Frederick Rauscher

Evolutionary Psychology: Alternative Approaches

Acknowledgements. Contributors. Alternative approaches to evolutionary psychology: introduction F. Rauscher, S.J. Scher. Nature read in truth or flaw: locating alternatives in evolutionary psychology. S.J. Scher, F. Rauscher. The evaluation of competing approaches within human evolutionary psychology. T. Ketelaar. Evolution, morality, and human potential. D.S. Wilson. Repeated assembly: prospects for saying what we mean. L. Caporael. Human triangles: genes, sex and economics in human evolution. N. Eldredge. The optimal number of fathers: evolution, demography, and history in the shaping of female mate preferences. S. Blaffer Hrdy. Dancing in the dark: evolutionary psychology and the argument from design. K.C. Stolz, P. Griffiths. Adaptationism and psychological explanation. D. Murphy. Toward a developmental evolutionary psychology: genes, development, and the evolution of cognitive architecture. S. Quartz. Modules, brain parts, and evolutionary psychology. W. Bechtel. Evolutionary psychology and the information-processing model of cognition. J. Mundale. Evolutionary psychology and artificial life. D. Parisi.

The Appendix to the Dialectic and the Canon of Pure Reason: The Positive Role of Reason

“There must somewhere be a source of positive cognitions that belong in the domain of pure reason, and that perhaps give occasion for errors only through misunderstanding, but that in fact constitute the goal of the strenuous effort of reason” (A 795-6/B 823-4). After 800 pages of a book officially dedicated to critiquing reason, and one that seems up to this point to have disparaged reason to the point that its proper role in knowledge appears to be simply to avoid any involvement, Kant seems finally to begin to speak of reason in encouraging terms. In the first page of the Canon of Pure Reason, Kant holds out the hope that the practical use of reason can succeed where the theoretical use of reason has failed - namely, to satisfy “the unquenchable desire to find a firm footing beyond all bounds of experience” (A 796/B 824). The highest aim of reason concerns “what is to be done”, and the ideas of soul, world, and God have their true value in defending the related morally important claims of immortality of the soul, freedom of the will from natural causality, and the existence of God (A 797/B 825f). The practical use of reason, it seems, is the only legitimate use of reason at all. Despite this language, Kant had in fact already provided a legitimate theoretical use of reason 100 pages earlier in the Appendix to the Transcendental Dialectic. The three main ideas of reason - soul, world, and God - cannot refer to any object beyond experience but must be used within experience to order cognitions of the understanding.

How a Kantian Can Accept Evolutionary Metaethics

Contrary to widely held assumptions, an evolutionary metaethics need not be non-cognitivist. I define evolutionary metaethics as the claim that certain phenotypic traits expressing certain genes are both necessary and sufficient for explanation of all other phenotypic traits we consider morally significant. A review of the influential cognitivist Immanuel Kant‘s metaethics shows that much of his ethical theory is independent of the anti-naturalist metaphysics of transcendental idealism which itself is incompatible with evolutionary metaethics. By matching those independent aspects to an evolutionary metaethics a cognitivist Kantian evolutionary metaethical theory is a possibility for researchers to consider.

Nature Read in Truth or Flaw

Evolutionary psychology is a powerful new methodology in psychology. Its practitioners claim success in reading human nature where previous methods in psychology have failed. But whether nature is read in truth or with flaws depends in part on a serious study of the exact methods used in evolutionary psychology.

Kant on Moral Autonomy ed. by Oliver Sensen (review)

Gianni Paganini identifies another source of Bayle’s influence on Hume, arguing that in the first part of the section “Of the Immateriality of the Soul” of the Treatise Hume not only drew heavily on Bayle’s Réponse aux questions d’un provincial, but replied to the latter’s aporias. Claire Etchegaray, taking an approach more systematic than historical, focuses on Hume’s and Reid’s views on skepticism about the existence of external objects. In part 3, Nicolas Correard analyzes the nature and similarities of the forms of mitigated skepticism adopted by Jean-Baptiste Boyer d’Argens, Louis de Beausobre, and Voltaire. Voltaire’s relationship to skepticism is also the object of the chapter by Stéphane Pujol, whose line of argument and conceptual distinctions are not always clear. In his clearly written essay, Marc-André Nadeau argues that the theoretical involuntary skepticism adopted by Rousseau in La profession de foi du vicaire Savoyard evolved in his later writings into an existential skepticism, that is, a skepticism that can be lived. Charles’s second contribution examines Jacques-Pierre Brissot de Warville’s intellectual itinerary from a universal Pyrrhonism to a revolutionary skepticism that ascribes pragmatic value to the theory of human rights without purporting to provide an epistemic foundation. Smith opens part 4, arguing that Kant was concerned with three forms of skepticism— Cartesian, Baylean, and Humean—in each of which he found something he could integrate into his critical philosophy. Ives Raddrizani addresses the position of Salomon Maimon, which the latter described as skeptical and which was formulated in connection with his criticism of Kant’s transcendental philosophy. The papers by Italo Testa and Massimiliano Biscuso are devoted to Hegel. While the former offers a clear analysis of the religious skepticism adopted by Hegel in his early writings and inspired by the critical attitude distinctive of the Enlightenment, the latter claims that Hegel viewed skepticism as a crucial moment in the construction of any true philosophy. Finally, the two essays of part 5 explore “some echoes” of eighteenth-century skepticism in nineteenth-century French philosophy. Frédéric Brahami examines the post-revolutionary thinkers’ equation of Enlightenment with skepticism, arguing that the reason is to be found in the fact that Enlightenment philosophy was seen as calling into question all institutions, customs, and beliefs, thus being responsible for the Reign of Terror. Philip Knee discusses Lamennais’s criticism of the modern genesis of skepticism in Descartes and Rousseau, and his attempt at overcoming it by appealing to the authority of “historical consciousness.” The present collection is clear proof that scholarship on the history and philosophical significance of modern skepticism is as vigorous as ever. D i e g o E . M a c h u c a CONICET, Argentina