Epistemological Dimensions of Evolutionary Psychology

248 Pages·2014·2.675 MB·English

by  Thiemo Breyer

Epistemological Dimensions of Evolutionary
Psychology
Thiemo Breyer
Editor
Epistemological Dimensions
of Evolutionary Psychology
Editor
Thiemo Breyer
a.r.t.e.s. Graduate School for the Humanities
University of Cologne
Cologne
Germany

ISBN 978-1-4939-1386-2 ISBN 978-1-4939-1387-9 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-4939-1387-9
Springer New York Heidelberg Dordrecht London
Library of Congress Control Number: 2014955339
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To Olli, companion in rites of passage
Preface
Evolutionary Psychology (EP) is currently one of the most fascinating fields of
interdisciplinary research on the human mind, brain, and behaviour. According to
EP, the brain is an organ whose computational capacities have been selected for
because they provided advantages of survival in the course of evolution. Cognitive
abilities are seen as the results of specific reactions to evolutionary pressures, which
have shaped our ancestors: ‘Natural selection shapes domain-specific mechanisms
so that their structure meshes with the evolutionarily stable features of their particu-
lar problem domains. Understanding the evolutionarily stable feature of problem
domains—and what selection favoured as a solution under ancestral conditions—il-
luminates the design of cognitive specialisations’ (Cosmides and Tooby 1994). In
this volume, some of the epistemological premises and problems of this scientific
paradigm shall be addressed to critically assess the status of EP in contemporary
discussions in the philosophy of mind and cognitive science.
Some of the fundamental ideas of EP had been discussed already at the begin-
ning of the twentieth century. For a few decades, though, they were suppressed by
the upsurge of three more prominent paradigms: (1) behaviourism and its focus on
ontogeny as opposed to phylogeny; (2) philosophical and common sense convic-
tions that the individual is essentially free and can overcome biological determi-
nations; (3) cultural relativism and its assumption that culture is the main factor
that shapes social groups and the minds of their members. Since the 1970/1980s,
however, the ideas of EP, coupled with the success of sociobiology (Wilson 1975),
have become increasingly more important as a theoretical bridge between the natu-
ral, behavioural, social, and cognitive sciences investigating human nature as well
as a rich domain of empirical research (cf. the journal Evolutionary Psychology,
established in 2003).
In light of this development, at least three bundles of theoretical issues concern-
ing the rationality and validity of EP arguments can be addressed: (1) the relation-
ship between the biological foundations of cognitive processes and mental states;
(2) the relationship between organism, brain, and brain modules; (3) the relation-
ship between the things EP tries to explain and the way it does explain them.
It is sometimes supposed that EP contains a type of naturalistic fallacy (Moore
1903), that is the misconception that higher-order principles (such as ethical prin-
vii
viii Preface
ciples) could be derived from what happens in the natural world. More generally, it
is supposed that EP is characterised by a strong reductionism, namely the attempt
to reduce mental phenomena to neuronal phenomena and from there ultimately to
genetic phenomena. In the philosophy of mind, the problems of reductionist pro-
grammes are widely discussed. Apart from the suggested possibility of multiple
realisations (Fodor 1974) and the pluralism of descriptive levels (Dupré 1993),
there might be the ‘phenomenological’ problem that EP needs to identify cognitive
processes by applying folk-psychological or introspective notions of mental phe-
nomena, which are then subjected to an evolutionary explanation. In other words,
the formation of EP’s explananda is not accomplished in terms of ‘hard science’
alone—it must be known before the scientific analysis what we mean by concepts
such as ‘will’, ‘action’, ‘deliberation’, ‘desire’, ‘emotion’, etc. How can philosophy
help here with detailed descriptions of the structures of consciousness and experi-
ence and the conceptual analysis of folk-psychological vocabularies?
Another line of criticism stems from the arguments developed by Bennett and
Hacker (2003), who outline a critical framework for the evaluation of recent ap-
proaches in neuroscience. They remind us that for some brain scientists and neuro-
philosophers, the brain does all kinds of things: it believes (Crick), knows (Blake-
more), interprets (Edelman), questions itself (Young), contains symbols (Gregory),
represents information (Marr), and makes decisions (Damasio). Behind these as-
sertions lies, in Bennett and Hacker’s view, a mereological fallacy, because the
conception of the ‘brain’ is unduly inflated by ascribing activities and powers to it
that are usually applied to organisms as wholes. Even if one admits that there is em-
pirical evidence for the correlation of complex subjective wholes such as decision-
making and specific physical parts of those processes such as neuronal firings, the
identification of a part with a whole would be an invalid inference.
The concerns Bennett and Hacker raise with regard to neuroscience seem rel-
evant with regard to EP as well, where it is often claimed that particular brain mod-
ules fulfil complex functions that are usually attributed to subjects. In other words,
if it does not make sense to say that the brain (part of the organism) does all these
complex things, then it makes even less sense to say that a module (part of the brain)
does them. The mereological fallacy would be transposed to a more fine-grained
level and, as some would argue, such a shift does not solve the problem, but makes
it even more serious. What would thus be needed is a mereological analysis that
helps to ground an organismic ontology.
Another problem of EP could be seen in the temporal structure of the develop-
ment of psychological faculties and features and its translation into a scientifically
adequate mediation. The narrative fallacy (Taleb 2007), which can be attributed
to various scientific models of explanation, amounts to the retrospective construc-
tion of a story to make a particular occurrence appear plausible. In the case of EP
theorising, some think that this fallacy consists in using current cognitive and be-
havioural phenomena (P) to explain past phenomena (P ), which are then believed
c p
to be the necessary conditions for the existence of P. The idea that seemingly legiti-
c
mises this line of reasoning is that every P, for example a behavioural disposition
c
of an individual of a certain species, has only survived until the present because its
correlating P was beneficial for the survival of the species in question.
p
Preface ix
By assuming that the behaviour of modern humans can only be explained in
terms of adaptations that occurred in a Stone Age environment, EP presupposes
that human evolution has not produced drastic changes ever since, at least when it
comes to such factors as brain size and structure. This heuristic presupposition is
called, in paleodemographics, the principle of uniformity (Grupe et al. 2005). From
a philosophical point of view, this assumption raises the question of how we can
achieve epistemic access to the ‘lifeworld’ of our ancestors. Two methodical pos-
sibilities of EP to deal with this are (1) the analysis of relics and (2) the back projec-
tion from present hunter-gatherer societies to prehistoric times. But do these suffice
to reconstruct the lifeworld of individuals at the time when crucial adaptations are
believed to have taken place? First, the inference from a fragmented physical real-
ity to a complex psychological reality seems to leave many parameters undefined;
and second, modern day hunter-gatherers do not exist in isolation from processes
of globalisation and social change, so that they cannot be regarded as models of an
archaic human condition. These theoretical and practical questions of how the ex-
plananda as well as the explanations of EP are constructed, and many more issues,
are discussed in this volume to elucidate the ways we think about human evolution
on the one hand, and the argumentative structure of EP explanations and narratives
on the other.
The recent literature is characterised by fierce attacks of philosophers against the
programme of EP (e.g. Buller 2006; Lewontin 2007; Richardson 2007), and equally
emphatic defences or counter-attacks by proponents of EP (e.g. Pinker 2009; Buss
2011; Hoch-Olesen et al. 2011). Some fear that EP ‘might constitute a genuine
threat to the contemporary moral order’ (Hagan 2005), while others celebrate its
Darwinistic strategy as the key to our understanding of ourselves: ‘Natural selec-
tion has a special place in science because it alone explains what makes life special’
(Pinker 1997).
This volume brings together the expertise of philosophers and psychologists to
explore the interdisciplinary ground for fruitful discussions in the middle sphere
between such extreme positions by investigating the epistemological dimensions
of EP. The point of departure for the collaborative work on this volume was the
conference ‘Epistemological Foundations of Evolutionary Psychology’, which took
place at the University of Heidelberg’s Internationales Wissenschaftsforum (IWH)
from March 16–17, 2012. From there, the project has developed for quite a while,
as new authors joined in and as the outlook was specified. I am grateful for all the
discussions we have had at the conference and beyond and thank all authors for
their fascinating contributions.
My special thanks go to Christopher Gutland for his invaluable work as a re-
search fellow in the project ‘Anthropology of Intersubjectivity’, in the context of
which the conference and this volume are embedded. The project was funded from
2011–2013 by the Baden-Württemberg Foundation (Az. 1.16101.08), to which I
owe my gratitude. Finally, I would like to thank Birgit Schubert for her editorial
assistance.
Cologne T. Breyer
March 2014
Contents
1 Philosophy and Evolution.......................................................................... 1
Michael Hampe
2 The Broad Foundations of Adaptationist-Computational
Evolutionary Psychology ........................................................................... 19
Malte H. Dahlgrün
3 Towards a Cognitive Philosophy of Science............................................. 69
Ulrich J. Frey
4 The ‘Meme’ Meme Revisited .................................................................... 89
Alan Costall
5 Evolutionary Psychology, Altruism, and Kin Selection .......................... 103
Robert C. Richardson
6 Like Me: A Homophily-Based Account of Human Culture ................... 117
Daniel Haun and Harriet Over
7 Evolutionary Media Psychology and Its Epistemological
Foundation .................................................................................................. 131
Christine Hennighausen and Frank Schwab
8 Preparedness to Learn About the World: Evidence from
Infant Research .......................................................................................... 159
Sabina Pauen and Stefanie Hoehl
9 Depression as an Adaptation: The Infection–Defense
Hypothesis and Cytokine Mechanisms .................................................... 175
Alexander Neumann and Sven Walter
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xii Contents
10 When Misrepresentation is Successful ..................................................... 197
Michael Zehetleitner and Felix D. Schönbrodt
11 Human Sacrifice and the Evolution of Thinking: A Critical
Assessment of Christoph Türcke’s Philosophy of Dreams ...................... 223
Andreas Mayer
Index .................................................................................................................. 239