Abstract
The sociobiologist Edward O. Wilson argues that humans think and act in ways constrained by certain innate dispositions: epigenetic rules. These have been put in place by evolution through natural selection. Expanding this empirical claim, the thesis of this paper is that epigenetic rules throw significant light on major problems in the theory of knowledge. It is argued also that the precursor to Wilson (in this respect) was David Hume.
Camus said that the only serious philosophical question is suicide. That is wrong even in the strict sense intended. The biologist, who is concerned with questions of physiology and evolutionary history, realizes that self-knowledge is constrained and shaped by the emotional control centers in the hypothalamus and limbic system of the brain. These centers flood our consciousness with all the emotions — hate, love, guilt, fear, and others — that are consulted by ethical philosophers who wish to intuit the standards of good and evil. What, we are then compelled to ask, made the hypothalamus and limbic system? They evolved by natural selection. That simple biological statement must be pursued to explain ethics and ethical philosophers, if not epistemology and epistemologists, at all depths. (Wilson, 1975, p. 1)
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Ruse, M. (1985). Evolutionary Epistemology: Can Sociobiology Help?. In: Fetzer, J.H. (eds) Sociobiology and Epistemology. Synthese Library, vol 180. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-5370-3_12
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-5370-3_12
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