Bence Nanay

Can Cumulative Selection Explain Adaptation

Two strong arguments have been given in favor of the claim that no selection process can play a role in explaining adaptations. According to the first argument, selection is a negative force; it may explain why the eliminated individuals are eliminated, but it does not explain why the ones that survived (or their offspring) have the traits they have. The second argument points out that the explanandum and the explanans are phenomena at different levels: selection is a population‐level phenomenon, whereas adaptation occurs on the individual level. Thus, selection can explain why individuals in a certain population have a certain trait, but it cannot explain why a certain individual has this trait. After pointing out that both arguments ignore the significance of the limitation of environmental resources, I will construe a positive argument for the claim that cumulative selection processes can, indeed, play a role in explaining adaptations.

Morality or Modality? What Does the Attribution of Intentionality Depend On?

It has been argued that the attribution of intentional actions is sensitive to our moral judgment (Knobe 2003, 2004, 2006, 2007, see also Mele 2003, Phelan & Sarkissian 2008). I will examine these arguments and suggest an alternative explanation for the experiments they are based on. Joshua Knobe conducted the following experiment (Knobe 2003) to support this claim. Subjects were given two vignettes that differed only in one small detail and this difference infl uenced their attribution of intentionality. The fi rst vignette was the following:

How to (and how not to) think about top-down influences on visual perception.

The question of whether cognition can influence perception has a long history in neuroscience and philosophy. Here, we outline a novel approach to this issue, arguing that it should be viewed within the framework of top-down information-processing. This approach leads to a reversal of the standard explanatory order of the cognitive penetration debate: we suggest studying top-down processing at various levels without preconceptions of perception or cognition. Once a clear picture has emerged about which processes have influences on those at lower levels, we can re-address the extent to which they should be considered perceptual or cognitive. Using top-down processing within the visual system as a model for higher-level influences, we argue that the current evidence indicates clear constraints on top-down influences at all stages of information processing; it does, however, not support the notion of a boundary between specific types of information-processing as proposed by the cognitive impenetrability hypothesis.

The Return of the Replicator: What is Philosophically Significant in a General Account of Replication and Selection?

The aim of this paper is to outline a typologyof selection processes, and show that differentsub-categories have different explanatorypower. The basis of this typology of selectionprocesses is argued to be the difference ofreplication processes involved in them. Inorder to show this, I argue that: 1.Replication is necessary for selection and 2.Different types of replication lead todifferent types of selection. Finally, it isargued that this typology is philosophicallysignificant, since it contrasts cases ofselection (on the basis of the replicationprocesses involved in them) whereby selectioncauses adaptation – and, therefore, can beused in explanations of the (real or apparent)teleology of Nature – and cases in whichselection lacks such explanatory power.

Aesthetics as philosophy of perception

1. Aesthetics 2. Distributed attention 3. Pictures 4. Aesthetically relevant properties 5. Semi-Formalism 6. Uniqueness 7. The history of vision 8. Non-distributed attention

Do we sense modalities with our sense modalities

It has been widely assumed that we do not perceive dispositional properties. I argue that there are two ways of interpreting this assumption. On the first, extensional, interpretation whether we perceive dispositions depends on a complex set of metaphysical commitments. But if we interpret the claim in the second, intensional, way, then we have no reason to suppose that we do not perceive dispositional properties. The two most important and influential arguments to the contrary fail.

Natural selection and the limitations of environmental resources

In this paper, I am clarifying and defending my argument (Nanay 2005) in favor of the claim that cumulative selection can explain adaptation provided that the environmental resources are limited. Further, elaborate on what this limitation of environmental resources means and why it is relevant for the explanatory power of natural selection.

Population thinking as trope nominalism

The concept of population thinking was introduced by Ernst Mayr as the right way of thinking about the biological domain, but it is difficult to find an interpretation of this notion that is both unproblematic and does the theoretical work it was intended to do. I argue that, properly conceived, Mayr’s population thinking is a version of trope nominalism: the view that biological property-types do not exist or at least they play no explanatory role. Further, although population thinking has been traditionally used to argue against essentialism about biological kinds, recently it has been suggested that it may be consistent with at least some forms of essentialism—ones that construe essential properties as relational. I argue that if population thinking is a version of trope nominalism, then, as Mayr originally claimed, it rules out any version of essentialism about biological kinds.

Cognitive penetration and the gallery of indiscernibles

Here is Dantos gallery of indiscernibles thought experiment (Danto, 1981, p.1)—a thought experiment that radically transformed the kind of questions aesthetics and the philosophy of art asks today. Imagine a gallery of indiscernible canvases that are all monochrome red of the same shade and of the same size. While the observable properties of all these artworks are the same, their “meaning” and aesthetic value can be very different: if one of the paintings, made by a counterrevolutionary Russian emigre is called “Red Square” and the other one is called “The Israelites crossing the Red Sea,” then these two paintings, in spite of being indistinguishable, will have very different aesthetic value. Thus, aesthetic value is only loosely (if at all) related to perception.

Teleosemantics without Etiology

The aim of teleosemantics is to give a scientifically respectable or ‘naturalistic’ theory of mental content. This paper focuses on one of the key concepts of teleosemantics: biological function. It has been universally accepted in the teleosemantics literature that the account of biological function one should use to flesh out teleosemantics is that of etiological function. My claim is that if we replace this concept of function with an alternative one and if we also restrict the scope of teleosemantics, we can arrive at an account of biologizing mental content that is much less problematic than the previous attempts.