Truth in an Evolutionary Perspective

Authors

  • Carlos Blanco Mind-Brain Project. Institute for Culture and Society (ICS). University of Navarra

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.12775/SetF.2014.012

Keywords

truth, evolution, efficiency, intelligibility

Abstract

The perspective drawn from evolutionary science, undoubtedly one of the most remarkable intellectual achievements in our conception of the world, poses a deep challenge to epistemology and the meaning of truth. The present paper aims to examine the difficulties offered by the prevailing biological model for the emergence and development of mind in its attempt at constructing a possible philosophical theory of truth. We propose a solution which, while preserving the priority of the distinction between truth and falsehood, is nonetheless capable of reconciling its philosophical fundamentals with the scientific evidence concerning the evolutionary origin of our capacity to recognize truth and falsehood.

References

Allen, R.J., and B.R. Leiter. 2001. “Naturalized Epistemology and the Law of Evidence.” Virginia Law Review 87: 1491.

Ball, P. 2013. “DNA: Celebrate the unknowns.” Nature 496 (7446): 419-420.

Bedke, M. 2009. “Intuitive non-naturalism meets cosmic coincidence.” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 90/2: 188-209.

Bradie, M., and W. Harms. 2011. “Evolutionary epistemology.” In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2012 Edition), edited by Edward N. Zalta. URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2012/entries/epistemology-evolutionary/>

Braudel, F. 1958. “Histoire et sciences sociales: La longue durée.” Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales 13/4 EHESS.

Cantor, G. 1915. Contributions to the Founding of the Theory of Transfinite Numbers. New York: Dover.

Copp, D. 2008. “Darwinian skepticism about moral realism.” Philosophical Issues 18/1: 186-206.

Darwin, Ch. 2009. The Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection: or, the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, edited by William F. Bynum. London: Penguin Classics.

Dworkin, R. 1996. “Objectivity and truth: You'd better believe it.” Philosophy & Public Affairs 25/2: 87-139.

Enoch, D. 2011. Taking Morality Seriously: A Defense of Robust Realism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Feyerabend, P. 1975. Against Method: Outline of an Anarchistic Theory of Knowledge. Atlantic Highlands NJ: Humanities Press.

Gödel, K. 1931. “Über formal unentscheidbareSätze der Principia Mathematica und verwandterSysteme I”. Monatsheftefürmathematik und physik 38/1: 173-198.

Goethe, J.W von. 1783. “Die Natur.” GoethesWerke. Hamburger Ausgabe in 14 (1994): 45ff.

Gould, S.J., and R.C. Lewontin. 1979. “The spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian paradigm: a critique of the adaptationist programme.” Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B. Biological Sciences 205 (1161): 581-598.

Kahane, G. 2011. “Evolutionary debunking arguments.” Noûs 45/1: 103-125.

Ketelaar, T., and B.J. Ellis. 2000. “Are evolutionary explanations unfalsifiable? Evolutionary psychology and the Lakatosian philosophy of science.” Psychological Inquiry 11/1: 1-21.

Kirschner, M.W., and J.C. Gerhart. 2005. The Plausibility of Life: Resolving Darwin's Dilemma. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Lucas, J.R. 1961. “Minds, machines and Gödel.” Philosophy 36/137: 112-127.

Nagel, T. 1989. The View from Nowhere. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Nagel, T. 2012. Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is almost Certainly False. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Piaget, J. 1977. La Naissance de l'Intelligence chez l'Enfant. Paris: Delachaux et Niestlé.

Popper, K.R. 1935. Logik der Forschung: zur Erkenntnistheorie der modernen Naturwissenschaft. Berlin: Springer.

Shafer-Landau, R. 2003. Moral Realism: A Defence. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Sols, F. 2014. “Uncertainty, Incompleteness, Chance, and Design.” In Intelligible Design. A Realistic Approach to the Philosophy and History of Science, edited by M.M. Carreira and J.A. Gonzalo, 98-118. New Jersey: World Scientific.

Sperber, D., ed. 2000. Metarepresentations: A Multidisciplinary Perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Stamos, D. N. 1996. “Popper, falsifiability, and evolutionary biology.” Biology and Philosophy 11/2: 161-191.

Street, S. 2006. “A Darwinian dilemma for realist theories of value.” Philosophical Studies 127/1: 109-166.

Von Uexküll, J. 1909. Umwelt und Innenwelt der Tiere. Berlin: Springer.

Scientia et Fides

Downloads

Published

2014-05-27

How to Cite

1.
BLANCO, Carlos. Truth in an Evolutionary Perspective. Scientia et Fides. Online. 27 May 2014. Vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 203-220. [Accessed 14 October 2024]. DOI 10.12775/SetF.2014.012.

Issue

Vol. 2 No. 1 (2014)

Section

Articles

License

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

CC BY ND 4.0. The Creator/Contributor is the Licensor, who grants the Licensee a non-exclusive license to use the Work on the fields indicated in the License Agreement.

  • The Licensor grants the Licensee a non-exclusive license to use the Work/related rights item specified in § 1 within the following fields: a) recording of Work/related rights item; b) reproduction (multiplication) of Work/related rights item in print and digital technology (e-book, audiobook); c) placing the copies of the multiplied Work/related rights item on the market; d) entering the Work/related rights item to computer memory; e) distribution of the work in electronic version in the open access form on the basis of Creative Commons license (CC BY-ND 3.0) via the digital platform of the Nicolaus Copernicus University Press and file repository of the Nicolaus Copernicus University.
  • Usage of the recorded Work by the Licensee within the above fields is not restricted by time, numbers or territory.
  • The Licensor grants the license for the Work/related rights item to the Licensee free of charge and for an unspecified period of time.

FULL TEXT License Agreement

Stats

Number of views and downloads: 360
Number of citations: 2