Evolutionary Epistemology, Language and Culture: A Non-Adaptationist, Systems Theoretical Approach

by Nathalie Gontier (Editor), Jean Paul van Bendegem (Editor), Diederik Aerts (Editor)

Overview

For the first time in history, scholars working on language and culture from within an evolutionary epistemological framework, and thereby emphasizing complementary or deviating theories of the Modern Synthesis, were brought together. Of course there have been excellent conferences on Evolutionary Epistemology in the past, as well as numerous conferences on the topics of Language and Culture. However, until now these disciplines had not been brought together into one all-encompassing conference.

Moreover, previously there never had been such stress on alternative and complementary theories of the Modern Synthesis. Today we know that natural selection and evolution are far from synonymous and that they do not explain isomorphic phenomena in the world. ‘Taking Darwin seriously’ is the way to go, but today the time has come to take alternative and complementary theories that developed after the Modern Synthesis, equally seriously, and, furthermore, to examine how language and culture can merit from these diverse disciplines.

As this volume will make clear, a specific inter- and transdisciplinary approach is one of the next crucial steps that needs to be taken, if we ever want to unravel the secrets of phenomena such as language and culture.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9789048168521
Publisher:	Springer Netherlands
Publication date:	11/29/2010
Series:	Theory and Decision Library A: , #39
Edition description:	Softcover reprint of hardcover 1st ed. 2006
Pages:	494
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.45(h) x 0.04(d)

Table of Contents

to evolutionary epistemology, language and culture.- to evolutionary epistemology, language and culture.- Evolutionary epistemology.- Evolutionary epistemology: The non-adaptationist approach.- Like cats and dogs: Radical constructivism and evolutionary epistemology.- The biological boundary conditions for our classical physical world view.- Is the real world something more than the world of our experience? Relations between Neo-Darwinism, transcendental philosophy and cognitive sciences.- Universal Darwinism and process essentialism.- Evolutionary epistemology and language.- Darwinism, traditional linguistics and the new Palaeolithic Continuity Theory of language evolution.- The extended mind model of the origin of language and culture.- From changes in the world to changes in the words.- Evolutionary epistemology and the origin and evolution of language: Taking symbiogenesis seriously.- The self-organization of dynamic systems: Modularity under scrutiny.- Evolutionary epistemology and culture.- Against human nature.- Cognition, evolution, and sociality.- Cultural evolution, the Baldwin effect, and social norms.- Cultural creativity and evolutionary flexibility.- Some ideas to study the evolution of mathematics.- Evolutionary epistemology and modelling.- Computer modelling as a tool for understanding language evolution.- Simulating the syntax and semantics of linguistic constructions about time.- Evolutionary game-theoretic semantics and its foundational status.- Towards a quantum evolutionary scheme: Violating Bell’s inequalities in language.

Editorial Reviews

From the reviews:

"The audience targeted by this book includes scholars working in fields as diverse as evolutionary epistemology, philosophy of science, evolutionary anthropology, evolutionary linguistics, artificial intelligence, and cognitive science. The book is the collection of essays on evolutionary epistemology … . highlight of the book is the many papers dedicated to computer modeling and simulation. … Overall, this is an interesting collection of papers that addresses an interesting topic. Researchers working around the theory of EE will find the book most beneficial." (Jason Brown, The Linguist List, February, 2008)

From the Publisher