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.

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.

In [1] Michael Polanyi argues that in order to understand how scientists come to recognize problems as problems, we must invoke a concept of “tacit knowing.” Tacit knowledge is a kind of knowledge of which we are aware but which cannot be made explicit. Polanyi argues that a paradox discussed in the Meno cannot be solved without appeal to this notion of tacit knowledge. Here I want to argue, quite simply, that Polanyi's formulation of the “paradox” can be easily subverted without an appeal to tacit knowing. Polanyi puts the paradox thus:... to search for the solution of a problem is an absurdity; for either you know what you are looking for, and then there is no problem; or you do not know what you are looking for, and then you cannot expect to find anything.

Wesley Salmon defends an ontic realism that distinguishes explanatory from descriptive knowledge. Explanatory knowledge makes appeals to (unobservable) theoretical acausal mechanisms. Salmon presents an argument designed both to legitimize attributing truth values to theoretical claims and to justify treating theoretical claims as descriptions. The argument succeeds but only at the price of calling the distinction between explanation and description into question. Even if Salmon's attempts to distinguish causal mechanisms from other mechanisms are successful, the assumed centrality of the appeal to such mechanisms in providing scientific explanations is left open by Salmon's account

The paper reviews the arguments for and against a number of criteria for event identity. The proliferation of such criteria in the 1970’s raises the question of how one is to choose between them. Eight adequacy conditions, whose own adequacy has been argued for elsewhere, are determined to be insufticient for deciding among the criteria. Some concluding remarks about the role of the adequacy conditions and the problem of choosing a criterion are offered. Finally, questions about the nature of and role of an identity criterion are raised.

The compatibility of Darwinism with religious beliefs has been the subject of vigorous debate from 1859 to the present day. Darwin himself did not think that there was any incompatibility between his theory of natural selection and the existence of God. However, he did not think that appeals to the direct or indirect activity of a Creator substantially increased our understanding of any natural phenomenon. In effect, Darwin endorsed what we would today label as ’methodological naturalism,’ roughly the view that the only legitimate elements of the explanation of natural phenomena must appeal only to natural processes, natural laws and natural regularities. In section 2, Darwin’s commitment to methodological Darwinism is documented. Section 3 addresses the question of whether methodological naturalism does or does not rule out belief in a divine Creator. Section 4 raises the question of whether methodological naturalists are also metaphysical naturalists. Finally, section 5 assesses the

One of the central themes of Hilary Putnam’s recent book, Reason, Truth and History, is the objectivity of values. The objectivity of values is a central component of the position Putnam calls “internal realism.” Internal realism is an attempt to delimit a point of view which is, on the one hand, objective, and, on the other, non-absolutistic. Internal realism is located precariously between an absolutist position which Putnam calls “metaphysical realism” and a sceptical relativism. The trick is to maintain the viability of the middle way without having the position collapse into either extreme. In this paper, I want, first, to outline the steps Putnam employs to articulate and defend his view, and second, to evaluate the extent to which Putnam is successful in threading his way between metaphysical realism and scepticism. Putnam is not completely successful insofar as the end of the book signals a partial return to the metaphysical realist position from which Putnam had been at such pains earlier to distance himself. The scheme of the paper is as follows. In section 2, I lay out the internal realist position and distinguish it from metaphysical realism and sceptical relativism. In section 3, Putnam’s central argument against metaphysical realism, which Putnam claims is also an argument against reductionism, is presented and discussed. In section 4, Putnam’s case for the objectivity of epistemic values, based upon considerations of rationality, is examined. In section 5, it is shown how the objectivity of epistemic values, conjoined with the anti-reductionist argument of section 3, leads Putnam to argue for the objectivity of ethical and aesthetic values as well. Finally, the extent to which Putnam’s position maintains its balance between realism and relativism is discussed.

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.