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The Evolution Of Reason


The Evolution Of Reason
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The Evolution Of Reason


The Evolution Of Reason
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Author : William S. Cooper
language : en
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Release Date : 2001

The Evolution Of Reason written by William S. Cooper and has been published by Cambridge University Press this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2001 with Nature categories.


The formal systems of logic have ordinarily been regarded as independent of biology, but recent developments in evolutionary theory suggest that biology and logic may be intimately interrelated. In this book, William Cooper outlines a theory of rationality in which logical law emerges as an intrinsic aspect of evolutionary biology. This biological perspective on logic, though at present unorthodox, could change traditional ideas about the reasoning process. Cooper examines the connections between logic and evolutionary biology and illustrates how logical rules are derived directly from evolutionary principles, and therefore have no independent status of their own. Laws of decision theory, utility theory, induction, and deduction are reinterpreted as natural consequences of evolutionary processes. Cooper's connection of logical law to evolutionary theory ultimately results in a unified foundation for an evolutionary science of reason. It will be of interest to professionals and students of philosophy of science, logic, evolutionary theory, and cognitive science.



The Roots Of Reason


The Roots Of Reason
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Author : David Papineau
language : en
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Release Date : 2003

The Roots Of Reason written by David Papineau and has been published by Oxford University Press this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2003 with Philosophy categories.


David Papineau presents a controversial view of human reason, portraying it as a normal part of the natural world, and drawing on the empirical sciences to illuminate its workings. In these six interconnected essays he offers a fresh approach to some long-standing problems. Papineau rejects the contemporary orthodoxy that genuine thought hinges on some species of non-natural normativity. He explores the evolutionary histories of theoretical and practical rationality, indicating ways in which capacities underlying human reasoning have been selected for their biological advantages. He then looks at the connection between decision and probability, explaining how good decisions need to be informed by causal as well as probabilistic facts. Finally he defends the radical view that a satisfactory understanding of decision-making is only possible within a specific interpretation of quantum mechanics. By placing the subject in its scientific context, Papineau shows how human rationality plays an explicable role in the functioning of the natural world.



The Enigma Of Reason


The Enigma Of Reason
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Author : Dan Sperber
language : en
Publisher: Penguin UK
Release Date : 2017-04-06

The Enigma Of Reason written by Dan Sperber and has been published by Penguin UK this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2017-04-06 with Psychology categories.


GUARDIAN BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2017 'Original and provocative ... likely to have a big impact on our understanding of ourselves' Steven Pinker 'Mercier and Sperber offer a surprising and powerful response to the new orthodoxy propounded by Kahneman and Tversky ... arguing that the supposed flaws of hot, fast, automatic thinking are actually design features which work remarkably well' Julian Baggini Reason, we are told, is what makes us human, the source of our knowledge and wisdom. But, if reason is so useful, why didn't it also evolve in other animals? If it is that reliable, why do we produce so much thoroughly reasoned nonsense? In their ground-breaking account of the evolution and workings of reason, Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber set out to solve this double enigma, taking us on a journey from desert ants to modern scientists, and from Aristotle to Daniel Kahneman. Reason, they argue with a compelling mix of real-life and experimental evidence, is not geared to solitary use, to arriving at better beliefs and decisions on our own. What reason does, rather, is help us justify our beliefs and actions to others, convince them through argumentation, and evaluate the justifications and arguments that they address to us. In other words, reason has evolved to help humans better exploit their uniquely rich social environment. This illuminating interpretation of reason makes sense of strengths and weaknesses that have long puzzled philosophers and psychologists - why reason is biased in favour of what we already believe, why it may lead to terrible ideas and yet is indispensable to spreading good ones. Ambitious, provocative, and entertaining, The Enigma of Reason will spark debate among psychologists and philosophers, and make many reasonable people rethink their own thinking.



Why Evolution Is True


Why Evolution Is True
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Author : Jerry A. Coyne
language : en
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Release Date : 2010-01-14

Why Evolution Is True written by Jerry A. Coyne and has been published by OUP Oxford this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2010-01-14 with Science categories.


For all the discussion in the media about creationism and 'Intelligent Design', virtually nothing has been said about the evidence in question - the evidence for evolution by natural selection. Yet, as this succinct and important book shows, that evidence is vast, varied, and magnificent, and drawn from many disparate fields of science. The very latest research is uncovering a stream of evidence revealing evolution in action - from the actual observation of a species splitting into two, to new fossil discoveries, to the deciphering of the evidence stored in our genome. Why Evolution is True weaves together the many threads of modern work in genetics, palaeontology, geology, molecular biology, anatomy, and development to demonstrate the 'indelible stamp' of the processes first proposed by Darwin. It is a crisp, lucid, and accessible statement that will leave no one with an open mind in any doubt about the truth of evolution.



The Evolution Of Logic


The Evolution Of Logic
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Author : W. D. Hart
language : en
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Release Date : 2010-08-23

The Evolution Of Logic written by W. D. Hart and has been published by Cambridge University Press this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2010-08-23 with Philosophy categories.


Examines the relations between logic and philosophy over the last 150 years. Logic underwent a major renaissance beginning in the nineteenth century. Cantor almost tamed the infinite, and Frege aimed to undercut Kant by reducing mathematics to logic. These achievements were threatened by the paradoxes, like Russell's. This ferment generated excellent philosophy (and mathematics) by excellent philosophers (and mathematicians) up to World War II. This book provides a selective, critical history of the collaboration between logic and philosophy during this period. After World War II, mathematical logic became a recognized subdiscipline in mathematics departments, and consequently but unfortunately philosophers have lost touch with its monuments. This book aims to make four of them (consistency and independence of the continuum hypothesis, Post's problem, and Morley's theorem) more accessible to philosophers, making available the tools necessary for modern scholars of philosophy to renew a productive dialogue between logic and philosophy.



The Evolution Of Morality


The Evolution Of Morality
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Author : Todd K. Shackelford
language : en
Publisher: Springer
Release Date : 2015-08-10

The Evolution Of Morality written by Todd K. Shackelford and has been published by Springer this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2015-08-10 with Psychology categories.


This interdisciplinary collection presents novel theories, includes provocative re-workings of longstanding arguments, and offers a healthy cross-pollination of ideas to the morality literature. Structures, functions, and content of morality are reconsidered as cultural, religious, and political components are added to the standard biological/environmental mix. Innovative concepts such as the Periodic Table of Ethics and evidence for morality in non-human species illuminate areas for further discussion and research. And some of the book’s contributors question premises we hold dear, such as morality as a product of reason, the existence of moral truths, and the motto “life is good.” Highlights of the coverage: The tripartite theory of Machiavellian morality: judgment, influence, and conscience as distinct moral adaptations. Prosocial morality from a biological, cultural, and developmental perspective. The containment problem and the evolutionary debunking of morality. A comparative perspective on the evolution of moral behavior. A moral guide to depravity: religiously-motivated violence and sexual selection. Game theory and the strategic logic of moral intuitions. The Evolution of Morality makes a stimulating supplementary text for advanced undergraduate and graduate courses in the evolutionary sciences, particularly in psychology, biology, anthropology, sociology, political science, religious studies, and philosophy



Why Think


Why Think
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Author : Ronald de Sousa
language : en
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Release Date : 2007-06-25

Why Think written by Ronald de Sousa and has been published by Oxford University Press this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2007-06-25 with Philosophy categories.


In this short and accessible book, Ronald de Sousa shows us that in order to understand what is truly important about our reasoning capacity, we need to change our thinking about what rationality actually is.



The Evolution Of Morality


The Evolution Of Morality
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Author : Richard Joyce
language : en
Publisher: MIT Press
Release Date : 2007-08-24

The Evolution Of Morality written by Richard Joyce and has been published by MIT Press this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2007-08-24 with Philosophy categories.


Moral thinking pervades our practical lives, but where did this way of thinking come from, and what purpose does it serve? Is it to be explained by environmental pressures on our ancestors a million years ago, or is it a cultural invention of more recent origin? In The Evolution of Morality, Richard Joyce takes up these controversial questions, finding that the evidence supports an innate basis to human morality. As a moral philosopher, Joyce is interested in whether any implications follow from this hypothesis. Might the fact that the human brain has been biologically prepared by natural selection to engage in moral judgment serve in some sense to vindicate this way of thinking—staving off the threat of moral skepticism, or even undergirding some version of moral realism? Or if morality has an adaptive explanation in genetic terms—if it is, as Joyce writes, "just something that helped our ancestors make more babies"—might such an explanation actually undermine morality's central role in our lives? He carefully examines both the evolutionary "vindication of morality" and the evolutionary "debunking of morality," considering the skeptical view more seriously than have others who have treated the subject. Interdisciplinary and combining the latest results from the empirical sciences with philosophical discussion, The Evolution of Morality is one of the few books in this area written from the perspective of moral philosophy. Concise and without technical jargon, the arguments are rigorous but accessible to readers from different academic backgrounds. Joyce discusses complex issues in plain language while advocating subtle and sometimes radical views. The Evolution of Morality lays the philosophical foundations for further research into the biological understanding of human morality.



Good Reasons For Bad Feelings


Good Reasons For Bad Feelings
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Author : Randolph M. Nesse
language : en
Publisher: Penguin UK
Release Date : 2019-02-12

Good Reasons For Bad Feelings written by Randolph M. Nesse and has been published by Penguin UK this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2019-02-12 with Psychology categories.


One of the world's most respected psychiatrists provides a much-needed new evolutionary framework for making sense of mental illness With his classic book Why We Get Sick, Randolph Nesse established the field of evolutionary medicine. Now he returns with a book that transforms our understanding of mental disorders by exploring a fundamentally new question. Instead of asking why certain people suffer from mental illness, Nesse asks why natural selection has left us with fragile minds at all. Drawing on revealing stories from his own clinical practice and insights from evolutionary biology, Nesse shows how negative emotions are useful in certain situations, yet can become excessive. Anxiety protects us from harm in the face of danger, but false alarms are inevitable. Low mood prevents us from wasting effort in pursuit of unreachable goals, but it often escalates into pathological depression. Other mental disorders, such as addiction and anorexia, result from the mismatch between modern environments and our ancient human past. Taken together, these insights and many more help to explain the pervasiveness of human suffering, and show us new paths for relieving it. Good Reasons for Bad Feelings will fascinate anyone who wonders how our minds can be so powerful, yet so fragile, and how love and goodness came to exist in organisms shaped to maximize Darwinian fitness.



The Evolution Of Mind


The Evolution Of Mind
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Author : Denise D. Cummins
language : en
Publisher:
Release Date : 1998

The Evolution Of Mind written by Denise D. Cummins and has been published by this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 1998 with Psychology categories.


Our understanding of the human mind has radically changed in recent years--from the unified mind once envisioned by Rene Descartes over three hundred years ago to a new understanding of mind as a set of specialized cognitive components gradually accumulated in our evolutionary past. As a result, many scientists and philosophers now believe that our minds emerged out of the same type of evolutionary processes that have shaped our bodies. In The Evolution of Mind, outstanding figures on the cutting edge of evolutionary psychology follow clues provided by current neuroscientific evidence to illuminate many puzzling questions of human cognitive evolution. With contributions from psychologists, ethologists, anthropologists, and philosophers, the book offers a broad range of approaches to explore the mysteries of the minds evolution--from investigating the biological functions of human cognition to drawing comparisons between human and animal cognitive abilities. This interdisciplinary work presents a comparative and evolutionary perspective on a wide variety of topics, including mental algorithms for reasoning about contingencies, quantities, social norms, and the minds of others; social play and communicative abilities; thought and language, and the role of Darwin's theory of natural selection in evolutionary psychology. Written in a highly readable style, The Evolution of Mind will appeal to a broad range of researchers and students and help set the agenda for the field for years to come.