The Biological Mind: A Philosophical Introduction

209 Pages·2014·0.945 MB·English

by  Justin Garson

The Biological Mind
For some, biology explains all there is to know about the mind. Yet many big questions remain:
is the mind shaped by genes or the environment? If mental traits are the result of adaptations
built up over thousands of years, as evolutionary psychologists claim, how can such claims be
tested? If the mind is a machine, as biologists argue, how does it allow for something as
complex as human consciousness?
The Biological Mind: A Philosophical Introduction explores these questions and more, using
the philosophy of biology to introduce and assess the nature of the mind. Drawing on the four
key themes of evolutionary biology, molecular biology and genetics, neuroscience, and
biomedicine and psychiatry, Justin Garson addresses the following key topics:
• moral psychology, altruism, and levels of selection
• evolutionary psychology and modularity
• genes, environment, and the nature/nurture debate
• neuroscience, reductionism, and the relation between biology and free will
• function, selection, and mental representation
• psychiatric classifi cation and the maladapted mind.
Extensive use of examples and case studies is made throughout the book, and additional
features such as chapter summaries, annotated further reading, and a glossary make this an
indispensable introduction to those teaching philosophy of mind and philosophy of psychology.
It will also be an excellent resource for those in related fi elds such as biology.
Justin Garson is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Hunter College, City University of New
York, USA.
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The Biological Mind
A Philosophical Introduction
Justin Garson
First published 2015
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2015 Justin Garson
The right of Justin Garson to be identifi ed as the author of this work has been asserted by him
in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form
or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without
permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks,
and are used only for identifi cation and explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
A catalog record for this title has been requested
ISBN13: 978-0-415-81027-2 (hbk)
ISBN13: 978-0-415-81028-9 (pbk)
ISBN13: 978-1-315-77187-8 (ebk)
Typeset in Franklin Gothic
by Saxon Graphics Ltd., Derby
For Rita
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Contents
Acknowledgements ix
Introduction 1
References 6
1 Altruism and egoism 7
1.1 What is altruism? 9
1.2 A social experiment 13
1.3 The nature of natural selection 17
Chapter summary and suggested readings 22
References 23
2 Designed for altruism 26
2.1 The puzzle of kindness 27
2.2 Groups and individuals 29
2.3 Group selection and kin selection 36
2.4 Parents and children 39
Chapter summary and suggested readings 42
References 44
3 Evolution and psychology 47
3.1 Evolution and the mind 48
3.2 Sociobiology 52
3.3 Cultural evolution 53
3.4 Human behavioral ecology 57
3.5 Evolutionary psychology 58
3.6 Adaptation and adaptationism 62
Chapter summary and suggested readings 69
References 71
VIII CONTENTS
4 Nature and nurture 76
4.1 What is innateness? 77
4.2 Innateness and learning 79
4.3 Genes and environment 82
4.4 Innateness and genetic information 85
4.5 Robustness and plasticity 88
Chapter summary and suggested readings 91
References 93
5 Consciousness, reduction, and the brain 96
5.1 How to reduce theories to one another 102
5.2 Reductive mechanistic explanation 106
5.3 Ruthless reduction 109
5.4 Smooth reductions, bumpy reductions, and elimination 112
Chapter summary and suggested readings 116
References 118
6 The neuroscience of free will 122
6.1 Critical neuro-epistemology 125
6.2 Did neuroscience debunk free will? 129
Chapter summary and suggested readings 133
References 134
7 How the mind makes meaning 137
7.1 Function and teleology 141
7.2 Function and representation 144
7.3 Making and using representations 149
7.4 Problems of indeterminacy 152
7.5 Explaining novel representations 158
Chapter summary and suggested readings 162
References 164
8 Psychiatry and the mismatched mind 168
8.1 Psychiatry and the crisis of legitimacy 171
8.2 Designed for madness 175
8.3 Developmental switches and predictive adaptive responses 178
8.4 Developmental plasticity and imprinting 180
Chapter summary and suggested readings 183
References 184
Glossary 188
Index 195
Acknowledgements
In writing this book I’ve accumulated a profound debt of gratitude to a number of people. First
and foremost, I’m grateful to Sahotra Sarkar, Karen Neander, and Dan McShea, for helpful
discussion. For comments on individual chapters, I’m grateful to John Bickle, Karen Neander,
Gualtiero Piccinini, Steve Ross, Sahotra Sarkar, Armin Schulz, Elliott Sober, and Şerife Tekin.
I’d also like to thank Gary Gala and Dan Moseley for discussion about the chapter on psychiatry.
For comments and feedback on the initial proposal for the book, I’d like to thank Anya Plutynski
and Elizabeth Schechter. I’m also grateful to Elizabeth Schechter for suggesting the idea of
such a book to me in the fi rst place.
I’d like to thank Tony Bruce, my editor at Routledge, for his enthusiasm about the project, his
assistance in shaping the manuscript, and for numerous suggestions. I’d also like to thank Dan
McShea and two other referees for detailed, thoughtful feedback, all of which helped to improve
the book. I thank James Thomas for his terrifi c copyediting.
I’m grateful to my former undergraduate student and research assistant, Oleksandra
Sobolyewa, for reading over each chapter carefully and providing numerous suggestions for
clarifi cation and improvement. Oleksandra was supported by an undergraduate research
fellowship funded by Hunter College-CUNY. I’m grateful to Hunter College for their generous
course-release package for junior faculty, which gave me the time I needed to write the
manuscript. Additional support for this project was provided by a PSC-CUNY award, jointly
funded by the Professional Staff Congress and the City University of New York.
Above all, I’m extremely grateful to my wife, Rita, whose love, support, and labor made this
possible. Rita was willing to do far more than her reasonable share to provide me with the time
and space to write and revise this manuscript. I dedicate the book to her. I’m also grateful to
my two boys, Elias and Noah, who provided me, inadvertently, with an unending stream of
inspiration for new ideas.