Research on the adaptive characteristics of the human immune system reveals that evolutionary alg... more Research on the adaptive characteristics of the human immune system reveals that evolutionary algorithms are not strictly matters of replication. And research in genomics suggests that there is no a single source of evolutionary information that carries the same content in every environment. A plausible theory of cultural evolution must acknowledge the possibility that multiple selective algorithms are operating at different time-scales, on different units of selection, with different logical structures; but it must explain how different selective processes are interfaced to yield culturally stable phenomena. This paper advances an empirically plausible approach to memetics that recognizes a wider variety of evolutionary algorithms; and it advances a pluralistic approach to cultural change. Finally, it shows that multiple forms of processing, operating at different timescales, on different units of selection, collectively sustain the human capacity to form and use certain types of r...
Contemporary research on racial categorization is mostly encompassed by two research traditions-s... more Contemporary research on racial categorization is mostly encompassed by two research traditions-social constructionism and the cognitive-cum-evolutionary approach. Although both literatures have some plausible empirical evidence and some theoretical insights to contribute to a full understanding of racial categorization, there has been little contact between their proponents. In order to foster such contacts, we critically review both traditions, focusing particularly on the recent evolutionary/cognitive explanations of racial categorization. On the basis of this critical survey, we put forward a list of eleven requirements that a satisfactory theory of racial categorization should satisfy. We conclude that despite some decisive progress, we are still far from having a complete theory of why humans classify people on the basis of skin color, body appearance or hair style.
This chapter examines whether and how concepts vary across and within individuals (inter- and int... more This chapter examines whether and how concepts vary across and within individuals (inter- and intra-individual variation) by examining what constrains variation of concepts. To address this issue, the chapter focuses on an independently interesting case study: inter- and intra-individual variation in the concept of race. The case study contrasts two competing hypotheses about the concept of race: the biological and the social hypotheses. According to the first hypothesis, the concept of race is a biological concept that is constrained by folk biology; according to the second, it is the concept of a social category. The chapter shows that people’s folk biology constrains the concept of race and thus limits how much concepts of race can vary within and across individuals.
Bulletin d’histoire et d’épistémologie des sciences de la vie, 2018
Dans cet article, nous nous interessons a la possibilite de l’augmentation morale par le biais de... more Dans cet article, nous nous interessons a la possibilite de l’augmentation morale par le biais de la stimulation cerebrale profonde (SCP). Apres avoir defini ce en quoi consiste l’augmentation morale et ecarte quelques objections prima facie que l’on peut faire a son endroit, cet article tente d’etablir si l’augmentation morale par le biais de la SCP est empiriquement possible et souleve un ensemble de questions que poserait l’utilisation de ce genre de technologie dans le domaine de la cognition morale.
Defining mental disorder. Jerome Wakefield and his critics Luc Faucher et Denis Forest, éditeurs ... more Defining mental disorder. Jerome Wakefield and his critics Luc Faucher et Denis Forest, éditeurs MIT Press, Collection « Philosophical psychopathology », 640 pages, 2021 Présentation. Proposée par Jerome Wakefield, la définition du trouble mental comme « dysfonctionnement préjudiciable » est au coeur des débats internationaux en philosophie de la psychiatrie depuis 30 ans. La conception mixte de Wakefield a pour particularité de proposer une alternative aussi bien aux conceptions purement naturalistes de la maladie mentale qu'à des conceptions opposées, inspirées par le constructivisme social ou le nihilisme antipsychiatrique. Elle entend poser une limite à la médicalisation des problèmes de vie et à l'inflation des catégories psychiatriques. Mais si on parle de « dysfonctionnement préjudiciable », comment identifier ce qui dysfonctionne et comment déterminer à partir de quand ? De quel « préjudice », évalué comment,
The contrast between third-and first-personal accounts of the experiences of autistic persons has... more The contrast between third-and first-personal accounts of the experiences of autistic persons has much to teach us about epistemic injustice and epistemic agency. This paper argues that bringing about greater epistemic justice for autistic people requires developing a relational account of epistemic agency. We begin by systematically identifying the many types of epistemic injustice autistic people face, specifically with regard to general assumptions regarding autistic people's sociability or lack thereof, and by locating the source of these epistemic injustices in neuronormativity and neurotypical ignorance. We then argue that this systematic identification pushes us to construe epistemic agency as resulting from a fundamentally relational and dynamic process between an individual, others around them, and their social, cultural, or institutional environment, rather than as a fixed and inherent property of individuals. Finally, we show how our relational account of epistemic agency allows us to introduce the novel concepts of epistemic disablement and epistemic enablement. We argue that these two concepts allow us to more accurately track the mechanisms that undermine or facilitate epistemic agency, and thereby to better understand how epistemic injustice arises and to design more effective interventions to foster greater epistemic justice for autistic people.
De nos jours, l'approche dominante dans le debat sur les races est le constructionnisme socia... more De nos jours, l'approche dominante dans le debat sur les races est le constructionnisme social. Les tenants de cette approche soutiennent que le concept de race est un concept pseudo biologique utilise pour justifier et rationaliser le traitement inequitable d'un groupe de gens par un autre. Ils proposent que les classifications raciales et la maniere dont les races sont conceptualisees resultent des conditions sociales propres a chaque culture. Nous examinons les merites et les limites de cette approche. Nous soutenons qu'elle doit etre completee par une approche evolutionniste et cognitive. Sur la base des travaux de Gil-White (1999, 2001 a, b), nous proposons que l'evolution de la cognition sociale a ete fortement influencee par la vie de nos ancetres au sein de larges groupes appeles « ethnies ». Nous avancons que la cognition raciale resulte d'un systeme cognitif dedie a ce type d'organisation sociale.
In a recently published paper, we argued that theories of cultural evolution can gain explanatory... more In a recently published paper, we argued that theories of cultural evolution can gain explanatory power by being more pluralistic. In his reply to it, Dennett agreed that more pluralism is needed. Our paper's main point was to urge cultural evolutionists to get their hands dirty by describing the fine details of cultural products and by striving to offer detailed and, when explanatory, varied algorithms or mechanisms to account for them. While Dennett's latest work on cultural evolution does marvelously well on the first point, it has only whet our appetite on the second. Accordingly, the present paper aims to show what an evolutionary explanation of culture that takes the variety of cultural evolution mechanisms seriously would look like. We will focus on the cultural evolution of social epistemic mechanisms (i.e. social mechanisms that aim to deliver epistemically valued judgements) and we will propose that Darwinian algorithms should be complemented with a cultural analogue of the error reduction mechanism proposed to account for human cognition, with a particular emphasis on the necessity to build independencies (known as "Markov blankets") between different subsystems in charge of tracking states of the world. To illustrate our point, we will present how the evolution of the legal system as epistemic systems can be understood as a process of building increasingly better independencies and how various criticisms of the actual legal system calls for building even more of them.
The focus of the advocates of the Research Domain Critria (RDoC) on faulty brain circuits has led... more The focus of the advocates of the Research Domain Critria (RDoC) on faulty brain circuits has led some to suspect it of being a reductionist enterprise. And because RDoC will eventually impact clinical psychiatry, some have feared that it will transform clinical psychiatry in a mindless and applied neurobehavioral science. We argue that if RDoC is officially endorsing a kind of reductionism, the particular kind of reductionism it endorses is not suffering from the shortcomings of more classical forms of reductionism. Because of that, at least in principle, RDoC could enrich rather than impoverish clinical psychiatry. This paper raises few potential problems of the RDoC for clinical psychiatry caused by its implicit epistemological reductionism.
Dans cet article, je considère l'influence possible des recherches récentes sur les attitudes en ... more Dans cet article, je considère l'influence possible des recherches récentes sur les attitudes en psychologie sociale, principalement dans le paradigme des théories des processus duaux [dual process theories], sur notre compréhension de la responsabilité. La thèse que je soutiens est que certaines révisions à notre façon de comprendre la responsabilité et nos pratiques d'attribution de la responsabilité pourraient être justifiées par ces travaux. Avant de présenter les révisions que j'introduis, je décris les grandes lignes du paradigme que j'utiliserai, soit celui des théories processus duaux tel qu'appliqué aux attitudes. Puis, m'inspirant de Vargas (2004, 2005), je présente les différentes formes que peuvent prendre le révisionnisme. Parce que ces révisions s'appliquent à des notions qui sont utilisées à la fois par le commun des mortels et par les philosophes (qui tentent soit de les reconstruire rationnellement, soit de les modifier), je présente ce que l'on présume que pense chacun des groupes sur la question. Finalement, je présente trois révisions, plutôt « locales », que ces travaux pourraient inspirer.
Research on the adaptive characteristics of the human immune system reveals that evolutionary alg... more Research on the adaptive characteristics of the human immune system reveals that evolutionary algorithms are not strictly matters of replication. And research in genomics suggests that there is no a single source of evolutionary information that carries the same content in every environment. A plausible theory of cultural evolution must acknowledge the possibility that multiple selective algorithms are operating at different time-scales, on different units of selection, with different logical structures; but it must explain how different selective processes are interfaced to yield culturally stable phenomena. This paper advances an empirically plausible approach to memetics that recognizes a wider variety of evolutionary algorithms; and it advances a pluralistic approach to cultural change. Finally, it shows that multiple forms of processing, operating at different timescales, on different units of selection, collectively sustain the human capacity to form and use certain types of r...
Contemporary research on racial categorization is mostly encompassed by two research traditions-s... more Contemporary research on racial categorization is mostly encompassed by two research traditions-social constructionism and the cognitive-cum-evolutionary approach. Although both literatures have some plausible empirical evidence and some theoretical insights to contribute to a full understanding of racial categorization, there has been little contact between their proponents. In order to foster such contacts, we critically review both traditions, focusing particularly on the recent evolutionary/cognitive explanations of racial categorization. On the basis of this critical survey, we put forward a list of eleven requirements that a satisfactory theory of racial categorization should satisfy. We conclude that despite some decisive progress, we are still far from having a complete theory of why humans classify people on the basis of skin color, body appearance or hair style.
This chapter examines whether and how concepts vary across and within individuals (inter- and int... more This chapter examines whether and how concepts vary across and within individuals (inter- and intra-individual variation) by examining what constrains variation of concepts. To address this issue, the chapter focuses on an independently interesting case study: inter- and intra-individual variation in the concept of race. The case study contrasts two competing hypotheses about the concept of race: the biological and the social hypotheses. According to the first hypothesis, the concept of race is a biological concept that is constrained by folk biology; according to the second, it is the concept of a social category. The chapter shows that people’s folk biology constrains the concept of race and thus limits how much concepts of race can vary within and across individuals.
Bulletin d’histoire et d’épistémologie des sciences de la vie, 2018
Dans cet article, nous nous interessons a la possibilite de l’augmentation morale par le biais de... more Dans cet article, nous nous interessons a la possibilite de l’augmentation morale par le biais de la stimulation cerebrale profonde (SCP). Apres avoir defini ce en quoi consiste l’augmentation morale et ecarte quelques objections prima facie que l’on peut faire a son endroit, cet article tente d’etablir si l’augmentation morale par le biais de la SCP est empiriquement possible et souleve un ensemble de questions que poserait l’utilisation de ce genre de technologie dans le domaine de la cognition morale.
Defining mental disorder. Jerome Wakefield and his critics Luc Faucher et Denis Forest, éditeurs ... more Defining mental disorder. Jerome Wakefield and his critics Luc Faucher et Denis Forest, éditeurs MIT Press, Collection « Philosophical psychopathology », 640 pages, 2021 Présentation. Proposée par Jerome Wakefield, la définition du trouble mental comme « dysfonctionnement préjudiciable » est au coeur des débats internationaux en philosophie de la psychiatrie depuis 30 ans. La conception mixte de Wakefield a pour particularité de proposer une alternative aussi bien aux conceptions purement naturalistes de la maladie mentale qu'à des conceptions opposées, inspirées par le constructivisme social ou le nihilisme antipsychiatrique. Elle entend poser une limite à la médicalisation des problèmes de vie et à l'inflation des catégories psychiatriques. Mais si on parle de « dysfonctionnement préjudiciable », comment identifier ce qui dysfonctionne et comment déterminer à partir de quand ? De quel « préjudice », évalué comment,
The contrast between third-and first-personal accounts of the experiences of autistic persons has... more The contrast between third-and first-personal accounts of the experiences of autistic persons has much to teach us about epistemic injustice and epistemic agency. This paper argues that bringing about greater epistemic justice for autistic people requires developing a relational account of epistemic agency. We begin by systematically identifying the many types of epistemic injustice autistic people face, specifically with regard to general assumptions regarding autistic people's sociability or lack thereof, and by locating the source of these epistemic injustices in neuronormativity and neurotypical ignorance. We then argue that this systematic identification pushes us to construe epistemic agency as resulting from a fundamentally relational and dynamic process between an individual, others around them, and their social, cultural, or institutional environment, rather than as a fixed and inherent property of individuals. Finally, we show how our relational account of epistemic agency allows us to introduce the novel concepts of epistemic disablement and epistemic enablement. We argue that these two concepts allow us to more accurately track the mechanisms that undermine or facilitate epistemic agency, and thereby to better understand how epistemic injustice arises and to design more effective interventions to foster greater epistemic justice for autistic people.
De nos jours, l'approche dominante dans le debat sur les races est le constructionnisme socia... more De nos jours, l'approche dominante dans le debat sur les races est le constructionnisme social. Les tenants de cette approche soutiennent que le concept de race est un concept pseudo biologique utilise pour justifier et rationaliser le traitement inequitable d'un groupe de gens par un autre. Ils proposent que les classifications raciales et la maniere dont les races sont conceptualisees resultent des conditions sociales propres a chaque culture. Nous examinons les merites et les limites de cette approche. Nous soutenons qu'elle doit etre completee par une approche evolutionniste et cognitive. Sur la base des travaux de Gil-White (1999, 2001 a, b), nous proposons que l'evolution de la cognition sociale a ete fortement influencee par la vie de nos ancetres au sein de larges groupes appeles « ethnies ». Nous avancons que la cognition raciale resulte d'un systeme cognitif dedie a ce type d'organisation sociale.
In a recently published paper, we argued that theories of cultural evolution can gain explanatory... more In a recently published paper, we argued that theories of cultural evolution can gain explanatory power by being more pluralistic. In his reply to it, Dennett agreed that more pluralism is needed. Our paper's main point was to urge cultural evolutionists to get their hands dirty by describing the fine details of cultural products and by striving to offer detailed and, when explanatory, varied algorithms or mechanisms to account for them. While Dennett's latest work on cultural evolution does marvelously well on the first point, it has only whet our appetite on the second. Accordingly, the present paper aims to show what an evolutionary explanation of culture that takes the variety of cultural evolution mechanisms seriously would look like. We will focus on the cultural evolution of social epistemic mechanisms (i.e. social mechanisms that aim to deliver epistemically valued judgements) and we will propose that Darwinian algorithms should be complemented with a cultural analogue of the error reduction mechanism proposed to account for human cognition, with a particular emphasis on the necessity to build independencies (known as "Markov blankets") between different subsystems in charge of tracking states of the world. To illustrate our point, we will present how the evolution of the legal system as epistemic systems can be understood as a process of building increasingly better independencies and how various criticisms of the actual legal system calls for building even more of them.
The focus of the advocates of the Research Domain Critria (RDoC) on faulty brain circuits has led... more The focus of the advocates of the Research Domain Critria (RDoC) on faulty brain circuits has led some to suspect it of being a reductionist enterprise. And because RDoC will eventually impact clinical psychiatry, some have feared that it will transform clinical psychiatry in a mindless and applied neurobehavioral science. We argue that if RDoC is officially endorsing a kind of reductionism, the particular kind of reductionism it endorses is not suffering from the shortcomings of more classical forms of reductionism. Because of that, at least in principle, RDoC could enrich rather than impoverish clinical psychiatry. This paper raises few potential problems of the RDoC for clinical psychiatry caused by its implicit epistemological reductionism.
Dans cet article, je considère l'influence possible des recherches récentes sur les attitudes en ... more Dans cet article, je considère l'influence possible des recherches récentes sur les attitudes en psychologie sociale, principalement dans le paradigme des théories des processus duaux [dual process theories], sur notre compréhension de la responsabilité. La thèse que je soutiens est que certaines révisions à notre façon de comprendre la responsabilité et nos pratiques d'attribution de la responsabilité pourraient être justifiées par ces travaux. Avant de présenter les révisions que j'introduis, je décris les grandes lignes du paradigme que j'utiliserai, soit celui des théories processus duaux tel qu'appliqué aux attitudes. Puis, m'inspirant de Vargas (2004, 2005), je présente les différentes formes que peuvent prendre le révisionnisme. Parce que ces révisions s'appliquent à des notions qui sont utilisées à la fois par le commun des mortels et par les philosophes (qui tentent soit de les reconstruire rationnellement, soit de les modifier), je présente ce que l'on présume que pense chacun des groupes sur la question. Finalement, je présente trois révisions, plutôt « locales », que ces travaux pourraient inspirer.
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