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This book presents a persuasive argument in favour of evolutionary naturalism and outlines what such a stance means for our capacity of observation and understanding reality. The author discusses how our capacity of knowledge is adapted to handle sensory information about the environment in the light of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. The implication of this is that much of our thinking in science and philosophy that goes beyond our immediate experience rests on abstractions and hypostatization. This book rejects the possibility of having any knowledge of reality as it is in itself, while not denying that our capacity of conceptual abstractions is of great benefit for our survival.
List of contents
Preface and Introduction.- 1 Evolutionary Naturalism.- The manifest image.- The scientific image.-Kant's metaphysical dualism.- Evolutionary epistemology.- 2 Evolution and HumanCognition.- The Darwinian legacy. Setting the legacy straight.- A fallacy ofnaturalization.- Intention and innate dispositions.- 3 Sensation, Perception,and Observation.- Perception as belief acquisition.- From perception to observation.- Theory-ladenness.- Instrumentalobservation.- Observability.-4 Theory and Reality.- Forms of realism.- Conceptual frameworks and externalcommitments.- Theory realism.- The success argument.- Constructive empiricism.-Structural realism.- The failure of representationalism.- 5 Truth, Language,and Objectivity.- What istruth?.- Truth and meaning.- Non-realism concerning Truth.- A naturalized notionof truth.- Semantics and ontology.- 6 Abstraction and Reification.- Commonsense and externality.- What makes an entity abstract?.- Abstract objectsversus abstracted concepts.- Why did abstracted concepts evolve?.- 7 In Defenceof Nominalism.- Concrete, artificial, and nominal particulars.- Particulars anduniversals.- Conceptualism.- 8 Space, Time, and Space-time.- The existence of Space.-The existence of Time.- Space-time substantivalism.- Space-time relationism.- Space-timeas an abstracted concept.- Are space and time invented or discovered?.- 9Causality and Counterfactuality.- The concept.- Regularity.- Modality.- 10Human Evolution and Mathematical Physics.- Mathematics and representationalknowledge.- Mathematics - the language of quantities.- Possible worlds, many worldsand multiverses.- The Copenhagen interpretation: a non-representational view.- 11Conclusion.- Bibliography.
About the author
Jan Faye teaches
epistemology, metaphysics, and philosophy of science at the University of
Copenhagen, Denmark. He has published extensively within these areas in Danish
as well as English. Some of his latest books include After Postmodernism (2012) and The
Nature of Scientific Thinking (2014).
Summary
This book presents
a persuasive argument in favour of evolutionary naturalism and outlines what
such a stance means for our capacity of observation and understanding reality.
The author discusses how our capacity of knowledge is adapted to handle
sensory information about the environment in the light of Charles Darwin’s
theory of evolution. The implication of this is that much of our thinking in
science and philosophy that goes beyond our immediate experience rests on
abstractions and hypostatization. This book rejects the possibility of having
any knowledge of reality as it is in itself, while not denying that our
capacity of conceptual abstractions is of great benefit for our survival.
