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| Author | : Michael Tomasello |
| Publisher | : MIT Press |
| Total Pages | : 174 |
| Release | : 2022-09-06 |
| Genre | : Science |
| ISBN | : 0262370212 |
Download The Evolution of Agency Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle
A leading developmental psychologist proposes an evolutionary pathway to human psychological agency. Nature cannot build organisms biologically prepared for every contingency they might possibly encounter. Instead, Nature builds some organisms to function as feedback control systems that pursue goals, make informed behavioral decisions about how best to pursue those goals in the current situation, and then monitor behavioral execution for effectiveness. Nature builds psychological agents. In a bold new theoretical proposal, Michael Tomasello advances a typology of the main forms of psychological agency that emerged on the evolutionary pathway to human beings. Tomasello outlines four main types of psychological agency and describes them in evolutionary order of emergence. First was the goal-directed agency of ancient vertebrates, then came the intentional agency of ancient mammals, followed by the rational agency of ancient great apes, ending finally in the socially normative agency of ancient humans. Each new form of psychological organization represented increased complexity in the planning, decision-making, and executive control of behavior. Each also led to new types of experience of the environment and, in some cases, of the organism’s own psychological functioning, leading ultimately to humans’ experience of an objective and normative world that governs all of their thoughts and actions. Together, these proposals constitute a new theoretical framework that both broadens and deepens current approaches in evolutionary psychology.
| Author | : Michael Tomasello |
| Publisher | : MIT Press |
| Total Pages | : 174 |
| Release | : 2022-09-06 |
| Genre | : Science |
| ISBN | : 0262047004 |
Download The Evolution of Agency Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle
A leading developmental psychologist proposes an evolutionary pathway to human psychological agency. Nature cannot build organisms biologically prepared for every contingency they might possibly encounter. Instead, Nature builds some organisms to function as feedback control systems that pursue goals, make informed behavioral decisions about how best to pursue those goals in the current situation, and then monitor behavioral execution for effectiveness. Nature builds psychological agents. In a bold new theoretical proposal, Michael Tomasello advances a typology of the main forms of psychological agency that emerged on the evolutionary pathway to human beings. Tomasello outlines four main types of psychological agency and describes them in evolutionary order of emergence. First was the goal-directed agency of ancient vertebrates, then came the intentional agency of ancient mammals, followed by the rational agency of ancient great apes, ending finally in the socially normative agency of ancient humans. Each new form of psychological organization represented increased complexity in the planning, decision-making, and executive control of behavior. Each also led to new types of experience of the environment and, in some cases, of the organism’s own psychological functioning, leading ultimately to humans’ experience of an objective and normative world that governs all of their thoughts and actions. Together, these proposals constitute a new theoretical framework that both broadens and deepens current approaches in evolutionary psychology.
| Author | : Kim Sterelny |
| Publisher | : Cambridge University Press |
| Total Pages | : 332 |
| Release | : 2001 |
| Genre | : Philosophy |
| ISBN | : 9780521645379 |
Download The Evolution of Agency and Other Essays Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle
This book presents a collection of linked essays written by one of the leading philosophers of biology, Kim Sterelny, on the topic of biological evolution. The first half of the book explores most of the main theoretical controversies about evolution and selection. Sterelny argues that genes are not the only replicators: non-genetic inheritance is also extremely important, and is no mere epiphenomenon of gene selection. The second half of the book applies some of these ideas in considering cognitive evolution. Concentrating on the mental capacities of simpler animals rather than those of humans, Sterelny argues for a general distinction between detection and representation, and that the evolution of belief, like that of representation, can be decoupled from the evolution of preference. These essays, some never before published, form a coherent whole that defends not just an overall conception of evolution, but also a distinctive take on cognitive evolution.
| Author | : D. M. Walsh |
| Publisher | : Cambridge University Press |
| Total Pages | : 295 |
| Release | : 2015-11-13 |
| Genre | : History |
| ISBN | : 1107122104 |
Download Organisms, Agency, and Evolution Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle
This book argues that evolution arises from the activities of organisms as agents, not from the replication of genes.
| Author | : Samir Okasha |
| Publisher | : Oxford University Press |
| Total Pages | : 280 |
| Release | : 2018-06-21 |
| Genre | : Science |
| ISBN | : 0192546732 |
Download Agents and Goals in Evolution Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle
Samir Okasha offers a philosophical perspective on evolutionary biology in Agents and Goals in Evolution. His focus is on "agential thinking", which is a mode of thought commonly employed in evolutionary biology. The paradigm case of agential thinking involves treating an evolved organism as if it were an agent pursuing a goal, such as survival or reproduction, and treating its phenotypic traits as strategies for achieving that goal, or furthering its biological interests. Agential thinking involves deliberately transposing a set of concepts - goals, interests, strategies - from rational human agents to the biological world more generally. Okasha's enquiry begins by asking whether this is justified. Is agential thinking mere anthropomorphism, or does it play a genuine intellectual role in the science? This central question leads Okasha to a series of further questions. How do we identify the "goal" that evolved organisms will behave as if they are trying to achieve? Can agential thinking ever be applied to groups or genes, rather than to individual organisms? And how does agential thinking relate to the controversies over fitness-maximization in evolutionary biology? In the final third of the book, Okasha examines the relation between the adaptive and the rational. If organisms can validly be treated as agent-like, for the purposes of evolutionary analysis, should we expect that their evolved behaviour will correspond to the behaviour of rational agents as codified in the theory of rational choice? If so, does this mean that the fitness-maximizing paradigm of the evolutionary biologist can be mapped directly to the utility-maximizing paradigm of the rational choice theorist? Okasha explores these questions using an inter-disciplinary methodology that draws on philosophy of science, evolutionary biology and economics.
| Author | : Alexei Sharov |
| Publisher | : Springer Nature |
| Total Pages | : 385 |
| Release | : 2022-02-08 |
| Genre | : Philosophy |
| ISBN | : 3030894843 |
Download Semiotic Agency Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle
This book invites readers to embark on a journey into the world of agency encompassing humans, other organisms, cells, intracellular molecular agents, colonies, populations, ecological systems, and artificial autonomous systems. We combine mechanistic and non-mechanistic approaches in the analysis of the function and evolution of organisms, their subagents, and multi-organism systems, and in this way offer a theoretical platform for integrating biosemiotics with both natural science and the humanities/social sciences. Agents are autonomous systems that incorporate knowledge on how to make sense of their environment and use it to achieve their goals. The functions of all agents are supported by mechanisms at the lowest level; however, the explanatory power of mechanistic analysis is not sufficient for complex agents. Non-mechanistic methods rely on the goal-directedness of agents whose dynamics follow self-stabilized dynamic attractors. The properties of attractors depend on stable or slowly changing factors, and such dependencies can be interpreted as sign relations if they are adaptive in nature. Agents can replace or redirect mechanisms on demand in order to preserve their functions; for performing higher-level semiotic functions, mechanisms are thus only means. We assume that mechanism and semiosis are not mutually exclusive, and that simple agents can interpret signs mechanistically. This assumption allows us to extend semiotic analysis to all agents, including ribosomes in cells, computers, and robots. This book challenges established traditions in natural science and the humanities/social sciences: semiotics no longer appears as restricted to humans and rational thinking, and biology is no longer limited to rely exclusively on mechanistic reasoning.
| Author | : Denise D. Cummins |
| Publisher | : Oxford University Press, USA |
| Total Pages | : 284 |
| Release | : 1998 |
| Genre | : Philosophy |
| ISBN | : 9780195110531 |
Download The Evolution of Mind Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle
In The Evolution of Mind, outstanding figures on the cutting edge of evolutionary psychology follow clues provided by current neuroscientific evidence to illuminate many puzzling questions of human cognitive evolution. With contributions from psychologists, ethologists, anthropologists, and philosophers, the book offers a broad range of approaches to explore the mysteries of the mind's evolution - from investigating the biological functions of human cognition to drawing comparisons between human and animal cognitive abilities.
| Author | : Michael Tomasello |
| Publisher | : MIT Press |
| Total Pages | : 229 |
| Release | : 2009-08-28 |
| Genre | : Psychology |
| ISBN | : 0262258498 |
Download Why We Cooperate Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle
Through experiments with kids and chimpanzees, this cutting-edge theory in developmental psychology reveals how cooperation is a distinctly human combination of innate and learned behavior. “[A] fascinating approach to the question of what makes us human.” —Publishers Weekly Drop something in front of a 2-year-old, and she’s likely to pick it up for you. This is not a learned behavior, psychologist Michael Tomasello argues. Through observations of young children in experiments he designed, Tomasello shows that children are naturally—and uniquely—cooperative. For example, apes put through similar experiments demonstrate the ability to work together and share, but choose not to. As children grow, their almost reflexive desire to help—without expectation of reward—becomes shaped by culture. They become more aware of being a member of a group. Groups convey mutual expectations, and thus may either encourage or discourage altruism and collaboration. Either way, cooperation emerges as a distinctly human combination of innate and learned behavior. In Why We Cooperate, Tomasello’s studies of young children and great apes help identify the underlying psychological processes that very likely supported humans’ earliest forms of complex collaboration and, ultimately, our unique forms of cultural organization, from the evolution of tolerance and trust to the creation of such group-level structures as cultural norms and institutions. Scholars Carol Dweck, Joan Silk, Brian Skyrms, and Elizabeth Spelke respond to Tomasello’s findings and explore the implications.
| Author | : Amy B. Zegart |
| Publisher | : Stanford University Press |
| Total Pages | : 336 |
| Release | : 1999 |
| Genre | : Political Science |
| ISBN | : 080474131X |
Download Flawed by Design Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle
Challenging the belief that national security agencies work well, this book asks what forces shaped the initial design of the Central Intelligence Agency, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the National Security Council in ways that meant they were handicapped from birth.
| Author | : Lenny Moss |
| Publisher | : MIT Press |
| Total Pages | : 258 |
| Release | : 2003 |
| Genre | : Genetics |
| ISBN | : 9780262632973 |
Download What Genes Can't Do Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle
A historical and critical analysis of the concept of the gene that attempts to provide new perspectives and metaphors for the transformation of biology and its philosophy.
