Abstract
This paper discusses attempts to keep track of the evolution of the human mind which are commited to a commonsense image of ourselves as both agents and interpreters, following a compatibilist line. These attempts take also a bold stance concerning the role philosophy should play in looking for an integration of that commonsense image with an image of ourselves pressuposed by the natural sciences, especially by the biological sciences. Different scenarios for the philogeny of a distinctively human kind of mind, in the space of other animal minds, are compared. A new reading of Richerson and Boyd’s dual inheritance theory is proposed by adopting that compatibilist framework.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
- 3.
It is controversial whether the social intelligence hypothesis might also be sufficient to account for the evolution of the special mindreading skills of the human mind (eventually supported by a version of folk psychology). I will not tackle this issue here (see Abrantes, 2006).
- 4.
The expression theory–theory comprises the thesis that folk psychology is a theory (with a structure similar to a scientific theory and used to attain the same descriptive and explanation aims). An alternative view is that folk psychology is a craft (Dennett), that is, it has a practical (and not a theoretical) motivation. Sterelny (1998) argues that conflicts might also arise between different crafts and practices, given their metaphysical presuppositions. Interpretation might be grounded on some version of folk psychology (as the theory-theorists presuppose) or, otherwise, on simulation or other mechanisms (Goldman, 2006).
- 5.
An approach that takes into acccount both folk psychology’s philogeny and ontogeny should not be disposed of a priori. One should expect that different descriptions of human cognitive capacities, as well as of the mechanisms that realize them, lead to different accounts not only of the evolution but also of the development of these capacities. And the other way around: evolutionary and/or developmental approaches might lead us to revise the way we ordinarily describe these capacities and underlying mechanisms.
- 6.
Usually, the following properties are associated with cognitive modules: they are innate, encapsulated and domain-specific. Evolutionary psychologists argue that our interpretive abilities are adaptations to a social life. They exemplify a nativist stance towards mindreading as a social task: one of the modules of our cognitive architecture would be specialized in solving the problem of predicting behavior, by attributing mental states to other people throught the application of a theory of mind – the content of that module (Cosmides and Toody, 2000). In this view, mindreading tasks are solved at a sub-personal level (Dennett, 1991).
- 7.
A genetic takeover process such as the Baldwin effect is not excluded, though, in this scenario.
- 8.
I discuss in detail the controversy evolution versus development concerning the intrepretive capacities in another paper: Abrantes (2010); cf. Abrantes, 2006. The third scenario presupposes that group selection has enough intensity to be taken seriously, given certain conditions prevalent in human-social environments.
- 9.
- 10.
Ratclife claims that folk psychology has “no psychological reality as an autonomous ability”; it is a philosophical abstraction “from a complex of perceptual, affective, expressive, gestural and linguistic interactions, which are scaffolded by a shared cultural context” (2005: p. 231).
- 11.
To recognize the exceptionality of human evolution doesn’t exclude, of course, the need to find out the relevant homologies between human behavior and psychological capacities, on the one side, and those of other animals, on the other side (Richerson and Boyd, 2005b: p. 104).
- 12.
They are sometimes rather dismissive about folk psychology (e.g. Richerson and Boyd, 2005b: p. 35).
- 13.
Culture’ should be viewed as a theoretical term.
- 14.
See Blackmore (2000).
- 15.
Richerson and Boyd don’t accept massive modularity, though (see note 6). They reject also a thesis evolutionary psychologists are sympathetic with: that culture is evoked by the environment (2005b: p. 44).
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Abrantes, P.C. (2011). Human Evolution: Compatibilist Approaches. In: Krause, D., Videira, A. (eds) Brazilian Studies in Philosophy and History of Science. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol 290. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-9422-3_12
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