Hi Francis,
This work is part of a larger community
(Godfrey-Smith, Leland, Christensen, Odling-Smee, Spurrett) of “interdisciplinarians”
at work in this interface of cognition (rather than only psychology),
philosophy of science & mind, and evolutionary theory. Sterelny is well
read, and a critical thinker. He challenges the ‘brain-in-a-vat’
model effectively. This model STILL underlies and permeates much of the talk/
predictions/ simulations of cognitive processes using connectionist models,
neural network architectures – all of which seek ‘internalist’
disembodied, un-situated explanations for complex hominoid processes. I found
it a little repetitive, yet bold in it’s assertions. In my view it is an
essential and refreshing read for anyone working in the Extended Mind / complex
cognitive systems/ distributed cognition science arenas. He does not shy away from
problems such as ‘emergence’ and ‘novelty’ and so on.
Margeret
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On
Behalf Of Francis Heylighen
Sent: Monday, July
19, 2004 9:42 AM
To: Evolution, Complexity and
Cognition group
Subject: [evolcomp] Book: Thought
in a hostile world -Sterelny
The following book was
recommended by Margeret, and judging from the review it does seem quite
interesting. Anybody who knows this author?
At 15:41 -0400 7/17/04,
Margeret Heath wrote:
(a MUST read if one is
interested in blending evol theory with Extended Mind to explain human
cognition. Which I am. :- )
Thought in a Hostile World
The Evolution of Human Cognition
by Kim Sterelny
Blackwell Publishers, 2003
Review by Maura Pilotti, Ph.D. on Dec 1st 2003
Some might argue that we already know all we need to know about human
evolution. After all, works conjuring up intriguing pictures of human
evolution have been accumulating on bookshelves in a seemingly boundless flood
of catchy titles and creative accounts for quite some time. But Thought in a Hostile World: The Evolution of Human
Cognition by Kim Sterelny is different. It is an engaging, yet
provocative, book that examines current theories of human cognitive
architecture and functioning through the eyes of original speculations about
the evolution of the human species.
As it would be expected by a book within the functionalist/evolutionary
tradition, its organizing principle is that cognition, as we know it, is the
outcome of an evolutionary process guided by environmental demands. Yet, the
book promotes some thought-provoking speculations about human uniqueness, the
relationship between folk psychology and scientific theories of human
cognition, and proposes an alternative account of modular views of human
cognition. Altogether, Sterelny develops an interesting and original
narrative around a plausible account of the evolution of human cognition and
its current state, even though this account does not necessarily translate into
easily testable postulates. For instance, he proposes that human
uniqueness is based on three factors linked to evolutionary selection:
cooperation, human niche construction (discussed above), and plasticity.
He argues that although none of these factors alone makes us unique, together
they account for the evolution of human cognition and for its current state as
a rather unique entity compared to that of other species.
Notwithstanding testability, one of the most thought-provoking proposals by
Sterelny is that human evolution has been marked by the active role that human
beings have exhibited in structuring the social, physical, and epistemic
environments of their distant past, which can account for most of the
resilience and rapidity of their offspring's acquisition of mainly
human-specific skills. Thus, human beings are not only responsible for
molding the demands that these environments have placed on them, but also for
devising environments in which the skills that make them most human can be easily
acquired and transmitted to other generations, thereby considerably reducing
the role that popular nativist conceptions of cognitive development attribute
to genetic endowment. In this vein, Sterelny argues against the notion
that human cognition is massively modular (i.e., composed of functionally
encapsulated, autonomous, domain-specific, innately structured computational
mechanisms). He also proposes that human cognition is largely self-engineered,
even though he does not deny its dependency on dual inheritance systems, those
based on genes and those relying on information-sharing devices.
The book is not for neophytes to scientific conceptions of human cognition, but
for scholars who are interested in critically examining these conceptions as
portrayed by functionalist, evolutionary, and nativist traditions, and those
eager to debate the innovative ideas that are bound to emerge from exploring
the contradictions, limitations, or mere weaknesses of the epistemic breath of
such traditions. The book is a powerful critical tool of analysis for
evolutionary psychology, a field criticized for attributing cognitive
adaptations to innate mechanisms that are merely supported by niche
construction and for ignoring adaptations to variability itself. Similarly, it
can serve as a tool of analysis for behavioral ecology, a field also criticized
for underestimating the role of niche construction and non-genetic inheritance.
A must-read book for any scholar of cognition and, most of all, for
evolutionary psychologists.
Maura Pilotti, Ph.D., Department of Psychology, Dowling
College, New York.
--
Francis Heylighen
Center "Leo Apostel"
Free University of Brussels
http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/HEYL.html
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