Michael Bradie

This special issue for the Journal for General Philosophy of Science is devoted to exploring the impact and many ramifications of current research in evolutionary epistemology. Evolutionary epistemology is an inter- and multidisciplinary area of research that can be divided into two ever-inclusive research avenues. One research avenue expands on the EEM program and investigates the epistemology of evolution. The other research avenue builds on the EET program and researches the evolution of epistemology. Since its conception, EE has developed three schools of thought: adaptationist, non-adaptationist, and applied EE. Although diverse in outlook and theoretical background, these research avenues and schools share the same agenda of understanding how knowledge evolves, and how it relates to the world. In this paper, we first explain wherefrom evolutionary epistemological schools of thought developed, and then we highlight current debates in EE by briefly reviewing the papers that form part of this special issue.

The fundamental dialectic of Science as a Process is the interaction between two narrative levels. At one level, the book is a historical narrative of one aspect of one ongoing problem in systematics - the dispute between cladists and more traditional evolutionary taxonomists and amongst the cladists themselves on the correct method of classifying species. This narrative is replete with details of the process whereby scientists promote and publish their ideas. It is an informative and somewhat ‘racy’ account of the rough and tumble battleground of ideas which puts the lie to the mythical ideal of the scientist as disinterested pursuer of the Truth. At the second level, Hull presents a theoretical model of the scientific process - a model which draws heavily on invoked similarities between biological and scientific change. The narrative serves as the evidence for the model. The model, in turn, helps shape the historical narrative.

INTRODUCTIONThe contemporary debate over the moral status of animals reflects a mixture of traditions. Utilitarianism, which measures moral standing in terms of the ability to suffer, has been used to defend the widening-circle conception of morality. The difference between humans and other animals vis-à-vis moral standing diminishes in its light. Focusing on questions of agency, conscience, and reflective powers, the differences between humans and nonhumans seem greater. Darwinism has been invoked to bridge the gaps between the intellectual and moral capacities of humans and those of other animals. This has led some to argue either that differences in agency, conscience, and the power to reflect are overrated or that they may not be absolute indicators of moral consideration.Debates over the moral status of nonhuman animals have had a long and stormy history. The considerations that drive the current debate – questions of the intellectual capacities of animals, questions about their moral sensibilities, and questions about their sensitive capacities – are ancient. Nonetheless, they first began to assume their modern form in the writings of the eighteenth-century British moral philosophers. Those individuals were struggling with the moral implications of discoveries in the natural sciences and an increasingly secularized approach to philosophical issues. Vivisection experiments and rudimentary anatomical studies not only showed that the bodies of animals were remarkably similar to the bodies of human beings but also showed that the brutes were capable of experiencing pain and suffering.

The most trenchant criticism of naturalistic approaches to epistemology is that they are unable to successfully deal with norms and questions of justification. Epistemology without norms, it is alleged, is epistemology in name only, an endeavor not worth doing. What one makes of this depends on whether one takes epistemology to be worth doing in the first place. However, I shall argue, it is possible to account for justification within a naturalistic framework broadly construed along Quinean lines. Along the way I shall offer a corrective to Quine’s celebrated dictum that the Humean condition is the human condition.

Lynch, Parke, and O’Malley highlight the need for better evaluative criteria for causal explanations in microbiome research. They propose new interventionist criteria, show that paradigmatic examples of microbiome explanations are flawed using those criteria, and suggest numerous ways microbiome explanations can be improved. While we endorse their primary criticisms and suggestions for improvements in microbiome research, we make several observations regarding the use of mooted causal models in microbiome research that have significant implications for their overall argument. In sum, we contend that their critique is too modest and that even flawed causal inferences like those they criticize can be valuable for generating better causal models and evaluating explanatory outcomes in individual cases.

From 1914 on Russell's epistemology was dominated by the attempt to show how we come by our knowledge of the external world. As he gradually became aware of the inadequacies of the "pure empiricist" approach, Russell realized that his program was viable only insofar as certain postulates of inference were allowed. In this paper I trace the development of the structural postulates from Analysis of Matter to Human Knowledge. The basic continuity of Russell's thought is established. Certain confusions implicit in the various formulations of the postulates are brought to light. Finally, it is argued that the viability of Russell's program rests on a larger number of independent postulates than he thought were needed. Some implications of Russell's work for current work in the philosophy of science are briefly sketched.

Harold Kincaid’s Individualism and the Unity of Science is a subtle and nuanced analysis of the interlocking themes and issues surrounding the struggle between ‘holists’ and ‘individualists’ in the social sciences. Two major claims, one substantial and one methodological, emerge from this analysis. The substantial claim is a defense of a ‘non-reductive unity’ of the sciences. The methodological claim is that the disputes between reductionists and pluralists or between individualists and holists are empirical and not conceptual disputes. In this paper, I focus on what I take to be Kincaid’s central theses.

There are two interrelated but distinct programs which go by the name evolutionary epistemology. One attempts to account for the characteristics of cognitive mechanisms in animals and humans by a straightforward extension of the biological theory of evolution to those aspects or traits of animals which are the biological substrates of cognitive activity, e.g., their brains, sensory systems, motor systems, etc. (EEM program). The other program attempts to account for the evaluation of ideas, scientific theories and culture in general by using models and metaphors drawn from evolutionary biology (EET program). The paper begins by distinguishing the two programs and discussing the relationship between them. The next section addresses the metaphorical and analogical relationship between evolutionary epistemology and evolutionary biology. Section IV treats the question of the locus of the epistemological problem in the light of an evolutionary analysis. The key questions here involve the relationship between evolutionary epistemology and traditional epistemology and the legitimacy of evolutionary epistemology as epistemology. Section V examines the underlying ontological presuppositions and implications of evolutionary epistemology. Finally, section VI, which is merely the sketch of a problem, addresses the parallel between evolutionary epistemology and evolutionary ethics.