A Mind Selected by Needs: Explaining Logical Animals by Evolution

Explaining humans as rational creatures—capable of deductive reasoning—remains challenging for evolutionary naturalism. Schechter (Philosophical Perspectives, 24(1)437–464, 2011, 2013) proposes to link the evolution of this kind of reasoning with the ability to plan. His proposal, however, does neither include any elaborated theory on how logical abilities came into being within the hominin lineage nor is it sufficiently supported by empirical evidence. I present such a theory in broad outline and substantiate it with archeological findings. It is argued that the cognitive makeup of any animal is constituted by being embedded in a certain way of life. Changing ways of life thus foster appearances of new cognitive abilities. Finally, a new way of life of coordinated group behavior emerged within the hominins: anticipatory group planning involved in activities like making sophisticated spears for hunting. This gave rise to human logical cognition. It turned hominins into domain-general reasoner and adherents of intersubjective norms for reasoning. However, as I argue, it did not—and most likely could not—give rise to reason by deductive logic. More likely, deductive reasoning entered our world only a few thousand years ago: exclusively as a cultural artifact.

The First Darwinian: Alfred Russel Wallace and the Meaning of Darwinism

This essay is an initial study of a larger project that seeks to produce a history of the term ‘Darwinism’. While it is generally well-known that Darwinism could refer to a variety of different things in the Victorian period, from a general evolutionary naturalism to the particular theory of natural selection, very little has been written about the history of the term or how it was contested at given times and places. Building on James Moore’s 1991 sketch of the history of Darwinism in the 1860s, this paper specifically seeks to situate Alfred Russel Wallace’s 1889 book Darwinism in the context of a larger struggle over Darwin’s legacy in the 1880s. It is argued that Wallace used his authority as one of the founders of evolution by natural selection to reimagine what he called ‘pure Darwinism’ as a teleological evolutionism, one that integrated the theory of natural selection with an interpretation of spirit phenomena thereby producing a more agreeable and holistic account of life than was previously associated with Darwinian evolution. By considering the reception of Wallace’s Darwinism in the periodical press it will be argued further that Wallace’s interpretation of Darwinism was generally well received, which suggests that our understanding of what Darwinism meant in the late Victorian period needs to be revisited.