How Animals and Intellectuals Think
Evolution and Epistemology
Contents
Preface iii
Four Ways to see the World 1
Naive Realism 1
Idealism 2
Phenomenalism 5
Darwinism 7
Some Traditional Dichotomies 11
Mind and Matter 11
Mind 11
Matter 15
Objectivity and Subjectivity 17
Objectivity 17
Subjectivity 21
The Rational and the Empirical 23
Why a Darwinist Epistemology 23
Limits to a Darwinist Epistemology 24
Usefulness of a Darwinist Vision 27
Elementary Ways of Thinking 30
The Matter Behind Mind 30
Sense Organs 30
Responses to Sensations:
from reflexes to concepts 32
Cognitive and Neurological Development 37
Cognition in Non-Human Animals 40
Some Conceptual Misunderstandings 40
How do Animals Represent the World? 44
Representing the Physical Environment 44
Representing the Social Environment 47
Animal Communication 52
The Evolution of the Human Mind 56
Elementary Cognition and Epistemology 61
ii
Human Ways of Thinking: Common Sense 63
Cognitive Development 63
Language Development 67
Language 68
Non-Linguistic Communication 70
Concepts 70
Cultural Variation and Universal Cognition 71
Cultural and Personal Scripts 73
Verbal Reasoning 80
Formal Logic 80
Abduction 86
Dreams and Altered States of Consciousness 89
Conclusions 92
Intellectual Ways of Thinking 94
Biases in Intellectual Thought 97
Social Biases 98
Biases in Making Associations 100
Limits to Information Processing Capacities 102
Dealing with Cognitive Biases 105
Sociology of Knowledge 105
Dealing with Limitations in Information
Processing 108
Interpretation and Persuasion in Case Studies 111
Quantitative Techniques 111
Using Quantitative Techniques in the Study
of Human Behavior 113
Critiques of Quantitative Techniques 117
Conclusions 126
Anthropological Ways of Thinking 128
Methodological Implications of Cognitive Modules 132
Ways of Acheiving Comprehension 132
Methods for Explanation 135
Cultural Parallels 135
Typologies 137
Symbolic Systems versus
Cause and Effect 138
The Usefulness of Anthropology 141
Anthropological Ethics 143
References Cited 149