35 research outputs found
How to be skilful: opportunistic robustness and normative sensitivity
In a recent article, Ellen Fridland (2014) characterises a central capacity of skill users, an aspect she calls âcontrolâ. Control, according to Fridland, is evidenced in the way in which skill users are able to marshal a variety of mental and bodily resources in order to keep skill deployment operating fluidly and appropriately. According to Fridland, two prevalent contemporary accounts of skill â Stanley & Krakauerâs (2013) and Hubert Dreyfusâs (2002) â fail to account for the features of control, and do so necessarily. While I agree with Fridland that features of control represent desiderata for a satisfactory characterization of the capacity of skills to respond to perturbations, I argue that her account is limited in two ways; first it is applicable only to a particular class of skills I call motor skills, leaving other classes of skills unaccounted for; second, she employs a problematic distinction that rules out the automatic and pre-reflective use of discursive, propositional cues in skill deployment. I put forward a substantive elaboration of Fridlandâs account based on two more general characteristic features of skills I call opportunistic robustness and normative sensitivity. I suggest that these features avoid the difficulties isolated, while preserving the substance of Fridlandâs account of control.I am extremely grateful to Christopher Clarke, Helen Curry, Ellen Fridland, Tim
Lewens, and two anonymous referees for their comments on earlier drafts of this paper. I also thank Peter
Jancewicz for the many conversations that have inspired my reflection on skills, and for being an incredible
piano teacher, despite what I may have suggested here. Thank you, Peter. Finally, the research leading to
this paper has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Unionâs Seventh
Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013)/ERC Grant Agreement No. 284123.This is the accepted manuscript. The published article is available at http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11229-014-0634-8#
Reciprocal Causation and the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis
Abstract: Kevin Laland and colleagues have put forward a number of arguments motivating an extended evolutionary synthesis. Here I examine Laland et al.'s central concept of reciprocal causation. Reciprocal causation features in many arguments supporting an expanded evolutionary framework, yet few of these arguments are clearly delineated. Here I clarify the concept and make explicit three arguments in which it features. I identify where skeptics canâand areâpushing back against these arguments, and highlight what I see as the empirical, explanatory, and methodological issues at stake
A Limited Defense of Demographic Cultures
A number of approaches in the social sciences appeal to demographic cultures in their comparative explanations. Though varied, accounts of demographic cultures function both to classify cultural groups and to explain differences between those groups. Yet demographic cultures have long been subject to scrutiny. Here I isolate and respond to a set of arguments I call demographic scepticism. This sceptical position denies that demographic cultures can factor into metaphysically plausible and empirically principled research projects. Against this position, I claim that the sceptics overinflate the claims of empirical researchers and rely on a restricted (or possibly, outdated) understanding of metaphysics. Nearby metaphysical positionsânotably, relational essentialismâcan do the work of classifying different cultural groups, and leave open the possibility for multiple ontological operationalizations and causal-mechanical explanations of inter-group differences
What makes humans special?
What separates human beings from their animal ancestors? Andrew Buskell examines the concept of âcumulative cultureâ
Cognitive novelties, informational form, and structural-causal explanations
Abstract: Recent work has established a framework for explaining the origin of cognitive noveltiesâqualitatively distinct cognitive traitsâin human beings. This niche construction approach argues that humans engineer epistemic environments in ways that facilitate the ontogenetic and phylogenetic development of such novelties. I here argue that attention to the organized relations between content-carrying informational vehicles, or informational form, is key to a valuable explanatory strategy within this project, what I call structural-causal explanations. Drawing on recent work from Cecilia Heyes, and developing a case study around a novel mathematical capacity, I demonstrate how structural-causal explanations can contribute to the niche construction approach by underwriting the application of explanatory tools and generating new empirical targets
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Forces, Friction and Fractionation: Denis Walshâs Organism, Agency and Evolution.
In Denis Walshâs Organisms, Agency, and Evolution, he argues that new
developments in the science of biology motivate a radical change to our metaphysical picture of life: what he calls âSituated Darwinismâ. The central claim is that we should take the biological world to be at base about organisms, and organisms in a fundamentally teleological sense. We critically examine Walshâs arguments and suggest further developments
Uniqueness in the life sciences: how did the elephant get its trunk?
Abstract: Researchers in the life sciences often make uniqueness attributions; about branching events generating new species, the developmental processes generating novel traits and the distinctive cultural selection pressures faced by hominins. Yet since uniqueness implies non-recurrence, such attributions come freighted with epistemic consequences. Drawing on the work of Aviezer Tucker, we show that a common reaction to uniqueness attributions is pessimism: both about the strength of candidate explanations as well as the ability to even generate such explanations. Looking at two case studiesâelephant trunks and human teachingâwe develop a more optimistic account. As we argue, uniqueness attributions are revisable claims about the availability of several different kinds of comparators. Yet even as researchers investigate the availability of such comparators, they are able to mobilize complex sets of empirical and theoretical tools. Rather than hindering scientific investigation, then, we argue that uniqueness attributions often spur the generation of a range of epistemic goods
Evolved Open-Endedness in Cultural Evolution: A New Dimension in Open-Ended Evolution Research
The goal of Artificial Life research, as articulated by Chris Langton, is "to
contribute to theoretical biology by locating life-as-we-know-it within the
larger picture of life-as-it-could-be" (1989, p.1). The study and pursuit of
open-ended evolution in artificial evolutionary systems exemplifies this goal.
However, open-ended evolution research is hampered by two fundamental issues;
the struggle to replicate open-endedness in an artificial evolutionary system,
and the fact that we only have one system (genetic evolution) from which to
draw inspiration. Here we argue that cultural evolution should be seen not only
as another real-world example of an open-ended evolutionary system, but that
the unique qualities seen in cultural evolution provide us with a new
perspective from which we can assess the fundamental properties of, and ask new
questions about, open-ended evolutionary systems, especially in regard to
evolved open-endedness and transitions from bounded to unbounded evolution.
Here we provide an overview of culture as an evolutionary system, highlight the
interesting case of human cultural evolution as an open-ended evolutionary
system, and contextualise cultural evolution under the framework of (evolved)
open-ended evolution. We go on to provide a set of new questions that can be
asked once we consider cultural evolution within the framework of open-ended
evolution, and introduce new insights that we may be able to gain about evolved
open-endedness as a result of asking these questions.Comment: 26 pages, 1 figure, 1 table, submitted to Artificial Life journal
(special issue on Open-Ended Evolution