Pouwel Slurink

Neanderthals were intelligent hunters and technologists who survived the Arctic tundra thanks to their courage, craftsmanship, and stamina. Competition among the best hunters and craftsmen may have driven their sexual and social selection. However, when Homo sapiens spread out from Africa, they brought additional skills in language, social intelligence, and weapon production. This study investigates whether arms races, self-domestication, or both drove the evolution of Homo sapiens in Africa. In any case, many of our unique characteristics appear to stem from the emergence and development of our species in Africa, setting us apart from the Neanderthals and Denisovans encountered by Homo sapiens populations in Europe and Asia.

The question, "What philosophical paradigm shift is necessary?" inspired the essays in this volume. This essay argues that we must start viewing humans as an integral part of nature because our survival depends on it. Naturalism compels us to integrate the humanities and natural sciences, a move with far-reaching consequences. It also compels us to adopt a different ecological attitude. Rather than viewing ourselves as above nature, we must work with it to help the entire ecological system, on which we depend, move forward for future generations. The various subfields of philosophy are discussed. The implications of ecological naturalism for these areas are examined.

One hundred years ago, Roy Wood Sellars' "Evolutionary Naturalism" (1922) was published, a somewhat forgotten milestone in the development of a non-reductionist naturalism. Sellars did not yet speak of emergence but of "novelty", but saw the importance of systemic properties. He underestimated Darwin and the importance of studying animal behaviour, so some of his insights seem outdated. On the other hand, he was ahead of his time with ideas that are still valuable today. He therefore deserves a place in the development of evolutionary naturalism and in the history of philosophy in general.

There is still too little attention for unique status of evolutionary explanations within philosophy, one hundred and fifty years after Darwin's 'Descent of Man' (1871). Evolutionary explanations clarify characteristics of organisms without getting stuck in genetic, physiological or mechanical details. You don't need to know exactly how the colors of a peacock’s tail originate to know why she has so many eyes: females see how healthy and strong males are. In the same way, an evolutionary explanation of consciousness is possible without fully understanding the responsible neural networks. In this way we can better understand the role of consciousness in the formation of behavior and we do not fall into the trap of seeing it only as a side effect. Moreover, an evolutionary explanation sheds light on the role of emotions in consciousness and on their different manifestations in humans and other animals.

Lecture on Nietzsche's relativism and perspectivism given at a conference on the 'crisis of reason' in Amersfoort, the Netherlands, October 26, 1991. Nietzsche claims that truth does not exist and knowledge is not possible, because knowledge serves life and is bound to an organic position. In fact, this is a paradox that refutes itself. Knowledge has evolved precisely because organisms must have limited, perspectivistic knowledge of their environment from a subjective point of view. In science, subjectivity can even be transcended to some extent by making models that take into account the effects of our subjective experience of the world. The fact that theories are ‘just models’, ‘just interpretations’ does not mean that knowledge is impossible, because models and interpretations can be improved, corrected and be more or less adequate. In fact, Nietzsche relativism is incompatible with his metaphysical, psychological and ethical claims which implicitly claim a kind of philosophical or scientific progress.

Evolutionary epistemology (Lorenz, Vollmer) and value-driven decision theory (Pugh) are used to explain the fundamental properties of consciousness. It is shown that this approach is compatible with global workspace theory (Baars) and global neuronal workspace theory (De Haene). The emotions are, however, that what drives consciousness. A hypothetical evolutionary tree of the emotions is given – intended to show that consciousness evolves and is probably qualitatively different in different groups of animals.

Chapter 1 (To know in order to survive) & Chapter 2 (A critique of evolved reason) explain human knowledge and its limits from an evolutionary point of view. Chapter 3 (Captured in our Cockpits) explains the evolution of consciousness, using value driven decision theory. Chapter 4-6 (Chapter 4 Sociobiology, Chapter 5 Culture: the Human Arena), Chapter 6, Genes, Memes, and the Environment) show that to understand culture you have at least to deal with 4 levels: genes, brains, the environment, culture. Chapter 7-8 (Why some apes became humans) give a model of human evolution in which Alexander's concept of 'ecological dominace' plays a crucial role.

Evolutionary naturalism is a consistent philosophy that integrates evolutionary epistemology and evolutionary psychology, as well as the latest insights into human evolution. The book outlines the principles of modern evolutionary naturalism and its metaphysical and epistemological presuppositions. It focuses on cautious, adaptive explanations of consciousness, free will, human culture, and religion. While these explanations are provisional and speculative, the adaptive approach is innovative and radical, challenging many assumptions that have dominated Western philosophy.

Back to Roy Wood Sellars: Why His Evolutionary Naturalism Is Still Worthwhile POUWEL SLURINK 1. INTRODUCTION AT THE MOMENT, naturalism is fashionable as never before. Several of the most prominent living philosophers -- e.g., Quine, Churchland, Ruse -- call them- selves naturalists. However, it is not always that clear what really is meant by naturalism, apart from a philosophy in which science plays a large role. This lack of clarity stems in part from the uncertainty about what is meant by "science"--physics, biology, or both of them. But partly it also stems from different interpretations of the impact of scientific models on philosophical reflections. In this article I propose a return to the writings of the "evolutionary naturalist" Roy Wood Sellars . He was the father of Wilfrid Sellars, but I think that the philosophy of Sellars pbre is a better starting-point for "a reading programme" for modern naturalists than the philosophy of Sellarsfi/s, in spite of the claim of the latter that "Critical Realism and Evolutionary Natural- ism.., and all that they imply, are part of my paternal inheritance."' Al- though it may be true that much of the philosophy of Wilfrid Sellars is rooted in the philosophy of his father, we miss the illuminating evolutionary consider- ations characteristic of his father's philosophy in most of his work, and we can see a tendency to expect too much..

This paper was published in an issue of the ANTW, Dutch General Journal of Philosophy, dedicated to the work of Paul Churchland. It criticizes Churchland for neglecting the relationships of animals to their environments and their innate subjectivity, which guides them through their environment. The concept of an emotional a priori is introduced, 'the innate structures of experience', analogue to Kant's cognitive a priori. Subjectivity is an evolved property which enables organisms to adapt their genetic interests to a particular environment.

In contrast to many other models of human evolution the "balance of power" theory of Alexander has a clear answer to the question why a runaway selection process for unique social and moral capacities occurred in our ancestry only and not in other species: "ecological dominance" is hypothesized to have diminished the effects of "extrinsic" forces of natural selection such that within-species, intergroup competition increased (Alexander, 1989). Alexander seems to be wrong, however, in his claim that already the common HUCHIBO (Humans, Chimps, Bonobo's)-ancestor has crossed the ecological dominance barrier. In this paper an adapted version of Alexander's model is presented and several different ways are proposed to make this adapted version testable. A preliminary survey of the available paleontological and paleoecological data suggests that there is some evidence of a less vulnerable position towards predators in early Homo and that there are clear signs related to a crossing of the ecological dominance barrier in Homo sapiens sapiens.