An epistemological problem for evolutionary psychology

Abstract

This article draws out an epistemological tension implicit in Cosmides and Tooby's conception of evolutionary psychology. Cosmides and Tooby think of the mind as a collection of functionally individuated, domain‐specific modules. Although they do not explicitly deny the existence of domain‐general processes, it will be shown that their methodology commits them to the assumption that only domain‐specific cognitive processes are capable of producing useful outputs. The resultant view limits the scope of biologically possible cognitive accomplishments and these limitations, it will be argued, are such as to deny us epistemic capacities that evolutionary psychology presupposes in its pursuit of an objective, comprehensive account of human nature.

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to Brian Garvey and two anonymous referees of this journal for helpful comments on an earlier version of this article.

Notes

Matthew Ratcliffe is a Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Durham.

Correspondence to: Matthew Ratcliffe, Department of Philosophy, University of Durham, 50 Old Elvet, Durham, DH1 3HN, UK. Email: [email protected]

The more general meaning of ‘evolutionary psychology’ is adopted by the contributors to Heyes and Haber, eds. (2000) and Holcomb, ed. (2001). See Heyes (2000, 3) for a discussion.

See Pinker (2002, Part I) for a long list of those who have allegedly advocated a blank slate conception of the mind.

For a discussion of the SSSM, see Cosmides and Tooby (1992, 24–32).

For a discussion of solvability and evolvability constraints, see Cosmides and Tooby (1994a, 89; 1994b, 49, 55).

See Gould and Lewontin (1979), Lewontin (1978) and Dennett (1995, chapter 10 in particular) for differing conceptions of ‘adaptationism’ and contrasting assessments of the merits of ‘adaptationist’ reasoning in biology. See Sterelny and Griffiths (1999, Chapter 10) for a less partial overview of the debate.

The individuation of modules thus proceeds differently from the individuation of organs in mainstream biology. As Amundson and Lauder (1994) note, both functional and anatomical considerations play a role in organ individuation.

As an example of a specific modular hypothesis, consider the popular claim that we have a module for dealing with other minds. See Carruthers and Smith, eds. (1996).

See the essays in Heyes and Haber, eds. (2000) and Holcomb, ed. (2001) for a more general overview of conceptual issues in evolutionary psychology. The contributors to Heyes and Haber's volume are generally critical of Cosmides and Tooby's version of evolutionary psychology and argue for a broader program that draws on many different disciplines.

This complaint is made, in various ways, by most of the contributors to Rose and Rose (2000).

See Campbell (1982, 96–101) for a comprehensive discussion of the various ways in which comparisons between evolutionary epistemology and Kant have been invoked historically.

For a more general indication of the extent to which evolutionary psychology was anticipated by evolutionary epistemologists working some years earlier, see the articles in Plotkin (1982).

Lewontin's position is controversial in many other respects. However I have only employed his claims as an illustration of the relatively uncontroversial point that the world can be divided up into any number of very different problems. See Sterelny and Griffiths (1999, chapter 11) for a summary of Lewontin's claims and of the debates surrounding them.

Ratcliffe (2002) argues that evolutionary accounts of intentional states fail to recognise such possibilities and adopt the untenable position that belief is an adapted but wholly general mind‐world link.

The title of Pinker's 1998 popular book, How the Mind Works, epitomises this observation.

Many social critics of evolutionary psychology argue that the classification system assumed by evolutionary psychologists is also structured by contingent and implicit social, political and broadly ideological motivations. See Rose and Rose (2000).

See Gould and Vrba (1982) for a discussion of what is meant by the term ‘exaptation’ and several examples of possible exaptations. See Gould and Lewontin (1979) for the first use of the term ‘spandrel’ in biology.

For a number of different perspectives on the evolution of scientific cognition, see Carruthers, Stich and Siegal (2002).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Matthew Ratcliffe

Matthew Ratcliffe is a Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Durham. Correspondence to: Matthew Ratcliffe, Department of Philosophy, University of Durham, 50 Old Elvet, Durham, DH1 3HN, UK. Email: [email protected]