Tracing the biological roots of knowledge
In Rangaswamy N. S. (ed.), Life and Organicism. Centre for Studies in Civilizations (2009)
| Abstract | The essay is a critical review of three possible approaches in the theory of knowledge while tracing the biological roots of knowledge: empiricist, rationalist and developmentalist approaches. Piaget's genetic epistemology, a developmentalist approach, is one of the first comprehensive treatments on the question of tracing biological roots of knowledge. This developmental approach is currently opposed, without questioning the biological roots of knowledge, by the more popular rationalist approach, championed by Chomsky. Developmental approaches are generally coherent with cybernetic models, of which the theory of autopoiesis proposed by Maturana and Varela made a significant theoretical move in proposing an intimate connection between metabolism and knowledge. Modular architecture is currently considered more or less an undisputable model for both biology as well as cognitive science. By suggesting that modulation of modules is possible by motor coordination, a proposal is made to account for higher forms of conscious cognition within the four distinguishable layers of the human mind. Towards the end, the problem of life and cognition is discussed in the context of the evolution of complex cognitive systems, suggesting the unique access of phylogeny during the ontogeny of human beings as a very special case, and how the problem cannot be dealt with independent of the evolution of coding systems in nature. | |||||||||
| Keywords | biology and knowledge Karmiloff-Smith critique of Fodor developmental view Piaget metabolism and knowledge Maturana critique of modularity modularity implicit and explicit knowledge | |||||||||
| Categories | ||||||||||
| Options |
|
|||||||||
Download options| PhilPapers Archive |
Upload a copy of this paper Check publisher's policy on self-archival Papers currently archived: 5,672 |
| External links |
  Try with proxy. Try with proxy. Try with proxy. |
| Through your library | Configure |
Similar books and articlesDavid Kirsh (2009). Knowledge, Implicit Vs Explicit. In T. Bayne, A. Cleeremans & P. Wilken (eds.), The Oxford Companion to Consciousness. Cambridge.
Nejat Düzgüneş (1978). The Biology of Ethics or the Ethics of Biology? The Biologist's Quest for Meaning. Acta Biotheoretica 27 (1-2).
John R. Vokey & Philip A. Higham (1999). Implicit Knowledge as Automatic, Latent Knowledge. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 22 (5):787-788.
Sandra D. Mitchell (2008). Exporting Causal Knowledge in Evolutionary and Developmental Biology. Philosophy of Science 75 (5):697-706.
Richard M. Burian (2005). The Epistemology of Development, Evolution, and Genetics: Selected Essays. Cambridge University Press.
Jill Boucher (1999). Time and the Implicit-Explicit Continuum. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 22 (5):758-759.
Martha Wagner Alibali & Kenneth R. Koedinger (1999). The Developmental Progression From Implicit to Explicit Knowledge: A Computational Approach. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 22 (5):755-756.
Claudia Lorena García (2007). Cognitive Modularity, Biological Modularity and Evolvability. Biological Theory: Integrating Development, Evolution and Cognition (KLI) 2 (1):62-73.
Nagarjuna G. (2006). Layers in the Fabric of Mind: A Critical Review of Cognitive Ontogeny. In Jayashree Ramadas & Sugra Chunawala (eds.), Research Trends in Science, Technology and Mathematics Education. Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education, TIFR.
G. Nagarjuna (2006). Tracing the Biological Roots of Knowledge. In N. S. Rangaswamy (ed.), [Book Chapter] (in Press). Centre for Studies in Civilizations.
Analytics
Monthly downloads |
Added to index2009-01-28Total downloads11 ( #99,484 of 549,066 )Recent downloads (6 months)0How can I increase my downloads? |
My notes
Discussion
