Does biology/evolution have a place in philosophical thought?

https://www.reddit.com/r/askphilosophy/comments/q3urcc/does_biologyevolution_have_a_place_in/

created by Ithaca23 on 08/10/2021 at 10:09 UTC*

36 upvotes, 9 top-level comments (showing 9)

Edit: I’ve intended to put psychology in the title as well. Apologies.

To me, considering biology, evolution and psychology has been a non-negotiable part of the philosophical thinking process. Understanding where we come from, why we think the way we do, what we are made of etc. was the foundation from where to reason up from. It provided the first principles and a sense of clarity to reason from - until recently.

Evolution is quite robust as a theory, and so are biology and psychology as branches of science. Unfortunately when we combine the two, it instead produces something under-researched and difficult to prove (evolutionary psychology as a whole).

You can quickly understand why theories such as Social Darwinism were taken out of context, falsely justified so easily and are still unsupported to this day. The hard science just isn’t there.

Where do we draw the line? At what point can we justifiably defend philosophy that arises out of evolution-based thinking? Should we defend it in the first place?

It appears science’s infancy affects its capacity to support certain things one way or another. On the other hand, something like evolutionary psychology cannot be entirely dismissed because robust patterns have been observed. To me, it appears this is a matter of faith. I don’t like that. I am personally leaning towards acknowledging the infancy of science and having faith in evolutionary psychology, but my instinct tells me this reasoning is too flawed to add legitimate credibility to anything - especially philosophy.

Comments

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Comment by ockhams_beard at 08/10/2021 at 11:25 UTC

28 upvotes, 1 direct replies

Well, for a start, philosophy of biology is a rather lively field in itself that combines biology, evolution, psychology and philosophy. Check out Kim Sterelny's[1] work for one example of a philosopher who works at the intersection of all four.

1: https://researchers.anu.edu.au/researchers/sterelny-k

As for things like evolutionary psychology, it certainly features in my own work on moral psychology and ethics. I look at how we evolved to be social animals, and the different evolved heuristics and biases that helped our ancestors to live together in social groups. I also look at how we still employ some of these heuristics and biases today, sometimes beneficially and sometimes to our detriment. This is a crucial part of descriptive ethics, and I argue that it places some constraints on normative ethics. This position is sometimes called 'evo-conservatism'.

Also, there's more than one kind of "evolutionary psychology". There is some work of questionable merit in some areas, where researchers are straining to telling adaptationist stories about particular modern traits. But there are whole other fields that simply incorporate evolution into their explanations of the origins of traits, especially at what Ernst Mayr would call the "ultimate"[2] level of explanation. Take personality theory, or work on heuristics and biases, or stuff on our moral emotions, or even taste preferences.

2: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1707986

However, there's still an important distinction between the descriptive and the normative. Both those who advocate for full on evolutionary ethics and those who reject it sometimes blur this distinction. The former who believe that what's natural is good might advocate things like "survival of the fittest" as a social policy, and the latter who reject that policy might argue that we should reject nature as an explanatory force. But if you don't believe what's natural is good, then you're freed from this trap.

Comment by wokeupabug at 08/10/2021 at 16:11 UTC

7 upvotes, 0 direct replies

Biology and psychology have always been fruitful influences and objects of inquiry in philosophy. Specifically evolutionary models as framing ways of doing philosophy or thinking about the topics of philosophy were dominant throughout the long nineteenth century, both in forms that precede Darwin and in forms that are explicitly responsive to Darwin. Prominent examples include the thought of Hegel; Comte, Marx, Spencer, Haeckel, and Mach; Nietzsche and Bergson; and Dewey.

Critics of Social Darwinism and Evolutionary Psychology typically develop criticisms concerning the specific ways they are taken to misuse the science or just reason poorly, rather than criticizing them for applying biological and/or psychological ways of thinking in general. There are plenty of evolutionary accounts of society which are not criticized the way Social Darwinism is, and plenty of evolutionary approaches to psychology that are not criticized the way Evolutionary Psychology is.

Comment by MKleister at 08/10/2021 at 15:53 UTC

6 upvotes, 0 direct replies

Yes, absolutely. Daniel Dennett wrote an entire book about the impact of Darwin's idea.

Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life

Comment by Gallium_Fingers at 08/10/2021 at 14:46 UTC

2 upvotes, 0 direct replies

Off the top of my head:

Carsten Strathausen has a book, Bioaesthetics, that explicitly touches on the development of evolutionary psychology and sociobiology, in which he provides a critique of these by arguing they fail to account for cultural evolution.

Grace de Laguna makes a very similar critique of the pragmatism associated with Dewey - a philosopher famous for bringing evolutionary theory into philosophy.

Trevor Pearce has written a book called Pragmatism’s Evolution that deals with the topic of pragmatism and evolution more broadly.

Biology (but not evolution) also plays a significant role in Kant’s third critique - if you’re interested, but don’t want to struggle with Kant himself, Rachel Zuckurt has written an excellent book on the subject - Kant on Beauty and Biology.

In 2016 (I believe) Raymond Ruyer’s Neofinalism was finally translated into English, and embryology plays a significant role in the development of his thought. I believe he also has another book called On the Genesis of Living Things.

So in response to your title question: yes, evolution and biology are certainly topics that philosophers have and continue to deal with.

Comment by mediaisdelicious at 08/10/2021 at 16:41 UTC

2 upvotes, 0 direct replies

Dewey's essay on Darwin's influence is a helpful addition to the list of references.

https://brocku.ca/MeadProject/Dewey/Dewey_1910b/Dewey_1910_01.html

Comment by _barack_ at 08/10/2021 at 16:11 UTC

2 upvotes, 1 direct replies

https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/0195171039.001.0001/acprof-9780195171037

Nietzsche wrote in a scientific culture transformed by Darwin. He read extensively in German and about British Darwinists, and his own works dealt often with such obvious Darwinian themes as struggle and evolution. Yet most of what Nietzsche said about Darwin was hostile: he sharply attacked many of his ideas, and often slurred Darwin himself as mediocre, so most readers of Nietzsche have inferred that he must have cast Darwin quite aside. But in fact, this book argues, Nietzsche was deeply and pervasively influenced by Darwin. He stressed his disagreements, but was silent about several core points he took over from Darwin. Moreover, the book claims, these Darwinian borrowings were to Nietzsche's credit: when we bring them to the surface we discover his positions to be much stronger than we had thought. Even Nietzsche's radical innovations are more plausible when we expose their Darwinian ground; we see that they amount to a new Darwinism.