Philosophical Darwinism

On the Origin of Knowledge by Means of Natural Selection

By: Peter Munz

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Hardcover | 18 March 1993 | Edition Number 1

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Hardcover
264 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
23.4 x 15.6 x 1.6

Hardcover

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Philosophers have not taken the evolution of human beings seriously enough. If they did, argues Peter Munz, many long-standing philosophical problems would be resolved.
One of the philosophical consequences of biology is that all the knowledge produced in evolution is "a priori" established hypothetically by chance mutation and selective retention rather than by observation and intelligent induction. For organisms as embodied theories, selection is natural. For theories as disembodied organisms, it is artificial. Following Karl Popper, the growth of knowledge is seen to be continuous from "the amoeba to Einstein."
"Philosophical Darwinism" brings perspective to contemporary debates. It has far-reaching implications for cognitive science and artificial intelligence, and questions attempts from the field of biology to reduce mental events to neural processes. Most importantly, it provides a "rational" postmodern alternative to what the author views as the unreasonable postmodern theories of Kuhn, Lyotard, and Rorty.

Industry Reviews

"Peter Munz is a genuinely interdisciplinary thinker, bridging history, philosophy, biology and more. As such, he manages to irritate staid practitioners in many fields. He manages also to combine separate insights into a unified attack on the fundamental problems of knowledge. I am not sure that he is right. I am sure that he should be heard. Critic and friend alike will come away wiser." -Michael Ruse, University of Guelph "Original and thought-provoking . . . it is well-written but not over-technical, and the subject matter will be of interest to people interested in the topics of evolution and consciousness in themselves, as well as to philosophers." -Anthony O'Hear, University of Bradford

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