Project of History of Indian Science, Philosophy and Culture (PHISPC)
Abstract
The essay is a critical review of three possible approaches in the theory of knowledge while tracing the biological roots of knowledge: empiricist, rationalist and developmentalist approaches.
Piaget's genetic epistemology, a developmentalist approach, is one of the first comprehensive
treatments on the question of tracing biological roots of knowledge. This developmental approach is
currently opposed, without questioning the biological roots of knowledge, by the more popular
rationalist approach, championed by Chomsky. Developmental approaches are generally coherent
with cybernetic models, of which the theory of autopoiesis proposed by Maturana and Varela made
a significant theoretical move in proposing an intimate connection between metabolism and
knowledge. Modular architecture is currently considered more or less an undisputable model for
both biology as well as cognitive science. By suggesting that modulation of modules is possible by
motor coordination, a proposal is made to account for higher forms of conscious cognition within
the four distinguishable layers of the human mind. Towards the end, the problem of life and
cognition is discussed in the context of the evolution of complex cognitive systems, suggesting the
unique access of phylogeny during the ontogeny of human beings as a very special case, and how
the problem cannot be dealt with independent of the evolution of coding systems in nature