisch gegenüber, sei teleologisch auf den Geist ausgerichtet und anti-reduktionistisch. Der vorliegende Aufsatz will die These vertreten, dass entgegen jener Thesen Idealismus und Darwinismus nicht nur in Einklang gebracht werden können, sondern dass vor dem Hintergrund bestehender alternativer Ansätze gerade der objektive Idealismus den Rahmen zu einer philosophisch besonders überzeugenden Interpretation des Evolutionismus bietet. Dazu wird zunächst eine äußerst knappe Skizze des Grundgedankens des objektiven Idealismus gegeben. Sodann wird auf die Genese der antagonistischen Fronstellung zwischen Darwinismus und Idealismus eingegangen, und es werden die wesentlichen Spannungen benannt. Im Hauptteil werden im Überblick die zumeist gängigen philosophischen Reaktionen auf den Darwinismus – optimistischer bzw. pessimistischer Naturalismus, Kulturalismus sowie geltungstheoretische Abwehr des Biologismus – dargestellt und auf ihre Schwächen verwiesen, so dass abschließend die wesentliche Vorteil einer objektiv-idealistischen Interpretation des Darwinismus deutlich werden.

This essay takes—as its point of departure—Cavicchi’s (2006) argument that knowledge develops through experimentation, both in science and in educational settings. In attempting to support and extend her conclusions, which are drawn in part from the replication of some early tasks in the history of developmental psychology, the late realist-constructivist theory of Jean Piaget is presented and summarized. This is then turned back on the subjects of Cavicchi’s larger enquiry (education and science) to offer a firmer foundation for future debate. Several of Piaget’s “forgotten works” are discussed; their theoretical contributions synthesized to form a single interdisciplinary, cross-pollinating narrative describing how it is that both children and scientists grow into the world. (In addition, translated excerpts from two related historical documents have been provided in an appendix, while detailed footnotes add further context and integrate the discussion with current advances in related fields.)

A work in process. Chapter 1 finished on Ontology. Now with Chapter 2, on Consciousness. Chapter 3 will be devoted to the scientific method, Epistemology, and hence the scientific justification of EP. On Chapter 4 and the rest, questions of mental adaptations will be dealt with, ending with final Chapters on Politics (Radical Enlightenment) and Religion, Capitalism and Climate Change.

This doctoral thesis deals with the issue of positioning the scholar in the context of the study of religion. This is a complex matter, where methodological and epistemological issues intertwine. In short, this is an issue of deciding who the scholar of religion is or can be in relation to his or her ‘object of research’. To what extent can a scholar of religion remain a neutral, scientific observer or to what extent is he or she an inevitable part of the cultural and religious context of the field of research itself as well? These issues will be dealt with primarily within the context of the cognitive and evolutionary sciences of religion. In these fields of research, the idea of methodological naturalism has become very influential over the past few decades and many have argued that this is the best position for evolutionary study of religion as well as for the study of religion in general. In my thesis I show why justifications of methodological naturalism are not as strong as its advocates have argued and how the theory of evolutionary does not inevitably require one to position oneself naturalistically. Furthermore, the second part of the thesis exemplifies how it is possible to develop a position, which is the exact opposite of methodological naturalism in epistemological matters concerning the supernatural, but at the same time it is also just as consistent with the main premises of evolutionary theory as methodological naturalism. In the last part of the thesis I am placing methodological naturalism into a larger comparative framework, to highlight its strengths and weaknesses in comparison to such potential alternatives as methodological agnosticism, neutrality and the dialogical position.

La tesis que pretendo defender en este trabajo no debería ser a estas alturas una tesis demasiado contestada pese a chocar con los presupuestos de buena parte de la tradición filosófica. En pocas palabras esa tesis dice que la racionalidad, lejos de ser el rasgo definitorio, la diferencia específica, del ser humano –lo que separa a nuestra especie del resto de las especies animales–, es más bien una característica que, al igual que otras características constitutivas de nuestro fenotipo, la especie humana ha heredado de otras especies ancestrales, y que esa trayectoria evolutiva tiene relevancia filosófica para entender precisamente cuál es la naturaleza y el alcance de la racionalidad humana. No se trata, pues, de otra cosa que de ofrecer un enfoque naturalista, basado en la biología evolucionista y en ciencias biológicas afines (primatología, paleontología, etología cognitiva, etc.), de la razón.

Thomas BERRY fue historiador de las culturas y sacerdote pasionista, un destacado exponente de la espiritualidad ecológica en la tradición del paleontólogo jesuita Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.  Algunos lo llamaron "el trovador de la nueva cosmología".  Una tesis central de su pensamiento fue que para poder enfrentar con éxito las crisis y los desafíos que enfrenta el mundo actual, la humanidad tendrá que lograr un profundo entendimiento de la historia y el funcionamiento del universo, informado por las nuevas perspectivas científicas adquiridas en nuestra época pero enriquecida con una visión de su sentido humano y espiritual. El ensayo presentado aquí, escrito hace una cuarentena de años, ejemplifica la extraordinaria amplitud de su visión histórica y nos ofrece elementos que nos puedan guiar en la búsqueda de un camino hacia el futuro.

In this dissertation I enquire into the status, scope and limits of human knowledge, given the fact that our perceptual and cognitive faculties are the product of evolution by natural selection. I argue that the commonsense representations these faculties provide us with yield a particular, species-specific scope on the world that does not ‘correspond’ in any straightforward way to the external world. We are, however, not bound by these commonsense representations. This particular, species-specific view of the world can be transgressed. Nevertheless, our transgressing representations remain confined to the conceptual space defined by the combinatorial possibilities of the various representational tools we possess. Furthermore, the way in which we fit representations to the external world is by means of our biologically determined epistemic orientation. Based on the fact that we are endowed with a particular set of perceptual and cognitive resources and are guided by a particular epistemic orientation, I conclude that we have a particular cognitive relation to the world. Therefore, an accurate representation for us is a particular fit (our epistemic orientation) with particular means (our perceptual and cognitive resources).

Nat Barrett's ''On the nature and origins of cognition as a form of motivated activity'' puts a well-focused light on the central problems, plaguing the core of enactivist, or 4E cognitive theories and points to LMEP (the Law of Maximum Entropy Production or the fourth law of thermodynamics) and the thermodynamic groundwork Micheal Turvey and I presented a little less than three decades ago as the pathway in. Here, I offer some brief remarks supporting his efforts as well as some clarifying points following from work done in the ensuing years. We are now at a point where we can dissolve the problems Barrett so cogently identifies and get us to a nomologically grounded theory of embodied, embedded, enactive, and extended cognition, a robust alternative to the failed computationalist model, from first principles.