•  16
    In this chapter we consider the tension between how pain researchers today typically define pains and the dominant, ordinary conception of pain. While both philosophers and pain scientists define pains as experiences, taking this to correspond with the ordinary understanding, recent empirical evidence indicates that laypeople tend to think of pains as qualities of bodily states. How did this divide come about? To answer, we sketch the historical origins of the concept of pain in Western medicine…Read more
  •  2
    Is the Cannibal a Good Sport?
    with Yannick Joye
    In Fritz Allhoff, Jesús Ilundáin‐Agurruza & Michael W. Austin (eds.), Cycling ‐ Philosophy for Everyone, Wiley‐blackwell. 2010.
    This chapter contains sections titled: The Cannibal Culpable Cannibalism? Winning the Right Way In Control Even after a Blowout Last Pedal Strokes … Notes.
  •  9
    Scientific activities strongly depend on concepts and classifications to represent the world in an orderly and workable manner. This creates a trade-off. On the one hand, it is important to leave space for conceptual and classificatory criticism. On the other hand, agreement on which concepts and classifications to use, is often crucial for communication and the integration of research and ideas. In this paper, we show that this trade-off can sometimes be best resolved through conceptual governa…Read more
  •  2
    Chapter 25. Harmless Dysfunctions and the Problem of Normal Variation
    with Jonathan Scholl
    In Luc Faucher & Denis Forest (eds.), Defining Mental Disorders: Jerome Wakefield and his Critics, Mit Press. pp. 495-510. 2021.
    In one of his key publications on the harmful dysfunction analysis of mental disorder (HDA), Jerome Wakefield acknowledged that he has “explored the value element in disorder less thoroughly than the factual element. This is in part because the factual component poses more of a problem for inferences about disorder and in part because the nature of values is such that it requires separate consideration” (Wakefield 1992, 384). More than twenty years have passed since this remark, and yet a thorou…Read more
  •  13
    Millions of scientific articles are published each year, making it difficult to stay abreast of advances within even the smallest subdisciplines. Traditional approaches to the study of science, such as the history and philosophy of science, involve closely reading a relatively small set of journal articles. And yet many questions benefit from casting a wider net: Is most scientific change gradual or revolutionary? What are the key sources of scientific novelty? Over the past several decades, a m…Read more
  •  9
    Philosophy of Science Can Prevent Manslaughter
    with Pierre Delaere and Kristien Hens
    Journal of Bioethical Inquiry 19 (4): 537-543. 2022.
    In September 2020, the surgeon Paulo Macchiarini, who used stem cell technology to enable the transplants of artificial and donor trachea, was charged with aggravated assault in Sweden. In this comment, we argue that the Ethics Council of the Karolinska Institute should have considered issues from philosophy of science when they were brought to their attention, rather than dismiss them as irrelevant to research ethics. We demonstrate how conceptual issues of a philosophy-of-science-kind about cl…Read more
  •  26
    A recent controversy about neural networks allegedly capable of detecting a person’s sexual orientation raises the question of whether all research on homosexuality should be permitted. This paper considers two arguments for limits to such research, and concludes that there are good reasons to limit at least the dissemination of applied research on the etiology of homosexuality. The paper then briefly sketches how this could work, and looks at three objections against these limitations.
  •  100
    Is Cultural Fitness Hopelessly Confused?
    British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 68 (2). 2017.
    Fitness is a central concept in evolutionary theory. Just as it is central to biological evolution, so, it seems, it should be central to cultural evolutionary theory. But importing the biological fitness concept to CET is no straightforward task—there are many features unique to cultural evolution that make this difficult. This has led some theorists to argue that there are fundamental problems with cultural fitness that render it hopelessly confused. In this essay, we defend the coherency of c…Read more
  •  47
    In this paper, we distinguish two different approaches to cultural evolution. One approach is meme-centered, the other organism-centered. We argue that in situations in which the meme- and organism-centered approaches are competing alternatives, the organism-centered approach is in many ways superior. Furthermore, the organism-centered approach can go a long way toward understanding the evolution of institutions. Although the organism-centered approach is preferable for a broad class of situatio…Read more
  •  1424
    Culture and Cognitive Science
    Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2022.
    Human behavior and thought often exhibit a familiar pattern of within group similarity and between group difference. Many of these patterns are attributed to cultural differences. For much of the history of its investigation into behavior and thought, however, cognitive science has been disproportionately focused on uncovering and explaining the more universal features of human minds—or the universal features of minds in general. This entry charts out the ways in which this has changed over rece…Read more
  •  31
    Beware of the Philosophical Expert
    Philosophy Today 64 (4): 871-876. 2020.
    Many philosophers and lay people believe that philosophy has an important role to play in times of societal crisis. In this contribution reasons are given to doubt the supposed societal relevance of philosophy.
  •  13
    Would Relaxation of the Anti-doping Rule Lead to Red Queen Effects?
    with Bengt Kayser
    Sport, Ethics and Philosophy 15 (3): 1-15. 2020.
    One of the claims sometimes advanced in favour of anti-doping is that allowing doping would lead to a uniform increase in performance in comparison to no doping. The idea is that if all athletes wo...
  •  24
    Why Mental Disorders Are Just Mental Dysfunctions (and Nothing More): Some Darwinian Arguments
    Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 39 (3): 338-346. 2008.
    Mental disorders are often thought to be harmful dysfunctions. Jerome Wakefield has argued that such dysfunctions should be understood as failures of naturally selected functions. This suggests that evolutionary biology and other Darwinian disciplines hold important information for anyone working on answering the philosophical question, "What is a mental disorder?". In this article, the author argues that Darwinian theory is not only relevant to the understanding of the disrupted functions, but …Read more
  •  9
    In this paper, we distinguish two different approaches to cultural evolution. One approach is meme-centered, the other organism-centered. We argue that in situations in which the meme- and organism-centered approaches are competing alternatives, the organism-centered approach is in many ways superior. Furthermore, the organism-centered approach can go a long way toward understanding the evolution of institutions. Although the organism-centered approach is preferable for a broad class of situatio…Read more
  •  9
    Commentary on Lesly Newson and Peter Richerson, Moral Beliefs about Homosexuality: Testing a Cultural Evolutionary Hypothesis
  •  16
    Sports, ethics, integrity and spirituality
    with Jan Tolleneer, An De Kock, and Paul Schotsmans
    status: published.
  •  14
    Darwinism and the cultural evolution of sports
    with Siegfried Dewitte
    Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 52 (1): 1-16. 2008.
    Evolutionary theory has gained some ground in the social sciences, but not without resistance. It must be said that at least some of the resistance on the part of social scientists is justified insofar as social and cultural phenomena such as sports are often much more complex than many evolutionary theorists seem to think. We propose in this paper an evolutionary approach to sports that takes into account its profoundly cultural character, thereby overcoming the traditional nature-culture dicho…Read more
  •  119
    Philosophy and the Biology of Male Homosexuality
    Philosophy Compass 10 (7): 479-488. 2015.
    This paper is a review of how biological as well as other scientific theories, concepts and findings have been used to answer philosophical questions regarding the nature of male homosexuality. We argue that while these sciences are certainly relevant for present philosophical debates, few of the different philosophical issues surrounding male homosexuality can be settled by science alone. In the first section, we introduce a number of various essentialist and constructivist views on (male) homo…Read more
  •  26
    Pathologizing sexual deviance: a history
    Journal of Sex Research 50 (3). 2013.
    This article provides a historical perspective on how both American and European psychiatrists have conceptualized and categorized sexual deviance throughout the past 150 years. During this time, quite a number of sexual preferences, desires, and behaviors have been pathologized and depathologized at will, thus revealing psychiatry's constant struggle to distinguish mental disorder--in other words, the "perversions," "sexual deviations," or "paraphilias"--from immoral, unethical, or illegal beha…Read more
  •  11474
    Ideological diversity, hostility, and discrimination in philosophy
    with Uwe Peters, Nathan Honeycutt, and Lee Jussim
    Philosophical Psychology 33 (4): 511-548. 2020.
    Members of the field of philosophy have, just as other people, political convictions or, as psychologists call them, ideologies. How are different ideologies distributed and perceived in the field? Using the familiar distinction between the political left and right, we surveyed an international sample of 794 subjects in philosophy. We found that survey participants clearly leaned left (75%), while right-leaning individuals (14%) and moderates (11%) were underrepresented. Moreover, and strikingly…Read more
  •  481
    Is de filosofie te links?
    Algemeen Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Wijsbegeerte 109 (1): 105-122. 2017.
    Ideological diversity has been on the research agenda in the social sciences for a couple of years. Yet in philosophy, the topic has not attracted much interest. This article tries to start filling this gap. We discuss a number of possible causes for the underrepresentation of right-wing and conservative philosophers in the academic profession. We also argue why this should be an important concern, not only morally, but also and primarily epistemically. Lastly, we explore whether the situation i…Read more
  •  13
    Mating games: cultural evolution and sexual selection
    with S. Dewitte
    Biology and Philosophy 22 (4): 475-491. 2007.
    In this paper, we argue that mating games, a concept that denotes cultural practices characterized by a competitive element and an ornamental character, are essential drivers behind the emergence and maintenance of human cultural practices. In order to substantiate this claim, we sketch out the essential role of the game’s players and audience, as well as the ways in which games can mature and turn into relatively stable cultural practices. After outlining the life phase of mating games – their …Read more
  •  79
    'Nature and I are Two': A Critical Examination of the Biophilia Hypothesis
    with Yannick Joye
    Environmental Values 20 (2). 2011.
    In 1984, Edward O. Wilson proposed the idea that natural selection has resulted in an adaptive love of life-forms and life—like processes ('biophilia') in humans. To date, the idea of biophilia has been viewed as an ultimate explanation of many conservation attitudes in humans. In this paper, we contend that environmental ethics has little to gain from the biophilia hypothesis. First, the notion is open to various and even conflicting interpretations. Second, the empirical findings that do seem …Read more
  •  25
    Why Darwinians Should Not Be Afraid of Mary Douglas--And Vice Versa: The Case of Disgust
    Philosophy of the Social Sciences 42 (4): 459-488. 2012.
    Evolutionary psychology and human sociobiology often reject the mere possibility of symbolic causality. Conversely, theories in which symbolic causality plays a central role tend to be both anti-nativist and anti-evolutionary. This article sketches how these apparent scientific rivals can be reconciled in the study of disgust. First, we argue that there are no good philosophical or evolutionary reasons to assume that symbolic causality is impossible. Then, we examine to what extent symbolic caus…Read more
  •  17
    Evolutionary psychology and human sociobiology often reject the mere possibility of symbolic causality. Conversely, theories in which symbolic causality plays a central role tend to be both anti-nativist and anti-evolutionary. This article sketches how these apparent scientific rivals can be reconciled in the study of disgust. First, we argue that there are no good philosophical or evolutionary reasons to assume that symbolic causality is impossible. Then, we examine to what extent symbolic caus…Read more
  •  26
    Drift en ziekte. Over het waarom Van freuds antropologische wending
    Tijdschrift Voor Filosofie 64 (2): 325-352. 2002.
    Freud's anthropology is in fact little more than an amplified psychiatry. For Freud, the human being is in essence a sick animal. In this paper the author discusses why Freud made this so-called 'anthropological turn'. First it is shown that Freud wanted his psychoanalytic theory to be a 'Philosophy of Man'. Secondly it is argued that this can only be the case if the determinants of pathology, that psychoanalysis claimed to have discovered, are constitutive of human subjectivity. This means that…Read more
  •  49
    Amusing ourselves to death? Superstimuli and the evolutionary social sciences
    with Bart du Laing
    Philosophical Psychology 23 (6): 821-843. 2010.
    Some evolutionary psychologists claim that humans are good at creating superstimuli, and that many pleasure technologies are detrimental to our reproductive fitness. Most of the evolutionary psychological literature makes use of some version of Lorenz and Tinbergen’s largely embryonic conceptual framework to make sense of supernormal stimulation and bias exploitation in humans. However, the early ethological concept “superstimulus” was intimately connected to other erstwhile core ethological not…Read more