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Summary The concept of evolutionary epistemology has been critically discussed by philosophers who have mainly pointed to unacceptable philosophical tenets (cf. Vittorio Hösle, this Journal, Vol. 19 (1988), pp. 348–377). However, as most philosophers are extremely reluctant to critically treat the biological theories on which the ideas of evolutionary epistemology are based, the invalid concepts of adaption escaped their critical scrutiny. Therefore the influence of preconceived biological theories on the biological basis of evolutionary epistemology and the distorting consequences on the philosophical level could not be elaborated. The following context sketches a new view of organismic reasoning and its impact on evolutionary aspects of epistemology. The basic theorem of adaptation is shown to be unacceptable and invalid if organisms are conceived as autonomous entities which can only evolve according to their specific internal organismic properties.

The Biotheoretical Shortcomings of the Evolutionary Epistemology. The concept of evolutionary epistemology has been critically discussed by philosophers who have mainly pointed to unacceptable philosophical tenets (cf. Vittorio Hösle, this Journal, Vol. 19 (1988), pp. 348-377). However, as most philosophers are extremely reluctant to critically treat the biological theories on which the ideas of evolutionary epistemology are based, the invalid concepts of adaption escaped their critical scrutiny. Therefore the influence of preconceived biological theories on the biological basis of evolutionary epistemology and the distorting consequences on the philosophical level could not be elaborated. The following context sketches a new view of organismic reasoning and its impact on evolutionary aspects of epistemology. The basic theorem of adaptation is shown to be unacceptable and invalid if organisms are conceived as autonomous entities which can only evolve according to their specific internal organismic properties.

Summary The author takes a collection of essays on concepts and approaches inevolutionary epistemology** as the occasion for a critical discussion of the limits and achievements of evolutionary epistemology as well as of certain philosophical objections to the very project itself. She comes to the conclusion that evolutionary epistemology, even if it cannot explain cognition (Erkenntnis) itself, can nevertheless shed light on the complex phenomenon of cognition by demonstrating the presence of traces of our evolutionary past in cognition. Modern research into the structure and functioning of the brain supports this conclusion. The author argues that the questions which evolutionary epistemology can legitimately pose and answer are such that it is not in competition with traditional epistemology. For this reason she suggests that this research program be renamed „evolutionäre Informationstheorie , in the hope that its aims will become clearer to proponents as well as opponents. In the final section the author discusses the possibility that an evolutionary approach might explain the fact that human beings are less and less capable of dealing with the complexity of the world they have created.

Evolutionary epistemologists aim to explain the evolution of cognitive capacities underlying human knowledge and also the processes that generate knowledge, for example in science. There can be no doubt that our cognitive capacities are due in part to our evolutionary heritage. But this is an uninformative thesis. All features of organism have indeed been shaped by evolution. A substantive evolutionary explanation of cognition would have to provide details about the evolutionary processes involved. Evolutionary epistemology has not provided any details. Considering progress of theorizing in science, evolutionary epistemologists have proposed many different analogies between natural selection and selection in science. As yet, the analogies have not been fruitful. The entire program of evolutionary epistemology is programmatic. Evolutionary epistemologists have also moved beyond explanation to justification, the primary issue in traditional epistemology. It turns out that their program presupposes that we can justify knowledge claims in traditional ways. Evolutionary biology is not a proper tool for the justification of beliefs.

EVOLUTIONARY EPISTEMOLOGY, THEORY OF RATIONALITY, AND THE SOCIOLOGY OF KNOWLEDGE by Gerard Radnitzky and W. W. Bartley, III La Salle, Ill.: Open Court, 1987. 475 pp., $39.95, $14.95 (paper).

Evolutionary epistemology takes various forms. As a philosophical discipline, it may use analogies by borrowing concepts from evolutionary biology to establish new foundations. This is not a very successful enterprise because the analogies involved are so weak that they hardly have explanatory force. It may also veil itself with the garbs of biology. Proponents of this strategy have only produced irrelevant theories by transforming epistemology's concepts beyond recognition. Sensible theories about knowledge and biology should presuppose that various long-standing problems concerning relations between the mental and the physical are solved. Such problems are wrongly disregarded by evolutionary epistemologists.

It is argued that fundamental to Piaget''s life works is a biologically based naturalism in which the living world is a nested complex of self-regulating, self-organising (constructing) adaptive systems. A structuralist-rationalist overlay on this core position is distinguished and it is shown how it may be excised without significant loss of content or insight. A new and richer conception of the nature of Piaget''s genetic epistemology emerges, one which enjoys rich interrelationships with evolutionary epistemology. These are explored and it is shown how a regulatory systems evolutionary epistemology may be embedded within genetic epistemology.

Recently, biologist and philosophers have been much attracted by an evolutionary view of knowledge, so-called evolutionary epistemology. Developing this insight, the present paper argues that our cognitive abilities are the outcome of organic evolution, and that, conversely, evolution itself may be described as a cognition process. Furthermore, it is argued that the key to an adequate evolutionary epistemology lies in a system-theoretical approach to evolution which grows from, but goes beyond, Darwin's theory of natural selection.

What credentials does evolutionary epistemology have as science? A judgement based on past performance, both in terms of advancing an empirical programme and further ng theory construction, is not much. This paper briefly outlines some of the research areas, both theoretical and empirical, that can be developed and that might secure for evolutionary epistemology a future in evolutionary biology.

There are two interrelated but distinct programs which go by the name evolutionary epistemology. One attempts to account for the characteristics of cognitive mechanisms in animals and humans by a straightforward extension of the biological theory of evolution to those aspects or traits of animals which are the biological substrates of cognitive activity, e.g., their brains, sensory systems, motor systems, etc. (EEM program). The other program attempts to account for the evaluation of ideas, scientific theories and culture in general by using models and metaphors drawn from evolutionary biology (EET program). The paper begins by distinguishing the two programs and discussing the relationship between them. The next section addresses the metaphorical and analogical relationship between evolutionary epistemology and evolutionary biology. Section IV treats the question of the locus of the epistemological problem in the light of an evolutionary analysis. The key questions here involve the relationship between evolutionary epistemology and traditional epistemology and the legitimacy of evolutionary epistemology as epistemology. Section V examines the underlying ontological presuppositions and implications of evolutionary epistemology. Finally, section VI, which is merely the sketch of a problem, addresses the parallel between evolutionary epistemology and evolutionary ethics.