Evolutionary epistemology is a theory of knowledge that is a branch of epistemology and considers the growth of knowledge as a product of biological evolution.

Evolutionary epistemology is based on the premise that the evolution of human knowledge, like natural evolution in the animal and plant kingdoms, is the result of a gradual movement towards better and better theories. This evolution can be simplified as follows:

P1→TT→EE→P2

Problem (P1) gives rise to attempts to solve it with tentative theories (TT). These theories are subjected to the critical error elimination process EE. Identified errors give rise to new problems P2. The distance between the old and the new problem is often very large: it indicates the progress made.

A trend in modern epistemology that owes its origin primarily to Darwinism and the subsequent successes of evolutionary biology, human genetics, and cognitive science. The main thesis of E. e. (or, as it is usually called in German-speaking countries, the evolutionary theory of knowledge) comes down to the assumption that people, like other living beings, are a product of living nature, the result of evolutionary processes, and because of this, their cognitive and mental abilities and even knowledge and knowledge (including its most refined aspects) is ultimately guided by the mechanisms of organic evolution. E. e. proceeds from the assumption that the biological evolution of man did not end with the formation of Homo sapiens; not only did it provide the cognitive basis for the emergence of human culture, but it proved to be the sine qua non of its remarkably rapid progress over the past ten thousand years.

The origins of the main ideas of E. e. can be found in the works of classical Darwinism and, above all, in the later works of Charles Darwin himself “The Descent of Man” (1871) and “The Expression of Emotions in Humans and Animals” (1872), where the emergence of human cognitive abilities, their self-consciousness, language, morality, etc. .d. associated with the mechanisms of natural selection, with the processes of survival and reproduction. But only after the creation in the 1920-1930s. The synthetic theory of evolution, which confirmed the universal significance of the principles of natural selection, opened up the possibility of applying the chromosome theory of heredity and population genetics to the study of epistemological problems. This process began with an article published in 1941 by the well-known Austrian. ethologist K. Lorentz "Kant's concept of a priori in the light of modern biology", where a number of convincing arguments were given in favor of the existence of innate knowledge in animals and humans, the material basis of which is the organization of the central nervous system. This innate knowledge is not something irrelevant to reality, but is a phenotypic trait subject to the action of the mechanisms of natural selection.

For the first time the term "E. e." appeared only in 1974 in an article by Amer. psychologist and philosopher D. Campbell, dedicated to the philosophy of K. Popper. Developing the epistemological approach of Lorentz, Campbell proposed to consider knowledge not as a phenotypic trait, but as a process that forms this trait. Cognition leads to more relevant behavior and increases the adaptability of a living organism to the environment (including socio-cultural, if we are talking about a person). Somewhat later, this new evolutionary view of cognition was integrated with information-theoretic models. This opened up the possibility of linking biological evolution with the evolution of the cognitive system of living organisms, with the evolution of their abilities to extract, process and store cognitive information.

In the 1980s in E. e., apparently, two different research programs were finally formed. The first program - the study of the evolution of cognitive mechanisms - proceeds from the assumption that for epistemology the study of the cognitive system of living beings and, in particular, human cognitive abilities, which evolve through natural selection, is of exceptional interest. This program (sometimes called bioepistemology) extends the biological theory of evolution to the physical substrates of cognitive activity and studies cognition as a biological adaptation that provides an increase in reproductive fitness (Lorenz, Campbell, R. Riedl, G. Vollmer, etc.). The second program, the study of the evolution of scientific theories, attempts to create a general theory of development that would include biological evolution, individual learning, cultural change, and scientific progress as special cases. This program makes extensive use of metaphors, analogies, and models from evolutionary biology and explores knowledge as the main product of evolution (Popper, S. Toulmin, D. Hull, and others). In the last decades of the 20th century E. e. is rapidly turning into an area of ​​interdisciplinary research, where not only evolutionary biology, but also theories of gene-cultural co-evolution, cognitive science, computer modeling, etc. are increasingly being used.

50. Sociobiology and evolutionary ethics - basic concepts and approaches.

Sociobiology (from socio- and biology) is an interdisciplinary science formed at the junction of several scientific disciplines. Sociobiology attempts to explain the behavior of living beings in terms of a set of certain advantages developed in the course of evolution. This science is often seen as an offshoot of biology and sociology. At the same time, the research field of sociobiology intersects with the study of evolutionary theories, zoology, genetics, archeology and other disciplines. In the field of social disciplines, sociobiology is close to evolutionary psychology and uses the tools of behavior theory.

In a modified form, modern biological theories of morality accept all the postulates of classical evolutionism, the main of which is that humanity in its formation passed through group selection and morality, in particular, altruism. In the XX century. thanks to the achievements of evolutionary genetics and ethology, a number of ideas and concepts were expressed that made it possible to show the biological conditionality, the evolutionary predestination of human behavior, including morality. If classical evolutionary ethics (G. Spencer, K. Kessler, P.A. Kropotkin, J. Huxley, etc.) talked about the quality of individuals or groups that are selected in the course of evolution, necessary for survival or reproduction, and ethology (Ch.O Whitman, K. Lorentz, N. Tinbergen and others), based on the genetic conditioning of the behavior of animals and humans, strives for a thorough, detailed study of the psychophysiological mechanisms of behavior, then in sociobiology (E. Wilson, M. Reuse, V.P. Efroimson, etc.), attempts were made to uncover specific genetic mechanisms of behavior.

These mechanisms explaining the process of evolutionary selection are expressed in several concepts.

According to classical evolutionary theory, the mechanisms of fitness are oriented towards the survival of the individual, not the species; with the ability of an individual to survive, the species as a whole also wins. However, the proposition about individual adaptability did not agree well with the repeatedly observed facts of help, even sacrificial help in animals. Some evolutionists have come to see mutual aid as a real factor in evolution. Russian thinker P.A. Kropotkin (1842-1921), quite in the spirit of classical evolutionism, considered mutual assistance as the main factor in evolution: "The sociable side of animal life plays a much greater role in the life of nature than mutual extermination ... Mutual assistance is the predominant factor of nature"

According to W.D. Hamilton (1936-2000), the adaptability of the individual, of course, takes place, but it is subordinated to the adaptability of relatives, i.e. cumulative adaptability, which is directed by natural selection. This adaptability is due not to the survival of the individual, but to the preservation of the appropriate set of genes, the carrier of which is a group of relatives. Some individual sacrifices itself for the sake of relatives, since half of its set of genes is contained in its brothers and sisters, a quarter - in the brothers and sisters of the parents, an eighth - in cousins. Russian geneticist V.P. Efroimson (1908-1989) in his article "Genealogy of Altruism" speaks of group selection, continuing the traditions of the population theory of evolution. From the standpoint of evolutionary genetics, he concludes that there is a selection for altruism: those groups survive in whose individuals a genetic structure appears and is fixed, which determines altruistic - helping, selfless, sacrificial - behavior. This concept fully falls under the idea of ​​cumulative fitness, but it does not correspond to the genetic content of the theory based on this idea.

The evolutionary approach in ethics is directly related to evolutionary scientific theory. In the spirit of scientific evolutionism, evolutionary ethics considers morality as a moment in the development of natural (biological) evolution, rooted in the very nature of man. On this basis, he also formulates the basic normative principle of morality: that which promotes life in its fullest expression is morally positive.

The evolutionary approach to ethics was developed by the English philosopher Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) as an application of the more general and synthetic evolutionary method to ethics. In parallel with Spencer, evolutionary theory was developed, and empirically more extensively substantiated, by Charles Darwin (1809-1882). Darwin devoted two chapters of his two-volume work The Descent of Man and Sexual Selection (1871) to the problems of morality and its origin. In them, the provisions on the natural, biological prerequisites of morality are derived from evolutionary theory. In fact, Darwin did not discover anything new in the content of morality. But he offered a natural scientific substantiation of philosophical ideas concerning morality and perceived from empiricism and ethical sentimentalism - mainly D. Hume, A. Smith. In the actual ethical content of his conception of the origin of morality, he does not go beyond the limits set by these thinkers.

Evolutionary ethics has gone through several stages in more than a century and a half, each of which was associated with certain achievements in biology. This is social Darwinism - ethics and social theory based on the Darwinian doctrine of species selection; an ethics oriented toward ethology, the science of animal behavior; and sociobiology, an ethical and social theory based on advances in evolutionary genetics. The main thing that unites all biological conceptions of morality, old and new, is the assertion that humanity in its development has experienced group selection for morality. Morality arises on the basis of nature, and the abilities predetermined by nature are fixed and developed with the help of social mechanisms (which include the ability to learn and reproduce).

Popper Karl A Evolutionary Epistemology // Evolutionary Theory: Paths into the Future / Ed. by J. W. Pollard. John Wiley &. sons. Chichester and New York, 1984, ch. 10, pp. 239-255.

1. Introduction

Epistemology is an English term denoting the theory of knowledge, primarily scientific knowledge. It is a theory that attempts to explain the status of science and its growth. Donald Campbell called my epistemology evolutionary because I see it as a product of biological evolution, namely Darwinian evolution by natural selection.

I consider the main problems of evolutionary epistemology to be the following: the evolution of human language and the role it has played and continues to play in the growth of human knowledge; concepts (ideas) of truth and falsity; descriptions of states of affairs (states of affaires) and the way in which language selects states of affairs from the complexes of facts that make up the world, that is, reality.

Let us formulate this briefly and simply in the form of the following two theses.

First thesis. Specifically, the human ability to know, as well as the ability to produce scientific knowledge, are the results of natural selection. They are closely related to the evolution of specifically human language.

This first thesis is almost trivial. My second thesis is perhaps somewhat less trivial.

Second thesis. The evolution of scientific knowledge is basically an evolution towards building better and better theories. This is a Darwinian process. Theories become better adapted through natural selection. They give us better and better information about reality. (They are getting closer and closer to the truth.) All organisms are problem solvers: problems are born with life.

We are always faced with practical problems, and from them sometimes theoretical problems grow, because, trying to solve some of our problems, we build this or that theory. In science, these theories are highly competitive. We critically discuss them; we check them and eliminate those that we judge to be worse at solving our problems, so that only the best, most adapted theories survive this struggle. This is how science grows.

However, even the best theories are always our own invention. They are full of mistakes. When we test our theories, we do this: we try to find the errors that are hidden in our theories. In other words, we are trying to find the weak points of our theories, the points of their breaking. This is the critical method.

The process of critical review often requires a great deal of ingenuity.

The evolution of theories can be summarized as follows:

P 1 -> TT -> HER -> R 2 .

Problem ( P 1) gives rise to attempts to solve it with the help of tentative theories ( TT). These theories are subjected to a critical error elimination process. HER. The errors we have identified create new problems R 2. The distance between the old and the new problem is often very large: it indicates the progress made.

It is clear that this view of the progress of science is very reminiscent of Darwin's view of natural selection by eliminating the unfit—of mistakes in the evolution of life, of mistakes in trying to adaptation which is a process of trial and error. Science works in the same way - by trial (creating theories) and eliminating errors.

We can say: from the amoeba to Einstein is just one step. Both operate by the method of hypothetical trials ( TT) and troubleshooting ( HER). What is the difference between them?

The main difference between the amoeba and Einstein is not the ability to produce tentative theories. TT, and in HER, that is, in a way to eliminate errors.

The amoeba is not aware of the error elimination process. The basic errors of the amoeba are eliminated by eliminating the amoeba: this is natural selection.

In contrast to the amoeba, Einstein recognized the need HER: he criticizes his theories, subjecting them to severe testing. (Einstein said that he creates and rejects theories every few minutes.) What allowed Einstein to go beyond the amoeba? The answer to this question is the main, third thesis of this article.

Third thesis. A human scientist like Einstein is allowed to go beyond the amoeba by owning what I call specifically human language.

While the theories produced by the amoeba are part of its organism, Einstein could formulate his theories in language; if necessary, in written language. In this way he was able to bring his theories out of his body. This gave him the opportunity to look at his theory as an object, look at her critically, asking himself if she can solve his problem and if it can be true and, finally, eliminate it if it turns out that it does not hold water.

To solve such problems, only specifically human language can be used.

These three theses, taken together, form the basis of my evolutionary epistemology.

2. Traditional theory of knowledge

What is the usual approach to the theory of knowledge, to epistemology? It is completely different from my evolutionary approach, which I outlined in section 1. The usual approach requires excuses(justification) theories by observations. I reject both components of this approach.

This approach usually begins with a question like "How do we know?", which is usually understood in the same sense as the question "What kind of perception or observation is the basis of our statements?". In other words, this approach is concerned with the justification of our statements (in my preferred terminology, our theories), and it seeks this justification in our perceptions and our observations. This epistemological approach can be called observationism .

Observationism proceeds from the fact that the source of our knowledge is our senses, or our sense organs; that we are "given" some so-called "sense data" (sense data is something that is given to us by our senses), or some perceptions, and that our knowledge is the result or summation of these sense data, or our perceptions, or information received . The place where these sense data are brought together, or assimilated, is, of course, the head shown in fig. 1.

If you look at this figure, it becomes clear why I like to call observationism "the bucket theory of consciousness (mind)" .

This theory can be stated as follows. Sense data flows into the tub through seven well-known orifices—two eyes, two ears, one nose with two nostrils, and a mouth—and also through the skin—the organ of touch. In the tub, they are assimilated, and more specifically, they are associated, associated with each other and classified. And then from those data that are repeatedly repeated, we get - by repetition, association, generalization and induction - our scientific theories.

Buckeye theory, or observationism, is the standard theory of knowledge from Aristotle to some of my contemporaries, such as Bertrand Russell, the great evolutionist J. B. S. Haldane, or Rudolf Carnap.

This theory is shared by the first comer.

The first person you meet can formulate it very briefly: "How do I know? Because I kept my eyes open, I saw, I heard." Carnap also identifies the question "How do I know?" with the question "What perceptions or observations are the source of my knowledge?".

These ingenuous questions and answers of the first comer, of course, give a fairly accurate picture of the situation as he sees it. However, this is not a position that can be taken to a higher level and transformed into a theory of knowledge that could be taken seriously.

Before turning to criticism of the bucket theory of human consciousness, I want to note that the objections to it date back to the times of Ancient Greece (Heraclitus, Xenophanes, Parmenides). Kant understood this problem very well: he paid special attention to the difference between knowledge obtained independently of observation, or a priori knowledge, and knowledge obtained as a result of observation, or a posteriori knowledge. The idea that we could have a priori knowledge shocked many people. The great ethologist and evolutionary epistemologist Konrad Lorenz suggested that Kant's a priori knowledge could be knowledge that at some point, thousands or millions of years ago, was originally acquired a posteriori (Lorenz, 1941) and then genetically fixed by natural selection. However, in a book written between 1930 and 1932. and so far published only in German, "Die beiden Grundprobleme der Erkenntnistheorie" (Popper, 1979; this book was referenced by Donald Campbell when he characterized my epistemology as "evolutionary"), I assumed that a priori knowledge was never a posteriori and that from a historical and genetic point of view, all our knowledge is invention(invention) of animals and therefore a priori from the moment of its origin (although, of course, not a priori true in the sense of Kant). The knowledge thus acquired adapts to the environment by natural selection: seemingly a posteriori knowledge is always the result eliminate ill-adapted a priori invented hypotheses or adaptations. In other words, all knowledge is the result samples(inventions) and troubleshooting– ill-adapted a priori inventions.

Thus, trial and error is the method by which we actively extract information about our environment.

3. Criticism of the traditional theory of knowledge

My fourth thesis(which I have been teaching and preaching for over 60 years) is as follows:

Every aspect of the justificationist and observationist philosophy of knowledge is wrong:
1. Sense data and similar experiences (experiences) do not exist.
2. Associations do not exist.
3. There is no induction by repetition or generalization.
4. Our perceptions can deceive us.
5. Observationism, or the bucket theory, is the theory that knowledge can be poured into the bucket from the outside through our senses. In fact, we organisms are extremely active in acquiring knowledge - perhaps even more active than in acquiring food. Information does not flow into us from the environment. It is we who explore the environment and actively suck information out of it, like food. And people are not only active, but sometimes critical.

A famous experiment disproving the bucket theory and especially the sense data theory was carried out by Held and Hein in 1963. It is described in a book that we wrote with Sir John Eccles (Popper and Eccles, 1977). This is an experiment with active and passive kittens. These two kittens are connected so that the active kitten moves the passive one in the stroller in the same environment in which he moves himself. As a result, a passive kitten with a very high degree of approximation receives the same perceptions as an active kitten. However, subsequent tests show that the active kitten learned a lot, while the passive kitten learned nothing.

Defenders of an observational theory of knowledge might respond to this criticism that there is also a kinesthetic sense, a sense of our movement, and that the absence of kinesthetic sense data at the input of the sense organs of a passive kitten can explain - within the framework of an observational theory - why he did not learn anything. An observationalist might say that this experiment merely shows that visual and auditory perceptions can only be useful if they are associated with kinesthetic ones.

In order to make my rejection of observationism, or the bucket theory, or sense data theory, independent of any such objections, I will now formulate an argument which I consider decisive. This argument is specific to my evolutionary theory of knowledge.

It can be formulated as follows. The idea that theories are summaries of sense data or perceptions or observations can't be true the following reasons.

From an evolutionary point of view, theories (like all knowledge in general) are part of our attempts adaptations, adaptations to the environment. Such attempts are like expectations and anticipations. This is their function: the biological function of all knowledge is an attempt to anticipate what will happen in our environment. However, our sense organs, such as the eyes, are also the same means of adaptation. Considered from this point of view, they are theories: the organisms of animals invented eyes and perfected them in every detail as an anticipation, or the theory that light in the visible range of electromagnetic waves will be useful for extracting information from the environment, for sucking information from the environment. , which can be interpreted as an indicator states environment, both long-term and short-term.

It is clear, however, that our bodies feelings are logically prior to our sensory data, whose existence is assumed by observationism, despite the fact that there could be a feedback between them (if sense data really existed), just as feedback of our perceptions with the senses is possible.

Therefore, it is impossible that all theories or constructions similar to theories arose as a result of induction, or generalization of imaginary sensory "data", the seemingly "data" of the flow of information from our perceptions or observations, because the sense organs that suck information from the environment are genetically, like logically, prior to information.

I think that this argument is decisive and that it leads to a new outlook on life.

4. Life and the acquisition of knowledge

Life is usually characterized by the following properties or functions, which are largely dependent on each other:

1. Reproduction and heredity.
2. Growth.
3. Absorption and assimilation of food.
4. Sensitivity to stimuli stimuli.
I think that this fourth function can also be described in another way:
a) Problem solving (problems that may arise from the external environment or from the internal state of the organism). All organisms are problem solvers.
b) Active exploration of the environment, often aided by random exploratory movements. (Even plants explore their environment.)
5. Building theories about the environment in the form of physical organs or other anatomical changes, new behaviors or changes in existing behaviors.

All these functions are generated by the organism itself.. It is very important. They are all actions of the organism. They are not reactions to the environment.

This can also be formulated as follows. It is the organism and the state in which it finds itself that determines, or chooses, or selects, what kind of changes in the environment can be "significant" for it, so that it can "react" to them as "stimuli".

It is common to speak of a stimulus that triggers a reaction, and usually mean that the stimulus first appears in the environment, which causes the reaction of the organism. This leads to an erroneous interpretation, according to which a stimulus is a certain portion of information that flows into the body from the outside, and that, in general, the stimulus is primary: it is the cause that precedes the reaction, that is, the action (effect).

I think that all this is fundamentally wrong.

The fallacy of this concept is related to the traditional model of physical causation, which does not work in relation to organisms and even in relation to cars or radios, as well as in general in relation to devices that have access to some source of energy, which they can expend in different ways and in different quantities.

Even a car or a radio take away- in accordance with their internal state - the stimuli to which they respond. The vehicle may not respond properly to the accelerator if the brake is not released. And the radio will not be seduced by the most beautiful symphony if it is not tuned to the right wave.

The same applies to organisms, and even more so, since they have to tune and program themselves. They are tuned in, for example, by the structure of their genes, by some hormone, by a lack of food, by curiosity or the hope of learning something interesting. This is a strong argument against the bucket theory of consciousness, which is often formulated as follows: "There is nothing in the intellect that was not previously in the senses," in Latin: "Nihil est in intellectu quid non antea fuerat in sensu." This is the motto of observationism, the bucket theory of consciousness. Few know his backstory. It goes back to the disdainful remark of the anti-observationist Parmenides, who said something like: "There is nothing in the deluded minds (plakton noon in the extant text of Parmenides; there must be plankton noon - see Diels und Kranz, 1960) of these people, except what is already was in their polyplanktos sense organs" (see my book, Popper K. Conjectures and Refutations, since third edition 1969, Addenda, Section 8, point 7, pp. 410-413). I believe that perhaps Protagoras responded to this attack of Parmenides by turning his mockery into the proud motto of observationism.

5. Language

The above considerations show us the importance of active, exploratory behavior in animals and humans. Understanding this is very important not only for evolutionary epistemology, but also for evolutionary theory in general. Now, however, I must move on to the central point of evolutionary epistemology, the evolutionary theory of human language.

The most important contribution to the evolutionary theory of language known to me lies buried in a short paper written in 1918 by my former teacher Karl Buhler (Buhler, 1918). In this article, which is paid too little attention to modern linguistic researchers, Buhler distinguishes three stages in the development of language. At each of these stages, language has a specific task, a specific biological function. The lowest stage is that in which the only biological function of language is the expressive function - external expression the internal state of the body, perhaps with the help of certain sounds or gestures.

Probably, the expressive function remained the only language function for a relatively short time. Very soon other animals (of the same species or other species) took notice of these expressions internal state and adapted to them: they discovered how to suck information out of them, how to include them in the stimuli of their environment to which they could respond in a beneficial way. More specifically, they may have used the expression as a warning of impending danger. For example, the roar of a lion, which is self-expression the internal state of the lion, could be used by the possible victim of the lion as a warning. Or a certain cry of a goose, expressing fear, could be interpreted by other geese as a warning about a hawk, and another cry as a warning about a fox. Thus, expressions the internal state of animals could run in the animal that perceives or responds to them, a typical, previously formed reaction. The responding animal perceives such an expression as signal, How sign, causing a specific response. Thus, the animal enters communication, in communication with another animal, expressing its inner state.

At this stage, the original expressive function has changed. And what was originally an external sign or symptom, although expressing the internal state of the animal, acquired a signaling function, or a launching function. It can now be used by an animal that expresses its internal state as a signal and thus changes its biological function from expression to signaling, even to conscious signaling.

So far, we have had two evolutionary levels: the first one is a pure expression And second- an expression that tends to become signal, since there are receptive animals that respond to it, that is, react to it as signal, as a result we got communication.

Third Buhler's evolutionary level is the level of human language. According to Buhler, human language, and only human language, introduces something revolutionary into the functions of language: it can describe, can describe a state of affairs, or a situation. Such a description may be a description of the state of affairs at the present time, at the moment when this state of affairs is being described, for example "our friends are entering"; or a description of a state of affairs that has nothing to do with the present, such as "my brother-in-law died 13 years ago"; or, finally, a description of a state of affairs that may never have taken place and never will take place, for example, "beyond this mountain there is another mountain of pure gold."

Buhler calls the ability of human language to describe possible or actual states of affairs " descriptive (representative) function(Darstellungsfunktion)" of human language. And he rightly emphasizes its greatest significance. Buhler shows that language never loses its expressive function. Even in a description that is as devoid of emotions as possible, something of it remains. In the same way, language never loses its even an uninteresting (and incorrect) mathematical equation, such as 10 5 = 1000000, for example, can provoke a mathematician's desire to correct him, that is, cause him to react and even angry.

At the same time, neither expressiveness nor sign character - the ability of linguistic expressions to serve as signals that cause a reaction - are not specific to human language; it is also not specific to it that it serves to communicate to a certain community of organisms. Specific to human language descriptive character. And this is something new and truly revolutionary: human language can convey information about a state of affairs, about a situation that may or may not take place or may or may not be biologically relevant. It may not even exist.

Buhler's simple and highly important contribution is neglected by almost all linguists. They still talk as if the essence of human language is self-expression, or as if words such as "communication", "sign language" or "symbolic language" adequately characterize human language. (But signs and symbols are used by other animals as well.)

Buhler, of course, never claimed that human language has no other functions than those described by him: language can be used to ask, beg, persuade. It can be used for orders or for advice. It can be used to insult people, hurt them, scare them. And it can be used to comfort people, to make them feel at ease, to feel loved. However, at the human level, the basis of all these uses of language can only be descriptive language.

6. How did the descriptive function of language develop?

It is easy to see how the signaling function of language has evolved since it had an expressive function. It is very difficult, however, to understand how the descriptive function could develop from the signal function. At the same time, it must be admitted that the signal function can be similar to the descriptive one. One characteristic call of alarm from a goose can mean "hawk!", and another "fox!", which in many respects is very close to the descriptive statement "The hawk is flying! Hide!" or "Take off! A fox is coming!" However, there are big differences between these descriptive alarm calls and human descriptive language. These differences make it hard to believe that descriptive human languages ​​evolved from alarm calls and other signals such as the war cry.

It must also be recognized that the dancing language of the bees is in many ways similar to the descriptive use of language by humans. With their dance, bees can convey information about the direction and distance from the hive to the place where food can be found, and about the nature of this food.

At the same time, there is one extremely important difference between the biological situations of the language of bees and human language: the descriptive information transmitted by the dancing bee is part of the signal addressed to the rest of the bees; its main function is to induce the rest of the bees to action that is useful here and now; the transmitted information is closely related to the current biological situation.

In contrast, information conveyed in human language may not be useful at that particular moment. It may not be useful at all, or it may become useful only after many years and in a completely different situation.

In the use of human language, there is also a possible game element which makes it so different from war cries, or mating calls, or the language of bees. It is possible to explain by natural selection the situation when the system of war cries becomes richer, more differentiated, but in this case it should be expected that it will also become more rigid. However, human language seems to have evolved in a way that combined a great increase in differentiation with an even greater increase in the number of degrees of freedom(which can be understood here both in the ordinary and in the mathematical or physical sense).

All this will become clear if we look at one of the oldest uses of human language: storytelling and the invention of religious myths. Both of these uses undoubtedly have serious biological functions. However, these functions are quite far from the situational urgency and harshness of battle cries.

Our difficulty lies precisely in the rigidity of these biological signals (as we can call them): it is difficult to imagine that the evolution of biological signals could lead to human language with its ability to chatter, its variety of uses and its playful mood, on the one hand, and its most serious biological functions, such as function of acquiring new knowledge, such as the discovery of the use of fire, on the other hand.

However, some ways out of this impasse are possible, even if they are purely speculative hypotheses. What I am about to say now are only speculations, but they may indicate what may have taken place in the course of the development of human language.

Playfulness of young animals, especially mammals, to which I wish to draw particular attention, raises formidable problems, and a number of excellent books have been devoted to this most important subject (see, for example, Baldwin (1895), Eigen und Winkler (1975), Groos (1896), Hochkeppel (1973), Lorenz (1973, 1977) and Morgan (1908)). This subject is too vast and important to enter here in detail. I will only suggest that it may be the key to the problem of the development of freedom and human language, and will only refer to some recent discoveries that demonstrate the creative nature of the playfulness of young animals and its significance for new discoveries. In Menzel (1965) we can read, for example, the following about Japanese monkeys: "Usually, not adults, but young animals are the initiators of the processes of group adaptation and "pro-cultural" changes in relatively complex behaviors, such as entering a newly established feeding area, acquiring new eating habits or new ways of gathering food..." (see also Frisch (1959), Itani (1958), Kawamura (1959) and Miyadi (1964)).

I suggest that the basic phonetic apparatus of human language does not arise from a closed system of alarm cries or war cries and the like (which must be rigid and can be genetically fixed), but from the playful chatter of mothers with babies or from communication in children's flocks, and that the descriptive function of human language - its use to describe the state of affairs in the environment - may arise from games in which children pretend to be someone (make-believe plays), - the so-called "imagination games", or "imitation games", and especially from the games of children, jokingly imitating the behavior of adults.

Such imitative games are common among many mammals: they include playful fights, playful war cries, playful calls for help, and playful orders imitating some adults. (This may lead to giving them names, perhaps names intended to be descriptive.)

Role-playing can be accompanied by inarticulate sounds and chatter and this can create need in something like a descriptive or explanatory comment. In this way it can develop need in storytelling in situations in which the descriptive nature of the stories is clear from the outset. And thus human language may have been first invented by children acting or role-playing, perhaps as a secret group language (children still occasionally invent such languages). It could then be adopted from them by their mothers (as the inventions of Japanese monkey cubs, see earlier) and only later, with changes, by adult males. (There are other languages ​​that have preserved grammatical forms that indicate the gender of the speaker.) And from storytelling - or as part of it - and from descriptions of states of affairs, an explanatory story-myth, and then an explanatory theory formulated in language.

Need in a descriptive story, and perhaps in a prophecy, with its enormous biological significance, could eventually be fixed genetically. The enormous advantage, especially in the military, of having a descriptive language creates a new selective pressure, and this may explain the surprisingly rapid growth of the human brain.

It is a pity that this speculative assumption can hardly ever become verifiable. (Even if we could get baby Japanese monkeys to do everything I just talked about, this would not be considered a test of it.) However, even without this, it has the advantage that it tells us an explanatory story about how could the way things are – how could a flexible and descriptive human language come into being – a descriptive language, open from the start, capable of almost endless development, stimulating the imagination and leading to fairy tales, to myths, to explanatory theories, and ultimately to “culture”.

I feel I should draw attention here to the story of Helen Keller (see Popper and Eccles, 1977): this is one of the most interesting cases of the child's innate need for active acquisition of human language and its humanizing influence. We can assume that this need is coded in the DNA along with many other predispositions.

7. From amoeba to Einstein

Animals and even plants acquire knowledge by trial and error, or, more precisely, by trying out these or those active movements, these or those a priori inventions and eliminating those that "do not fit", that are not well adapted. This is valid for the amoeba (see Jennings, 1906) and it is valid for Einstein. What is the main difference between them?

I think they deal with errors differently. In the case of the amoeba, any blunder can be eliminated by eliminating the amoeba. Clearly, this is not the case in Einstein's case; he knows he will make mistakes and actively seeks them out. However, it is not surprising that most people have inherited from the amoeba a strong reluctance both to make mistakes and to admit that they have made them! However, there are exceptions: some people do not mind making mistakes, if only there is a chance to find them and - if a mistake is found - to start all over again. That's how Einstein was, and that's how most creative scientists are: unlike other organisms, human beings use trial and error. consciously(unless it has become second nature to them). It seems that there are two types of people: those who are under the spell of an inherited aversion to mistakes and therefore are afraid of them and afraid to admit them, and those who also would like to avoid mistakes, but know that we are more often mistaken than we are not mistaken, who found out (by trial and error) that can counter this, actively looking for their own mistakes. People of the first type think dogmatically; people of the second type are those who learned to think critically. (By "learned," I mean my suggestion that the difference between the two types is based not on heredity, but on learning.) I will now formulate my fifth thesis:

Fifth thesis. In the course of human evolution, a necessary prerequisite for critical thinking was the descriptive function of human language: it is the descriptive function that makes critical thinking possible.

This important thesis can be substantiated in various ways. Only in connection with a descriptive language of the type described in the previous section does the problem of truth and falsity- the question of whether a certain description corresponds to the facts. It is clear that the problem of truth precedes the development of critical thinking. Another argument is this. Before the advent of human descriptive language, it could be said that all theories were parts of the structure of the organisms that carried them. They were either inherited organs, or inherited or acquired predispositions to certain behaviors, or inherited or acquired unconscious expectations. In other words, they were an integral part of their carriers.

In order to be able to criticize a theory, an organism must be able to treat it like an object. The only way we know how to achieve this is to formulate it in a descriptive language, and preferably in writing.

Thus, our theories, our assumptions, trial and error tests of the success of our attempts, can become objects, just like non-living or living physical structures. They can become objects of critical study. And we can kill them without killing their carriers. (Oddly enough, even the most critical thinkers often harbor hostile feelings towards the proponents of the theories they criticize.)

It may be appropriate to insert here a brief remark about what I do not consider to be a very significant problem: is belonging to one of the two types of people I have described - dogmatic thinkers or critical thinkers - hereditary? As stated earlier, I'm guessing not. The reason for me is that these two "types" are an invention. It may be possible to classify real people according to this invented classification, but there is no reason to think that this classification is based on DNA - at least no more than to think that the love or dislike of golf is based on DNA. (Or that what is called "intelligence quotient" ("intelligence quotient") really measures intelligence: as Peter Medawar pointed out, no competent agronomist would ever think of measuring soil fertility with a measure that depends only on one variable, and some psychologists seem to believe that "intelligence", including creativity, can be measured in this way.)

8. Three worlds

I assume that human language is the product of human ingenuity. It is a product of the human mind (mind), our mental experiences and predispositions. And the human mind, in turn, is a product of its products: its predispositions are due to the feedback effect. A particularly important feedback effect mentioned earlier is the propensity to invent arguments give reasons to accept a story as true or to reject it as false. Another very important feedback effect was the invention of a series of natural numbers.

First come the dual and plural: one, two, many. Then numbers up to 5; then numbers up to 10 and up to 20. And then comes the invention of the principle according to which we can continue any series of numbers by adding one, that is, the principle of "next" - the principle of constructing for each given number the number following it.

Each such step is linguistic innovation, invention. This is a linguistic innovation, and it is completely different from counting (when, for example, a shepherd carves a notch on his staff every time a sheep passes by). Each such step changes our mind - our mental picture of the world, our consciousness.

So there is a feedback, an interaction between our language and our mind. And as our language and our minds grow, we begin to see more of our world. Language works like a searchlight: just as a searchlight picks out an airplane from the darkness, language can "put into focus" certain aspects, certain states of affairs it describes, snatched from a continuum of facts. Therefore, language not only interacts with our minds, it helps us see things and possibilities that we could never see without it. I suggest that the earliest inventions, such as the kindling and maintenance of fires and, much later, the invention of the wheel (unknown to many peoples of high culture) were made with the help of language: they were made possible (in the case of fire) by identifying very dissimilar situations. Without language, we can only identify biological situations to which we react in the same way (food, danger, etc.).

There is at least one good argument for suggesting that descriptive language is much older than the ability to keep fire going: children without language can hardly be considered human. The deprivation of the tongue even has a physical effect on them, perhaps worse than the deprivation of any vitamin, not to mention the devastating mental effect. Children deprived of language are mentally deranged. The deprivation of fire does not make anyone non-human, at least in a warm climate.

In fact, language skills and walking upright seem to be the only skills vital to us. They certainly have a genetic basis; both are actively acquired by young children - mostly on their own initiative - in almost any social setting. Mastering a language is also a grandiose intellectual achievement. And all normal children master it, probably because the need for it is embedded in them very deeply. (This fact can be used as an argument against the doctrine that there are physically normal children with a very low natural level of intelligence.) About twenty years ago I put forward a theory that divides the world, or universe, into three half-worlds, which I called world 1, world 2 and peace 3.

World 1 is the world of all bodies, forces, force fields, as well as organisms, our own bodies and their parts, our brains and all physical, chemical and biological processes occurring in living bodies.

World 2 I called the world of our mind, or spirit, or consciousness (mind): the world of conscious experiences of our thoughts, our feelings of elation or depression, our goals, our plans of action.

World 3 is the world of products of the human spirit, in particular the world of human language: our stories, our myths, our explanatory theories, our technologies, our biological and medical theories. It is also the world of human creations in painting, architecture and music - the world of all these products of our spirit, which, in my opinion, would never have arisen without human language.

World 3 can be called the world of culture. My theory, which is highly speculative, emphasizes the central role of descriptive language in human culture. World 3 contains all books, all libraries, all theories, including, of course, false theories and even contradictory theories. And the central role in it is assigned to the concepts of truth and falsity.

As stated earlier, the human mind lives and grows in interaction with its products. It is heavily influenced by feedback from the objects or inhabitants of World 3. And World 3, in turn, consists largely of physical objects such as books, buildings, and sculptures.

Books, buildings, and sculptures, products of the human spirit, are, of course, not only inhabitants of world 3, but also inhabitants of world 1. However, symphonies, mathematical proofs, and theories also inhabit world 3. And symphonies, proofs, theories are very strange abstract objects. Beethoven's Ninth Symphony is not identical with its manuscript (which may burn, but the Ninth Symphony will not), nor with any or all of its printed copies, its recordings or performances. The same is the case with Euclid's proof of the prime number theorem or with Newton's theory of gravitation.

The objects that make up world 3 are highly varied. It has marble sculptures such as Michelangelo's. These are not just material, physical bodies, but unique physical bodies. The status of paintings, architecture, music manuscripts, and even the status of rare copies of printed books is somewhat similar to this status, but, as a rule, the status of a book as an object of world 3 is completely different. If I ask a physics student if he knows Newton's theory of gravity, I don't mean a material book and certainly not a unique physical body, but an objective content Newton's thoughts or, more precisely, the objective content of his writings. And I am not referring to Newton's actual thought processes, which of course belong to world 2, but to something much more abstract: something that belongs to world 3 and developed by Newton in a critical process through constant improvements over and over again in different periods. his life.

All this is difficult to make quite clear, but it is all very important. The main problem here is the status of statements and the logical relations between statements, more precisely, between logical content statements.

All purely logical relations between statements, such as inconsistency, compatibility, deducibility (relation of logical consequence) are relations of world 3. These are certainly not psychological relations of world 2. They take place regardless of whether anyone has ever thought about them and whether anyone thought they were present. At the same time, they can be easily "learned": they can be easily understood; we can think through them all in the mind, in world 2; and we can experience in the experience that the relation of consequence (between two statements) takes place and is trivially convincing, and this is an experience from world 2. Of course, with difficult theories, such as mathematical or physical, it may turn out that we assimilate them, understand them, but at the same time not convinced that they are true.

Thus, our world 2 minds can be in close contact with the objects of world 3. And yet the objects of world 2 - our subjective experiences - must be clearly distinguished from the objective world 3 statements, theories, assumptions, as well as open problems.

I have already spoken about the interaction between world 2 and world 3, and I will illustrate this with one more arithmetic example. The series of natural numbers 1, 2, Z... is a human invention. As I emphasized earlier, this linguistic invention, as opposed to the invention of the account. Spoken and possibly written languages ​​collaborated in the invention and improvement of the system of natural numbers. However, we did not invent the difference between even and odd numbers - we opened it in that object of the world 3 - a series of natural numbers - which we invented or produced. Similarly, we discovered that there are divisible numbers and prime numbers. And we discovered that prime numbers are very frequent at first (up to the number 7 they are even the majority) - 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13 - and then become less and less common. These are facts that we have not created, but which are unintended, unforeseen and inevitable consequences of the invention of a series of natural numbers. These are the objective facts of the world 3. That they are unforeseen will become clear if I point out that there are open problems associated with them. For example, we found that prime numbers sometimes come in pairs - 11 and 13, 17 and 19, 29 and 31. They are called twins and appear less and less as you move to larger numbers. However, despite numerous studies, we do not know if these couples will ever disappear completely, or if they will meet again and again; in other words, we still don't know if there is a greatest pair of twins. (The so-called twin hypothesis assumes that there is no such largest pair, in other words, that the number of twins is infinite.)

There are open problems in world 3: we are trying to discover such problems and solve them. This shows very clearly the objectivity of world 3 and the way in which world 2 and world 3 interact: not only can world 2 work to discover and solve the problems of world 3, but world 3 can act on world 2 (and through it on world 1) .

A distinction must be made between knowledge in the sense of world 3—knowledge in the objective sense (almost always conjectural)—and knowledge in the sense of world 2, that is, the information we carry in our heads—knowledge in the subjective sense. The difference between knowledge in the subjective sense (in the sense of world 2) and knowledge in the objective sense (in the sense of world 3: knowledge formulated, for example, in books, or stored in computers, or perhaps not yet known to anyone) is of the greatest importance. What we call "science" and what we strive to develop is, first of all, true knowledge in objective sense. At the same time, of course, it is extremely important that knowledge in the subjective sense also spread among people - along with the knowledge of how little we know.

The most incredible thing we know about the human mind, about life, about evolution and mental growth, is the interaction, feedback - "I - to you, you - to me" between world 2 and world 3, between our mental growth and the growth of the objective world 3, which is the result of our enterprise, our talents and abilities, and which gives us the opportunity to go beyond ourselves.

It is this self-transcendence, this going beyond ourselves, that seems to me the most important fact of all life and all evolution: in our interaction with world 3 we can learn, and thanks to the invention of language, our fallible human brains can grow into lights that illuminate the universe.

Literature

1. Baldwin J. M. (1895) Mental Development in the Child and in the Race. MacMilian and Co., New York.
2. Buhler K. (! 918) Kntische Musterung der Ncueren Theorien des Satzes // Indogermanisches Jahrbuch, vol. 6, pp. 1-20.
3. Diels N, Kranz W. (1964) Fragmente der Vorsokratiker. Weidmann, Dublin and Zurich.
4. Eigen M.. Winkler R. (1975) Das Spiel. R. Piper and Co. Verlag, Munchen.
5. Frisch J. E. (1959) Research on Primate Behavior in Japan // American Anthropologist, vol. 61, pp. 584-596.
6. Groos K. (1896) Die Spiele der Tiere. Verlag von Gustav Fischer, Jena.
7. Held R., Nem A. (1963) Movement Produced Stimulation in the Development of Visually Guided Behavior // Journal of Comparative Physiological Psychology, vol. 56, pp. 872-876.
8. Hochkeppel W. (1973) Denken als Spiel. Deutsche Taschenbuch Verlag, Munchen.
9. Itani J. (1958) On the Acquisition and Propagation of a new Food Habit in the Natural Group of the Japanese Monkey at Takasakiyama // Primates, vol. 1, pp. 84-98.
10. Jennings H. S. (1906) The Behavior of the Lower Organisms. Columbia University Press, New York.
11. Kawamura S. (1959) The Process of Sub-culture Propagation among Japanese Macaques // Primates, vol. 2, pp. 43-60.
12. Lorenz K. Z. (1941) Kants Lehre vom apriorischen im Lichte gegenwartiger Biologic // Blatter fur Deutsche Philosophic, vol. 15, 1941. New edition in: Lorenz. K. Z. Das Wrkungsgefuge und das Schiksal des Menschen, Serie Piper 309 (1983).
13. Lorenz K. Z. (1973) Die Ruckseite des Spiegels. Piper, Munchen (translation into Russian: Lorenz Konrad. The reverse side of the mirror. M-: Respublika, 1998, pp. 243-467).
14. Loivnt K. Z. (1977) Behind the Mirror. Methucn, London.
15. Lorenz K. Z. (1978) Vergleichende Vcrhaltungsforschung, Grundlagen der Etologie. Spinger Verlag, Wen/New York.
16. Menyl E. W. (1966) Responsiveness to Objects in Free-ranging Japanese Monkeys // Behavior, vol. 26, pp. 130-150.
17. Wyadi D. (1964) Social Life of Japanese Monkeys// Science, vol. 143, pp. 783-786.
18. Morgan S. (1908) Animal Behavior. Edward Arnold, London.
19. Popper K. R. (1934) Logik der Forschung. Julius Springes, Vienna; 8th edition (1984) J. C. W. Mohz (Paul Siebeck), Tubingcn: see also (1959) The Logic of Scientific Discovery. Hutchinson, London: (1992) Reprinted by Routledge, London.
20. Popper K. R. (1963, 1996) Conjectures and Refutations. Routledge and Kegan Paul, London.
21. Popper K. R. (1979, written 1930-32) Die beidcn Grundprobleme der Erkenntnistheorie. J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), Tubingen
22. Popper K. R., Eccles J. C. (1977) The Self and Its Brain. Springer International, Berlin, Heidelberg, London: New York, pp. 404-405. See also the paperback edition: Routledge and Kegan Paul, London (1984).

Translation by D.G. Lahuti.

The article is taken from the collection "Evolutionary epistemology and the logic of the social sciences: Karl Popper and his critics." Compiled by D.G. Lakhuti, V.N. Sadovsky, V.K. Finn. M: Editorial URSS, 2000.

EVOLUTIONARY EPISTEMOLOGY

EVOLUTIONARY EPISTEMOLOGY

A trend in modern epistemology that owes its origin primarily to Darwinism and the subsequent successes of evolutionary biology, human genetics, and cognitive science. Chief E. e. (or, as it is usually called in German-speaking countries, the evolutionary theory of knowledge) is reduced to the assumption that people, like other living beings, are a product of living nature, the result of evolutionary processes, and because of this, their cognitive and mental and even cognition and knowledge (including its most refined aspects) is ultimately guided by the mechanisms of organic evolution. E. e. proceeds from the assumption that the biological person did not end with the formation; not only did it provide the cognitive basis for the emergence of human culture, but it proved to be the sine qua non of its remarkably rapid progress over the past ten thousand years.
The origins of the main ideas of E. e. can be found in the works of classical Darwinism and, above all, in the later works of Charles Darwin himself “The Descent of Man” (1871) and “The Expression of Emotions in Humans and Animals” (1872), where the emergence of human cognitive abilities, their self-consciousness, language, morality, etc. .d. associated with the mechanisms of natural selection, with the processes of survival and reproduction. But only after the creation in the 1920-1930s. The synthetic theory of evolution, which confirmed the universal principles of natural selection, opened up the application of the chromosome theory of heredity and population genetics to the study of epistemological problems. This process began with an article published in 1941 by the well-known Austrian. ethologist K. Lorentz “Kantian a priori in the light of modern biology”, where convincing arguments were given in favor of the existence of innate knowledge in animals and humans, the material basis of which is the central nervous system. This is not irrelevant to reality, but the essence is phenotypic, subject to the action of the mechanisms of natural selection.
For the first time "E. e." appeared only in 1974 in an article by Amer. psychologist and philosopher D. Campbell, dedicated to the philosophy of K. Popper. Developing the epistemological approach of Lorentz, Campbell proposed to consider knowledge not as a phenotypic trait, but as a trait that forms it. Cognition leads to more relevant behavior and increases the adaptability of a living organism to the environment (including the socio-cultural one, if any). Somewhat later, this new evolutionary view of cognition was integrated with information-theoretic models. This opened up the possibility of linking biological evolution with the evolution of the cognitive system of living organisms, with the evolution of their abilities to extract, process and store cognitive information.
In the 1980s in E. e., apparently, two different research programs were finally formed. The first program - the study of the evolution of cognitive mechanisms - proceeds from the assumption that for epistemology the exceptional represents the cognitive system of living beings and in particular human cognitive abilities that evolve through natural selection. This program (sometimes called bioepistemology) extends the biological theory of evolution to the physical substrates of cognitive activity and studies cognition as a biological adaptation that provides an increase in reproductive fitness (Lorenz, Campbell, Riedl, G. Vollmer, etc.). The second program - the study of the evolution of scientific theories - attempts to create a general theory of development that would cover biological evolution, individual change, cultural change, and scientific as special cases. This program makes extensive use of metaphors, analogies, and models from evolutionary biology and explores knowledge as the main product of evolution (Popper, S. Toulmin, D. Hull, and others). In the last decades of the 20th century E. e. is rapidly turning into an area of ​​interdisciplinary research, where not only evolutionary, but also theories of genetic-cultural co-evolution, computer theory, etc., are increasingly used.

Philosophy: Encyclopedic Dictionary. - M.: Gardariki. Edited by A.A. Ivina. 2004 .

EVOLUTIONARY EPISTEMOLOGY

EVOLUTIONARY - a direction in modern epistemology, which owes its emergence primarily to Darwinism and subsequent successes in evolutionary biology, human genetics, cognitive psychology, information theory and computer science. The main thesis of evolutionary epistemology (or, as it is usually called in German-speaking countries, the evolutionary theory of knowledge and knowledge) is the assumption that people, like other living beings, are a product of living nature, the result of evolutionary processes, and because of this, their cognitive and mental faculties and even cognition and knowledge (including its most refined aspects) are ultimately guided by the mechanisms of organic evolution. Unlike many other epistemological schools and directions, the evolutionary one proceeds from the assumption that the biological evolution of man did not end with the formation of Homo sapiens - it not only created the cognitive basis for the emergence of human culture, but also, apparently, turned out to be an indispensable condition for its surprisingly rapid progress over time. the last 10 thousand years.

The origins of the main ideas of evolutionary epistemology can be easily found in the works of classical Darwinism, and above all in the later works of Charles Darwin himself “The Origin of Man” (1871) and “The Expression of Emotions in People and Animals” (1872), where the emergence of the cognitive abilities of people, their self-consciousness , language, morality, etc., was ultimately associated with the mechanisms of natural selection, with the processes of survival and reproduction. However, only after the creation in the 1920-30s. The synthetic theory of evolution, which confirmed the universal significance of the principles of natural selection, opened up the possibility of applying the chromosome theory of heredity and population genetics to the study of epistemological problems. The beginning of this process was laid in 1941 by the well-known German ethologist Konrad Lorenz’s article “The Kantian Conception in the Light of Modern Biology”, which presented a number of very convincing arguments in favor of the existence of innate knowledge in animals and humans, the material basis of which is the organization of the central nervous system. This innate knowledge, according to Lorentz, is not something irrelevant to reality, but is a phenotypic trait subject to the action of natural selection mechanisms.

For the first time the term "evolutionary epistemology", apparently, appeared only in 1974 in an article by psychologist D. Campbell, devoted to the philosophy of K. Popper. Developing the epistemological approach of K. Lorenz, Campbell proposed to consider knowledge not as a phenotypic trait, but as a process that forms this trait. Cognition ultimately leads to more relevant behavior and increases the adaptability of a living organism to the environment (including the socio-cultural one, if we are talking about it). Somewhat later, this new, evolutionary view of cognition was integrated with information-theoretic models of biological evolution. This opened up the possibility of linking biological evolution with the evolution of the cognitive system of living organisms, with the evolution of their abilities to extract, process and store cognitive information.

In the 1980s in evolutionary epistemology, two distinct research agendas have taken shape. The first program focuses on the study of the characteristics of cognitive mechanisms in animals and humans through the intensive extension of the biological theory of evolution to those aspects or features of living organisms that are biological substrates of cognitive activity. Another program attempts to study the evolution of ideas, scientific theories, and culture in general, using models and metaphors borrowed from evolutionary biology. The differences between these programs are relative - representatives of all trends in evolutionary epistemology share that the evolutionary approach can be extended to epistemological problems, to the epistemic actions of people. Nevertheless, two relatively independent levels of research stand out in evolutionary epistemology. The first level of evolutionary epistemology is more of a biological cognitive process (Lorentz, Campbell, Riedl, etc.) and various concepts of the cognitive evolution of living organisms (including humans). The second level includes those methodologies and metatheories that reconstruct scientific theories, ideas, the growth of scientific and theoretical knowledge, involving evolutionary models for these purposes (Popper, S. Tulmin, I. Lakatosider.)

Modern theories of gene-cultural co-evolution (E. Wilson, C. Lumsden) have outlined new points of contact between these until recently relatively isolated areas of research in evolutionary epistemology, which go far beyond traditional metaphors and analogies. From the standpoint of these theories, not only the evolution of knowledge, but even such subtle aspects of it as, for example, research strategies or the growth of scientific and theoretical knowledge, can be successfully studied as a universal process of information development. The main task of evolutionary epistemology, as it is understood by the vast majority of researchers, is primarily to develop a comprehensive and most exhaustive approach to the development of knowledge, which goes significantly beyond the classical philosophical traditions. In reality, this approach can only be interdisciplinary, since it is based on the results obtained in various sciences (primarily in cognitive science), if these results have at least some relevance to the problems of cognition.

Lit .: L doctrine a priori in the light of modern biology. - “Man”, 1997, No. 5; Evolutionary epistemology: problems, prospects. M., 1996; Merkulov I.P. Cognitive evolution. M., 1998; Campbell D. T. Evolutionary Epistemology.- The Philophy of Karl Popper, ed. by P. A. Schilp, Open Court, La Salle (II), 1974, p. 413-463; Popper K.. Objective Knowledge. An Evolutionary Approach. Oxf., 1979; WuketitsF. Evolutionary Epblemology and Its Implication for Humankind. N. Y, 1990.

I. P. Merkulov

New Philosophical Encyclopedia: In 4 vols. M.: Thought. Edited by V. S. Stepin. 2001 .

See what "EVOLUTIONARY EPISTEMOLOGY" is in other dictionaries:

evolutionary epistemology- EVOLUTIONARY EPISTEMOLOGY A direction in epistemology of the 20th century, which owes its appearance, first of all, to Darwinism and subsequent successes in evolutionary biology and human genetics. The main thesis of E. e. (or as it is usually called... Encyclopedia of Epistemology and Philosophy of Science

A trend in modern epistemology that owes its origin primarily to Darwinism and subsequent successes in evolutionary biology, human genetics, cognitive psychology, information theory, and computer science. The main thesis... Philosophical Encyclopedia

Evolutionary epistemology is a theory of knowledge that is a branch of epistemology and considers the growth of knowledge as a product of biological evolution. Evolutionary epistemology is based on the premise that the evolution of human knowledge is like ... Wikipedia

EVOLUTIONARY EPISTEMOLOGY- one of the directions in the modern theory of scientific knowledge, which is based on the idea of ​​the identity of biological evolution and the cognitive process, and considers the human cognitive apparatus as an adaptation mechanism developed in the process ... ... Philosophy of Science and Technology: Thematic Dictionary

EVOLUTIONARY EPISTEMOLOGY- a direction in epistemology that studies cognition as a moment in the evolution of living nature and its product. The first works on E.e. appeared as an attempt to clarify epistemological questions on a biological basis. They belong to Austria. ethologist Lorenz and ... ... Modern Western Philosophy. encyclopedic Dictionary

Evolutionary epistemology (theory of knowledge)- - a direction that connects biological evolution with the evolution of the human cognitive system, its ability to extract, process and store cognitive information ... Philosophy of Science. Epistemology. Methodology. culture

Evolutionary theory of knowledge [innate structures of knowledge in the context of biology, psychology, linguistics, philosophy and theory of science] Vollmer Gerhard

The evolution of knowledge

The evolution of knowledge

If we assume, as the evolutionary theory of cognition does, that human cognitive abilities were formed in the course of evolution, then further scientific-theoretical and epistemological consequences follow from this.

First, there must be not only phylogenetic, but also ontogenetic development of cognitive abilities. This consequence of the evolutionary theory of knowledge is a matter of course for psychologists. The development of the mind (in a general sense) in children is indeed the subject of intense psychological research and contradictory hypotheses - this is evidenced, for example, by controversies in the psychology of learning - ; however, it is certain that every child goes through a process of intellectual maturation, or at least a process of spiritual development, according to certain, genetically determined dispositions. The works of Jean Piaget (see p. 19) point in this direction.

Secondly, in accordance with the evolutionary theory of cognition, there should be not only a genus-specific and individual development of cognitive abilities, but also a development of human cognition. This fact is clearly expressed in the fact that we know the history of concepts, ideas, and science. The history of knowledge, however, is connected with the evolution of cognitive abilities, but their laws may not coincide.

Thirdly, there are interesting relationships between these three areas (the evolution of cognitive abilities, ontogenetic development, the history of science), which we presented with a simple diagram (Fig. 12). The reason that these connections are so poorly explored is undoubtedly their interdisciplinary nature, requiring knowledge of evolutionary theory, psychology, history, and the theory of science.

Rice. 12. Development of knowledge

In connection with the evolution of science, a particular problem is the change of theories. At the same time, we are not talking about the fact that a hitherto unknown area should be theoretically mastered, but about improving an already existing theory or limiting the area of ​​​​its significance. Such cases in science, however, are not everyday; normal is the observation of new phenomena (effects) and their prediction or explanation with the help of an existing theory that does not conflict with these observations. However, the replacement of an old theory by a new one is a particularly remarkable process, and many authors tend to speak of an "overthrow", a "scientific revolution" (121). Such strong characterizations are perhaps justified given the conceptual system, especially the underlying concepts of the theory. But it is inadequate, since experience and observation, which also necessarily belong to science (see p. 132), are not discarded, but only interpreted differently.

We have already spoken a little about the criteria on the basis of which the choice or evaluation of a theory is carried out (see p. 108). We have distinguished between necessary and useful criteria. It may happen that the new theory describes the same empirical data as the old one; then both theories are said to be empirically equivalent. (see page 108). In such cases, useful criteria (eg, simplicity) are invoked to select a theory. But from case to case, they can have a different weight. So, for example, wave and matrix mechanics are empirically equivalent; despite this, for practical calculations, in most cases, the Schrödinger wave equation is used, and to solve fundamental problems, the Heisenberg matrix approach is used.

However, empirical equivalence is rather an exceptional case. Therefore, practical criteria play only a subordinate role. Also, the adoption of a new theory that explains a smaller number of observations is very rare. In normal cases, a new theory is accepted precisely because it has a higher explanatory value than its predecessor. The development of science goes along the path of expanding the scope of applicability, the transition to broader theories, general laws, a single description. How far it can go down this path is a matter of pessimistic and optimistic speculation(122). However, there is no doubt that due to the huge success of Newtonian mechanics and gravitational theory in equalizing "terrestrial" and "celestial" physics, especially over the last century, we have come closer to such a unification, not only in physics, but also in biology ( see examples for the postulate of continuity on page 30).

It is especially important to take into account that classical mechanics was not supplemented by quantum mechanics. The idea that classical mechanics describes the macroworld, and quantum mechanics describes the microcosm, arises because classical mechanics cannot be applied to the physics of elementary particles, atoms and molecules, while quantum mechanics is not wanted to be applied to microscopic phenomena. Precisely speaking, classical mechanics is false everywhere, while quantum mechanics, on the contrary, is (hypothetically!) correct; however, the deviations of classical mechanics from quantum mechanics in the macroscopic region are so small that they are currently beyond the limits of measurement accuracy. But the uncertainty relation, wave-particle duality, energy quantization, etc., also operate in the macrocosm! Thus, quantum mechanics is superior to classical mechanics.

Quite similarly, general relativity is not simply the mechanics of strong gravitational fields; special relativity does not only apply to high speeds. General relativity rather contains the special and classical theory of gravity, relativistic physics embraces the classical one; but deviations in the area of ​​our sensory organs, in the sphere of "human" relations (weak gravitational fields, low speeds), are so small that for a long time they were not noticeable at all.

Here again there is a tendency towards objectification and deanthropomorphization: modern scientific theories, including the area of ​​"earthly" relations, especially the area of ​​everyday experience, go far beyond its limits. The laws of fundamental theories act universally, the laws of classical theories - only approximately and only in the conditions of our "surrounding world" (see p. 44).

Likewise, the formal relationships between classical and modern statements cannot be uncritically characterized as limiting cases, as physicists have often done. Classical physics does not simply follow from quantum mechanics, when the Planck quantum of action vanishes or becomes a "large quantum number", nor does it follow from the theory of relativity, when the speed of light is assumed to be infinite. Such boundary cases are by no means possible for all formulas of quantum theory and the theory of relativity; they may be multivalued or give non-classical results.

The relationship between theories corresponds to the notion that a new theory is able (or should be), once accepted, to simulate the old one. It should also be possible to define the concepts and laws of the old theory in the new one, if they turn out to be meaningful in explaining the empirical results.

In this sense, for example, it is possible with the help of Darwinian theory to simulate Lamarckian evolutionary theory, especially the inheritance of acquired characteristics (the "Baldwin effect").

One cannot fail to see that Lamarckism is a kind of approximation to Darwinism, and that the results of selection therefore often look like the results of Lamarckian adaptation, learning by repetition: Darwinism to a certain extent simulates Lamarckism.

(Popper, 1973, 169; likewise 272, 296)

Similarly, induction simulates trial and error. This serves as a basis for their mutual replacement. (Popper, 1973, 299).

It is also possible to introduce the concept of force into general relativity and get "something like" Newton's law of gravity, so that general relativity will simulate the classical theory of gravity.

By means of statistical laws it becomes possible (for large populations) to simulate deterministic phenomena. This is valid for both thermodynamics and quantum mechanics.

The evolutionary theory of knowledge is also able to "simulate" other theories of knowledge, insofar as it explains the facts of experience. For example, it replaces a priori forms of contemplation and Kant's categories with innate structures of knowledge. They are also in the fullest sense constitutive of experience in the transcendental philosophical sense, but not independent of any, but only of individual experience. Their logical or transcendental necessity is denied. But what Kant correctly saw, he misinterpreted, namely, he absolutized a priori psychological necessity to the transcendental level. But the latter is recognized and explained in the evolutionary theory of knowledge.

It would be interesting and useful to test the simulation abilities of the evolutionary theory of knowledge on other facts and epistemological theories. Such a comparison could also serve to distinguish it from other positions and clarify it. This task is not set here. We will conclude with some other reflections on the evolutionary theory of knowledge, which we have designated as "meta-thinkings".