scholarly journals Evolutionary aesthetics as a meeting point of philosophy and biology

2012 ◽  
Vol 81 (2) ◽  
pp. 67-73
Author(s):  
Adam Chmielewski
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Selection ◽  
Practical Knowledge ◽  
Theory Of Knowledge ◽  
Meeting Point ◽  
The Core ◽  
Evolutionary Aesthetics ◽  
Descent Of Man

Metaphysics, or the knowledge of what there is, has been traditionally placed at the pinnacle of philosophical hierarchy. It was followed by theory of knowledge, or epistemology. Practical knowledge of proper modes of conduct, ethics, came third, followed by aesthetics, treated usually in a marginal way as having to do only with the perception of the beautiful. The hierarchy of philosophical disciplines has recently undergone a substantial transformation. As a result, ethics has assumed a central role. The aim of this paper is to suggest that the hierarchy of philosophical disciplines is not yet complete and that one further step needs to be taken. According to the claim advocated here, it is not metaphysics, epistemology or ethics, but aesthetics that is the first and foremost of all philosophical disciplines. This claim is argued for by references to findings of evolutionary aesthetics, especially to Charles Darwin's idea of sexual selection as elaborated in The Descent of Man. I also argue that Darwinian approach to morality is, and should be, derivable from an Darwinian aesthetics which lies at the core of his conception of sexual selection.

Darwinian Evolutionary Theory

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Ruse
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Selection ◽  
Natural Selection ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Evolutionary Theory ◽  
Scientific Community ◽  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Origin Of Species ◽  
Theory Of Evolution ◽  
Descent Of Man

Charles Robert Darwin, the English naturalist, published On the Origin of Species in 1859 and the follow-up work The Descent of Man in 1871. In these works, he argued for his theory of evolution through natural selection, applying it to all organisms, living and dead, including our own species, Homo sapiens. Although controversial from the start, Darwin’s thinking was deeply embedded in the culture of his day, that of a middle-class Englishman. Evolution as such was an immediate success in scientific circles, but although the mechanism of selection had supporters in the scientific community (especially among those working with fast-breeding organisms), its real success was in the popular domain. Natural selection, and particularly the side mechanism of sexual selection, were known to all and popular themes in fiction and elsewhere.

scholarly journals Darwin's bawdy: the popular, gendered and radical reception of the Descent of Man in the US, 1871–1910

BJHS Themes ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Kimberly A. Hamlin
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Selection ◽  
Selection Theory ◽  
Scientific Establishment ◽  
Scientific Institutions ◽  
The Us ◽  
Sexual Selection Theory ◽  
Descent Of Man

Abstract Most studies of the American reception of Darwin have focused on the Origin. The Descent of Man, however, was even more widely read and discussed, especially by those outside the emerging scientific establishment. This essay maps the varied, popular and radical responses to the Descent and suggests that these unauthorized readers helped shape the formation of American scientific institutions (by encouraging scientists to close ranks), as well as ordinary Americans’ perceptions of gender and sex. I argue that the radical – freethinkers, socialists and feminists – embrace of sexual selection theory provides one explanation for naturalists’ scepticism of the theory.

An Aristotelian View of Knowledge for Knowledge Management

2010 ◽  
pp. 39-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Schwartz
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Management ◽  
Theory Of Knowledge ◽  
Management Theory ◽  
The Core ◽  
Fertile Ground ◽  
Knowledge Management Theory ◽  
It Applications

Defining and understanding knowledge is a rather broad and open-ended pursuit. We can narrow it considerably by stating that we are interested in defining and understanding knowledge as it pertains to knowledge management, rather than tackling the entire realm of epistemology. This article takes the theory of knowledge espoused by Aristotle and views it through the lens of knowledge management. The writings of Aristotle have proven to be fertile ground for uncovering the foundations of knowledge management. Snowden (2006) points to Aristotle’s three types of rhetorical proof as a basis for incorporating narrative in knowledge management. Buchholz (2006) traces the roots of ontological philosophy, forming the basis of current KM ontology efforts, back to Aristotle’s work. Butler in his Anti-foundational perspective on KM (2006), following Dunne (1993) argues that Aristotle’s Phrónésis and Téchné need to be at the core of knowledge management efforts – and while they cannot be directly applied to IT applications, must be among the elements upon which knowledge management is based. Müller-Merbach (2005) provides a look at the fundamentals of applying Aristotle to knowledge management theory.

Exemplars of Truth

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keith Lehrer
Keyword(s):  
External World ◽  
Theory Of Knowledge ◽  
Coherence Theory ◽  
Special Role ◽  
The Core ◽  
Intellectual System ◽  
The World ◽  
Key Topics ◽  
Modern Work

This monograph is both an intellectual summation as well as a philosophical advancement of key themes of the work of Keith Lehrer on several key topics—including knowledge, self-trust, autonomy, and consciousness. He here attempts to integrate these themes and develop an intellectual system that can constructively solve philosophical problems. The system is indebted to the modern work of Sellars, Quine, and Chisholm, as well as historically to Hume and Reid. At the core of this system lies Lehrer’s theory of knowledge, which he previously called a coherence theory of knowledge but now calls a defensibility theory. Lehrer argues that knowledge requires the capacity to justify or defend the target claim of knowledge in terms of a background system. Defensibility is an internal capacity supplied by that system to meet objections to the claim. This theory however leaves open the problem of “experience,” noted by other philosophers, of how to explain the special role of experience in a background system even granted we are fallible in describing it. Lehrer offers a solution to the problem of experience, arguing that reflection on experience converts the experience itself into an exemplar, something like a sample that becomes a vehicle or term of representation. The exemplar represents itself and extends to represent the external world. It exhibits something about evidence and truth concerning experience that, as Wittgenstein noted, cannot be fully described but can only be shown. Exemplar representation is the missing link of a background system to truth about the world.

Epilogue

2019 ◽  
pp. 244-248
Author(s):  
Geoffrey E. Hill
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Selection ◽  
Mitochondrial Genome ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Evolutionary Ecology ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Mitochondrial Genomes ◽  
Respiratory Enzymes ◽  
The Core ◽  
The Past ◽  
Full Consideration

Evolutionary ecology is at the precipice of a paradigm shift. For many years and through the early years of the 21st century, mitochondrial genomes were dismissed as unimportant to the evolution of complex life. Variation within mitochondrial genomes was proposed to be functionally neutral. These conceptions about mitochondrial genomes and mitonuclear genomic interactions have begun to change within the past decade, but currently accepted theories of sexual selection and speciation were proposed before the discovery of the mitochondrial genome. Evolutionary ecology has yet to fully appreciate the fundamental implications of two genomes coding for the core respiratory enzymes of eukaryotes. This chapter promotes a fundamental rethinking of key theories in evolutionary ecology with full consideration of the necessity of coadaptation of mitochondrial and nuclear genes.

"The Cock of Lordly Plume": Sexual Selection and The Egoist

1995 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-77 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Smith
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Selection ◽  
Female Choice ◽  
Moral Sense ◽  
Evolutionary Development ◽  
Woman Question ◽  
The Novel ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Descent Of Man

Despite a long-standing acknowledgment of the evolutionary chracter of George Meredith's poetry and fiction, and a more recent delineation of the specifically Darwinian elements of The Egoist (1879), the relationship between that novel and Darwin's The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex (1871) has been overlooked. Both works focus on the evolutionary development of the human moral sense and on the process of courtship between the sexes, but Meredith's novel links these issues while Darwin's book keeps them separate. Through his characterization of Sir Willoughby Patterne, Meredith shows that "civilized" egoism is a sign of moral reversion most likely to occur during courtship, and he critiques Darwin's discussion of sexual selection in humans, exposing its inconsistencies and in particular challenging its portrayal of female choice. While modern feminist critics have rightly identified problems with the novel and the theory of comedy that governs it, Meredith's attack on Darwin's culturally powerful view of the sexes endorses a postion on "the woman question" close to John Stuart Mill's, and the novel's problems are best seen as part of this attack rather than as naive self-contradictions of Meredith's feminism.

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