[PDF] Philosophical Foundations Of Evolutionary Psychology eBook

Author : August John Hoffman
Publisher : Lexington Books
Page : 227 pages
File Size : 42,80 MB
Release : 2015-12-24
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 1498518168

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Philosophical Foundations of Evolutionary Psychology describes the unique relationship between early schools of thought in Greek philosophy, modern psychology, and most recently evolutionary psychology. This volume provides the reader with a concise history and description of some of the most important theories used in understanding human behaviors (i.e., the mind-body duality, the essence of human nature, and how humans have evolved to cooperate with each other) and how the physical characteristics of communities have contributed to positive (i.e., prosocial) or destructive (i.e., antisocial) behavior. It explores human nature from the philosophical perspectives of Socrates, Plato, Descartes, Locke, and Rousseau as contributing factors to the development of modern psychology (i.e., Structuralism, Functionalism, Behaviorism, and Biopsychology) that ultimately is combined with evolutionary psychology. Philosophical Foundations of Evolutionary Psychology alsoincorporates various topics of psychology that support the development of evolutionary psychology such as language and communication, gender differences, aggression, cooperative behaviors, and natural selection.

Author : Charles Crawford
Publisher : Psychology Press
Page : 853 pages
File Size : 29,80 MB
Release : 2012-10-12
Category : Psychology
ISBN : 1135704147

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Evolutionary psychology is concerned with the adaptive problems early humans faced in ancestral human environments, the nature of the psychological mechanisms natural selection shaped to deal with those ancient problems, and the ability of the resulting evolved psychological mechanisms to deal with the problems people face in the modern world. Evolutionary psychology is currently advancing our understanding of altruism, moral behavior, family violence, sexual aggression, warfare, aesthetics, the nature of language, and gender differences in mate choice and perception. It is helping us understand the relationships between cognitive science, developmental psychology, behavior genetics, personality, and social psychology. Foundations of Evolutionary Psychology provides an up-to-date review of the ideas, issues, and applications of contemporary evolutionary psychology. It is suitable for senior undergraduates, first year graduate students, or professionals who wish to become conversant with the major issues currently shaping the emergence of this dynamic new field. It will be interesting to psychologists, anthropologists, sociologists, economists, philosophers, cognitive scientists, and anyone interested in using new developments in the theory of evolution to gain new insights into human behavior.

Author : David M. Buss
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
Page : 688 pages
File Size : 40,51 MB
Release : 2015-11-02
Category : Psychology
ISBN : 111875588X

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The indispensable reference tool for the groundbreaking science of evolutionary psychology Why is the mind designed the way it is? How does input from the environment interact with the mind to produce behavior? These are the big, unanswered questions that the field of evolutionary psychology seeks to explore. The Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology is the seminal work in this vibrant, quickly-developing new discipline. In this thorough revision and expansion, luminaries in the field provide an in-depth exploration of the foundations of evolutionary psychology and explain the new empirical discoveries and theoretical developments that continue at a breathtaking pace. Evolutionary psychologists posit that the mind has a specialized and complex structure, just as the body has a specialized and complex structure. From this important theoretical concept arises the vast array of possibilities that are at the core of the field, which seeks to examine such traits as perception, language, and memory from an evolutionary perspective. This examination is intended to determine the human psychological traits that are the products of sexual and natural selection and, as such, to chart and understand human nature. Join the discussion of the big questions addressed by the burgeoning field of evolutionary psychology Explore the foundations of evolutionary psychology, from theory and methods to the thoughts of EP critics Discover the psychology of human survival, mating, parenting, cooperation and conflict, culture, and more Identify how evolutionary psychology is interwoven with other academic subjects and traditional psychological disciplines The Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology is the definitive guide for every psychologist and student interested in keeping abreast of new ideas in this quickly-developing field.

Author : Richard Joyce
Publisher : MIT Press
Page : 285 pages
File Size : 34,36 MB
Release : 2007-08-24
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 0262263254

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Moral thinking pervades our practical lives, but where did this way of thinking come from, and what purpose does it serve? Is it to be explained by environmental pressures on our ancestors a million years ago, or is it a cultural invention of more recent origin? In The Evolution of Morality, Richard Joyce takes up these controversial questions, finding that the evidence supports an innate basis to human morality. As a moral philosopher, Joyce is interested in whether any implications follow from this hypothesis. Might the fact that the human brain has been biologically prepared by natural selection to engage in moral judgment serve in some sense to vindicate this way of thinking—staving off the threat of moral skepticism, or even undergirding some version of moral realism? Or if morality has an adaptive explanation in genetic terms—if it is, as Joyce writes, "just something that helped our ancestors make more babies"—might such an explanation actually undermine morality's central role in our lives? He carefully examines both the evolutionary "vindication of morality" and the evolutionary "debunking of morality," considering the skeptical view more seriously than have others who have treated the subject. Interdisciplinary and combining the latest results from the empirical sciences with philosophical discussion, The Evolution of Morality is one of the few books in this area written from the perspective of moral philosophy. Concise and without technical jargon, the arguments are rigorous but accessible to readers from different academic backgrounds. Joyce discusses complex issues in plain language while advocating subtle and sometimes radical views. The Evolution of Morality lays the philosophical foundations for further research into the biological understanding of human morality.

Author : Thiemo Breyer
Publisher : Springer
Page : 248 pages
File Size : 34,38 MB
Release : 2014-11-04
Category : Psychology
ISBN : 1493913875

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​​​​​As psychology and philosophy arose as answers to the eternal question of how the mind works, evolutionary psychology has gained ground over recent years as a link between cognitive-behavioral and natural-science theories of the mind. This provocative field has also gathered a wide range of criticisms, from attributing too much autonomy to the brain to basing itself on faulty assumptions about our prehistoric past. Epistemological Dimensions of Evolutionary Psychology reframes its discipline for the contemporary era, correcting common misconceptions and mediating between different schools of thought. By focusing on the nature and limits of knowledge and reasoning--the essence of epistemology--contributors offer fresh insights at the intersection of human cognitive abilities as adaptations and our self-perception of knowledge, including evolutionary perspectives on altruism, depression, or the phasing out of human sacrifice. This diversity strengthens and vindicates the field, as evinced by thought-provoking dispatches such as: Toward a cognitive philosophy of science. Evolutionary media psychology and its epistemological foundation. The "meme" meme revisited. Depression as an adaptation. Like me: a homophily-based account of human culture. Preparedness to learn about the world: evidence from infant research. An engaging and often controversial testament to the combined power of evolution and logic, Epistemological Dimensions of Evolutionary Psychology will intrigue philosophers as well as psychologists in a variety of subdisciplines.

Author : Daniel J. Levitin
Publisher : MIT Press
Page : 884 pages
File Size : 45,46 MB
Release : 2002
Category : Cognition
ISBN : 9780262621595

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An anthology of core readings on cognitive psychology.

Author :
Publisher : Elsevier
Page : 523 pages
File Size : 17,52 MB
Release : 2006-10-23
Category : Computers
ISBN : 0080466621

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Psychology is the study of thinking, and cognitive science is the interdisciplinary investigation of mind and intelligence that also includes philosophy, artificial intelligence, neuroscience, linguistics, and anthropology. In these investigations, many philosophical issues arise concerning methods and central concepts. The Handbook of Philosophy of Psychology and Cognitive Science contains 16 essays by leading philosophers of science that illuminate the nature of the theories and explanations used in the investigation of minds. Topics discussed include representation, mechanisms, reduction, perception, consciousness, language, emotions, neuroscience, and evolutionary psychology. Comprehensive coverage of philosophy of psychology and cognitive science Distinguished contributors: leading philosophers in this area Contributions closely tied to relevant scientific research

Author : Alex Walter
Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
Page : 92 pages
File Size : 15,15 MB
Release : 2012-02-14
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9400729693

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The two essays provide a critical examination of theory and research in the field of evolutionary psychology. The view advanced here is that philosophical materialism and minimalist assumptions about adaptation serve Darwinian psychology better than the more popular alternative view that relies on cognitive dualism and propositional-attitude psychology to formulate evolutionary psychology theory. A commitment to cognitive dualism is destined to undermine the physical basis of behavior upon which evolutionary theory depends. Many evolutionary psychologists do not see this but are seduced by the easy way in which hypotheses can be formulated using the ‘propositional-attitude’ model. The challenge is to develop a materialistic and mechanistic approach to understanding human cognition and behavior, including linguistic and social behavior.

Author : Ned Kock
Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
Page : 391 pages
File Size : 47,97 MB
Release : 2010-07-28
Category : Computers
ISBN : 1441961399

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This book is a compilation of chapters written by leading researchers from all over the world. Those researchers’ common characteristic is that they have investigated issues at the intersection of the elds of information systems (IS) and evoluti- ary psychology (EP). The main goal of this book is to serve as a reference for IS research building on EP concepts and theories (in short, IS-EP research). The book is organized in three main parts: Part I focuses on EP concepts and theories that can be used as a basis for IS-EP research; Part II provides several exemplars of IS-EP research in practice; and Part III summarizes emerging issues and debate that can inform IS-EP research, including debate regarding philosophical foundations and credibility of related ndings. IS-EP research is generally concerned with the use of concepts and theories from EP in the study of IS, particularly regarding the impact of modern information and communication technologies on the behavior of individuals, groups, and organi- tions. From a practitioners’ perspective, the most immediate consumers of IS-EP research are those who develop and use IS, of which a large contingent are in bu- nesses that employ IS to support marketing, order-taking, production, and delivery of goods and services. In this context, IS-EP ndings may be particularly useful due to the present need to design web-based interfaces that will be used by in- viduals from different cultures, and often different countries, and whose common denominator is their human nature.

Author : Simona Ginsburg
Publisher : MIT Press
Page : 665 pages
File Size : 34,49 MB
Release : 2019-03-12
Category : Psychology
ISBN : 0262039303

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A new theory about the origins of consciousness that finds learning to be the driving force in the evolutionary transition to basic consciousness. What marked the evolutionary transition from organisms that lacked consciousness to those with consciousness—to minimal subjective experiencing, or, as Aristotle described it, “the sensitive soul”? In this book, Simona Ginsburg and Eva Jablonka propose a new theory about the origin of consciousness that finds learning to be the driving force in the transition to basic consciousness. Using a methodology similar to that used by scientists when they identified the transition from non-life to life, Ginsburg and Jablonka suggest a set of criteria, identify a marker for the transition to minimal consciousness, and explore the far-reaching biological, psychological, and philosophical implications. After presenting the historical, neurobiological, and philosophical foundations of their analysis, Ginsburg and Jablonka propose that the evolutionary marker of basic or minimal consciousness is a complex form of associative learning, which they term unlimited associative learning (UAL). UAL enables an organism to ascribe motivational value to a novel, compound, non-reflex-inducing stimulus or action, and use it as the basis for future learning. Associative learning, Ginsburg and Jablonka argue, drove the Cambrian explosion and its massive diversification of organisms. Finally, Ginsburg and Jablonka propose symbolic language as a similar type of marker for the evolutionary transition to human rationality—to Aristotle's “rational soul.”