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4Grijpen of begrijpen: ecologisch denken is pure noodzaakAlgemeen Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Wijsbegeerte 115 (3): 265-271. 2023.Amsterdam University Press is a leading publisher of academic books, journals and textbooks in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Our aim is to make current research available to scholars, students, innovators, and the general public. AUP stands for scholarly excellence, global presence, and engagement with the international academic community.
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88Evolutie impliceert emergentie: Een eeuw evolutionair naturalismeAlgemeen Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Wijsbegeerte 114 (4): 472-484. 2022.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 He underestimated Darwin and the importance of studying animal behaviour, so some of his insights seem outdated.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 …Read more
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76Alleen evolutie verklaart bewustzijnAlgemeen Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Wijsbegeerte 112 (4): 503-507. 2020.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 explan…Read more
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127Ellebogenwerk en stress. De evolutie staat nooit stil.Filosofie Magazine 9 (08): 40-45. 2000.Evolution never stops. Stress is often a manifestation of competition which seems to drive human gene-culture coevolution. A popular, Dutch account on evolution in everyday life. People often claim that we are thoroughly cultural beings, but culture is based on a series of talents which are a product of directional and stabilizing selection. Culture also presupposes certain psychological characteristics. People adopt and change culture to fit their biopsychological needs.
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275Bewustzijn en de nieuwe filosofie van het d.i.e.r.In Oosterling Henk, Prins Awee & Groot Ger (eds.), Van Agora tot Markt. Acta van de 18e Nederlands-Vlaamse Filosofiedag, Erasmus Universiteit, Faculteit Der Wijsbegeerte. pp. 191-195. 1996.
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186Friedrich Nietzsche's Flirt met Paradoxen en Chaos.In Erik Heijerman & Winnie Wouters (eds.), Crisis van de rede. Perspectieven op cultuur., Van Gorcum. pp. 239-249. 1992.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, …Read more
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184De kloof tussen zin en zijn. Darwinisme, doelen en ons zoeken naar zin.In Ria van den Brandt University of Nijmegen (ed.), Het heil van de filosofie., Ambo. pp. 116-147. 1993.Philosophical questions can often be answered using evolutionary biology and evolutionary psychology. Of course, one needs a sound epistemology and philosophy os science to do so. Phenomenology and hermeneutics offer no escape route, however, because they are based on a wrong model of science. Evolutionary biology can explain teleology, the organization of nature, altruïsm, morality, and even our quest for meaning.
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436Consciousness as an Adaptation. What animals feel and why.In Andreas Blank (ed.), Animals: New Essays, Philosophia. pp. 303-332. 2016.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 gro…Read more
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1821Why some Apes became Humans, Competition, consciousness, and culture.Dissertation, Radboud University. 2002.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, cul…Read more
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59Back to Roy wood Sellars: Why his evolutionary naturalism is still worthwhileJournal of the History of Philosophy 34 (3): 425-449. 1996.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 "sc…Read more
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336Wat is menselijk? Wat is wenselijk?Krisis 7 (1): 26-41. 2006.Relatively short Dutch introduction to an evolutionary approach to morality. A synthesis is given of various models of moral evolution. Some remarks are made on a way to look at the evolution of a compatibilistic 'free will' and a model is given of a way in which the 'good' can be understood as the results of shared interests (which, of course, gives an incomplete model, but at the same time throws a lot of light on the way in which we have to resolve ethical issues).
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819Evolutionaire ethiek: kan dat?Algemeen Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Wijsbegeerte (1): 63-84. 2000.Synthesis of different models about the origin of morality with a discussion about possible normative consequences.
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1008Culture and the evolution of the human mating systemIn van der Dennen Johan M. G., Smillie David & Wilson Daniel (eds.), The Darwinian Heritage and Sociobiology, Praeger. pp. 135-161. 1999.Contrary to chimpanzees and bonobos, humans display long-term exclusive relationships between males and females. Probably all human cultures have some kind of marriage system, apparently designed to protect these exclusive relationships and the resulting offspring in a potentially sexual competitive environment. Different hypotheses about the origin of human pair-bonds are compared and it is shown how they may refer to different phases of human evolution.
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1073Paradox and tragedy in human moralityInternational Political Science Review 15 (347): 378. 1994.An evolutionary approach to ethics supports, to some extent, the sceptical meta-ethics found by some of the Greek sophists and Nietzsche. On the other hand, a modern naturalistic account on the origin and nature of morality, leads to somewhat different conclusions. This is demonstrated with an answer to three philosophical questions: does real freedom exist?, does the good, or real virtue, exist?, does life have a meaning?
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1Innate Structures of Experience: Consciousness and the Sediments of a History of ChoiceIn A. A. Derksen (ed.), The Promise of Evolutionary Epistemology, Tilburg University Press. pp. 5--101. 1998.
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319De dierlijke rede, of: kennen om te overlevenAlgemeen Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Wijsbegeerte. 1992.Evolutionary epistemology explains knowledge as an adaptation (or series of adaptations) which enables animals to behave adaptively in their environment. The aim of knowledge, then, is to act. Our knowledge-apparatus was never designed to understand the nature of the universe.
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179Aangeboren belevingsstructuren, intenties en symbolenAlgemeen Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Wijsbegeerte 85 (1): 128-137. 1993.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…Read more
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10Was homo erectus an ecological dominant species?In John R. F. Bower & S. Sartono (eds.), Evolution and Ecology of Homo erectus, Pithecanthropus Centennial Foundation. pp. 169-176. 1995.Richard Alexander explains human uniqueness by postulating that at some point an ancestral species became 'ecological dominant' and the external forces of natural selection were replaced by within-species, intergroup competition. It is argued that this transition probably took place in archaic Homo sapiens (Homo heidelbergensis) and not in Homo erectus. Homo erectus was an ecological very flexible species, however.
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595Ecological Dominance and the final sprint in hominid evolutionHuman Evolution. 1993.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 t…Read more
Areas of Specialization
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Meta-Ethics |
Value Theory |
Philosophy of Mind |
Philosophy of Biology |
History of Western Philosophy |
Normative Ethics |
General Philosophy of Science |