1st Edition

Evolution and the Naked Truth Darwinian Approach to Philosophy

By Gonzalo Munevar Copyright 1998
    258 Pages
    by Routledge

    260 Pages
    by Routledge

    Published in 1998, the main aim of this book is to use a naturalistic, evolutionary approach to solve some of the most important problems in philosophy. The first two problems come from the philosophy of science: the problem of rationality of science and the problem of truth in science. In presenting the first problem, the author argues that the views of Kuhn and Feyerabend do create a very serious challenge to traditional epistemology, however, if the assumption of individual rationality is abandoned in favour of the author's social concept of rationality, a committed naturalism can account for science as a rational activity. In tackling the second problem of truth, the author shows that a committed evolutionary philosophy does not support realism but leads instead to a thorough evolutionary relativism of scientific knowledge. It is nevertheless possible to use this evolutionary relativism to construct a theory of relative truth. The issue of whether science discovers truth has also been tied to absolutism, that a well formulated theory of relative truth is likely to bring about a profound transformation of the way we think about the field. The author explores the notion of relative truth in the philosophy of science, ethics and aesthetics.

    Part 1: Evolutionary Relativism  1. Evolution and the Naked Truth  2. Extraterrestrial and Human Science  3. Bohr and Evolutionary Relativism  4. Cultural Relativism and Universalism  5. A Note of Margolis  Part 2: Evolution and Rationality  6. The Connection Between Evolution and the Nature of Scientific Knowledge  7. Towards a Future Epistemology of Science  8. Hull, Biology and Epistemology  9. Science as Part of Nature  Part 3: From Epistemology to Ethics  10. Evolution and Justification  11. The Morality of Rational Ants  12. A Naturalistic Account of Free Will  Part 4: Application to Space Science  13. A Philosopher Looks at Space Exploration  14. Pecking Orders and Rhetoric in Science  15. SETI, Self-Reproducing Machines and Impossibility Proofs.

    Biography

    Gonzalo Munevar