Taking Evolution Seriously

Abstract

The climate of epistemological opinion is rapidly changing in the direc tion of an increasing concern with the substantive results of the empirical sciences of man, such as psychology and biology. This change is of a com paratively recent date: as late as in 1964, Chauncey Wright's seminal speculations on the biology of knowledge-processes were shrugged off by one commentator as nineteenth-century impedimenta and paraphernalia.1 Today, such a judgement seems strangely out of date. Our knowledge of man as an animal has been broadened and deepened, both by the dramatic ad vances of molecular biology and by the recent appearance of the 'sociobiology' represented by Edward O. Wilson. To the philosopher, the question inevitably arises of how far this knowledge extends and, in par ticular, to what extent it can account for peculiarly human intellectual phenomena, such as the growth of scientific knowledge. The study of man as an animal and the study of man as a knower can no longer be simply assumed to be two distinct and separate departments of thought. From this perspective, attention naturally focuses on Donald T. Campbell's attempt at bringing together evolutionary biology, cognitive psy chology, and analytical philosophy of science in the cooperative research programme which he has labelled 'evolutionary epistemology'. This paper will be devoted to a discussion of Campbell's research programme, as it is set forth in his two papers 'Evolutionary Epistemology' and 'Unjustified Varia tion and Selective Retention in Scientific Discovery'.2 The discussion will be largely critical, but the purpose of the criticism is not destructive. My discus sion is motivated throughout by a conviction as to the importance of Campbell's undertaking, a wholehearted sympathy with his goals, and a profound admiration for his impressive achievements in transcending traditional disciplinary boundaries. My criticisms are not intended as criticisms of evolutionary epistemology understood as the attempt to bring evolutionary theory to bear on epistemological problems; rather, they are in tended as a modest contribution to just this end. They are offered, therefore, in a spirit of cooperation, not of controversy.