Evolutionary Epistemology and Scientific Realism

Evolutionary Epistemology and Scientific Realism Paul Thomson Over immense periods of time the intellect produced nothing but errors. A few of these proved to be useful and helped to preserve the species: those who hit upon or inherited these had better luck in their struggle for themselves and their progeny. -Nietzsche, The Guy Science, #l IO’ Recent critical discussions of scientific realism, particularly those of Bas van Fraassen (1980, 1982, 1985, 1989) and Larry Laudan (1977, 1981a,b), have tended to focus more on the weakness of traditional arguments for scientific realism than on problems with the position itself. One response to this kind of criticism (for example, Ellis, 1990, Hacking 1984,1985,1988; and Kitcher, 1993) has been a series of new formulations of realism which preserve the important features of the view. New and ingenious arguments are then found to support these hybrid realisms. Another kind of defense admits the weakness of independent arguments for realism, but maintains that because it is coherent and attractive, problems with alternative positions make scientific realism the position of choice.’ From an anti-realist perspective, an argument against the core position of scientific realism itself, thus blocking these kinds of responses, would be welcome. The aim of this article is to provide such an argument. Characterizations of scientific realism abound,3 but I take the core position to be something like this: Reasons for accepting a theory are reasons for believing that it is true. Reasons for acceptance will of course be tempered by the obvious incompleteness of our current theories, and by cautions dictated by the history of science-the best theories of a particular age tend to be replaced, so at least a strong fallibilism is called for. What I mean to capture here, however, is the idea that the realist is committed to the view that science is progressing toward a theory, or toward a well integrated family of theories, which should be regarded as a literally true account of the world. The scientific realist that I will be arguing against in this article is a bit of an optimist, and that optimism is based largely on our undeniable success in the scientific enterprise. However, when the realist tries to appeal to the success of scientific theories as evidence for their truth, he or she

Paul Thomson, John Carroll University, University Heights, OH 44118 Joumal of Social and Evolurionary Systems 18(2):165-191

ISSN: 0161-7361

Copyright Q 1995 by JAI Press, Inc. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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runs into the “underdetermination argument”; there are always alternative and mutually incompatible theories which are just as successful at accommodating the data. Perhaps impressed by this and by other problems with traditional defenses of realism, some realists have proposed a naturalistic argument which looks to the Darwinian theory of evolution and focuses on our success as a species. But there is also a naturalistic analogue of the underdetermination argument. I shall argue that the Darwinian theory of evolution not only provides no support for realism, but provides reasons for believing that our theories are not true or even approximately true, that science is not approaching some ideal limit even asymptotically, and, against (optimistic) pragmatists, that our “scientific methods” will not prove reliable even in the long run. Put positively, the anti-realist view for which I shall argue is that since we do in practice accept our best theories, and since we have reason to believe that they are not true or even progressing toward truth, then acceptance should not be equated with belief. This sort of investigation usually goes under the name of “evolutionary epistemology,” itself a species of naturalized epistemology. “Evolutionary epistemology” and “naturalized epistemology” are no longer very informative labels, I’d contend, since so many various inquiries are pursued under these headings. Accordingly, the first two sections of this article will be a survey of the major positions which will serve both to locate and motivate my own concerns. Section 1 examines two kinds of naturalized epistemology. First, there is the strong version according to which traditional epistemology is to be replaced by physiology, psychology, cognitive science, and the like. Reasons are given for rejecting this program, and a more moderate version of naturalized epistemology is commended which includes both philosophical theory and the results of relevant scientific investigations. I also claim that this view characterizes most of what is usually classed as traditional epistemology. Following a brief description of the theory of evolution, Section 2 describes one of the ways in which Darwin’s theory has been thought to be relevant to epistemology. This is the view that our survival as a species provides some sort of justification for scientific realism. The main arguments in this vein are reviewed, and I conclude that they are all flawed, but in seeing how they fail we can see more easily what Darwin’s theory does have to say about the credentials of human cognition and the issue of scientific realism. My task here is made easier by the fact that quite a few distinguished philosophers4 have attacked these arguments for realism, and some even conclude that only skeptical conclusions can follow from evolutionary epistemology. Since my chief aim is to establish this result, I am happy to claim these philosophers as allies. Section 3 employs the negative results obtained up to this point to spell out the epistemological consequences of the theory of evolution. Finally, in Section 4, I defend my conclusions against the charge that my view is selfundermining-that to use a scientific theory to show that one should not believe any scientific theory is illegitimate. I conclude by specifying just what is and is not implied by my view for the realism/ anti-realism debate in the philosophy of science. 1. Two Kinds of Naturalized Epistemology

When one encounters the term “naturalized epistemology” one usually thinks first of Quine, and in particular of his view expressed in “Epistemology Naturalized”:

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Epistemology, or something like it, simply falls into place as a chapter of psychology and hence of natural science. It studies a natural phenomenon, viz., a physical human subject. This human subject is accorded a certain experimentally controlled input--certain patterns of irradiation in assorted frequencies, for instance-and in the fullness of time the subject delivers as output a description of the three dimensional external world and its history. The relation between the meager input and the torrential output is a relation that we are prompted to study for somewhat the same reasons that always prompted epistemology; namely, in order to see how evidence relates to theory, and in what ways one’s theory of nature transcends any available evidence [1969a,pp. 82-831. In the introduction to his anthology on naturalized epistemology, Hilary Komblith dubs this the “replacement thesis” (1985, p. 3). Even though Quine himself does not consistently subscribe to the replacement thesis,’ quite a few philosophers are tempted by it.6 The replacement thesis might appeal because one is impressed by advances in physiology, psychology, or cognitive science. At the other extreme, one might be impressed by the fact that traditional epistemological problems (the problem of skepticism, say) seem to be intractable, and so think that they should be abandoned in favor of investigations which at least show some prospect of success (although this seems to me to be a bit like wanting to play baseball in the minor rather than the major leagues because one would “look better” there). One might think that instead of worrying about whether we are now dreaming, we should dismiss the entire epistemological enterprise as a bad dream. Whatever one’s reasons for being tempted by the replacement thesis, accepting it would be a mistake.’ One reason is this: Skepticism-to stay with this example of a traditional epistemological problem-is like a bothersome neighbor. Neither will go away even if you ignore them. Skepticism will not go away even if you ignore it by doing psychology or cognitive science. One need only re-read Descartes’ First Meditation to see how quickly and naturally skeptical worries arise from quite simple doubts. There is also the question of the justification of the theories used in the new naturalized epistemology. In any particular case one will want to know whether the available evidence warrants acceptance of the theory, but to answer this question some view of the relation between theory and evidence is required. If another scientific theory is offered here, then the procedure will appear to be viciously circular. This is a familiar objection, to which there is a familiar response. An advocate of the replacement thesis will claim that the circle is “virtuous” instead; questions of the relation between theory and evidence will either be solved by the various human sciences, or dissolved. However, the advocate should worry about the fact that any general view of theory acceptance must be based on what human beings do, and that any such descriptive theory must take account of the fact that, for example, what one generation regards as good reasons for accepting a theory are not so regarded by the next. These kinds of normative questions arise “naturally,” if I may so put it.8 There is, finally, a deeper worry to be voiced. Anyone adopting the replacement thesis must pay attention to the relevant results from all of the sciences. In particular, my contention (to be argued below) is that evolutionary biology itself re-introduces, as scientific questions, some of the traditional philosophical questions that were supposed to be dissolved when the replacement thesis was embraced. Thus even if one adopts the replacement thesis, one is quickly led to consideration of the more traditional

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epistemological issues. My contention here is that the replacement thesis is self-refuting in the following sense: It assumes a unified picture of science, a picture according to which all of the sciences give compatible answers to the questions which we put to them. But I shall argue that one science-evolutionary biology-does not fit with this picture and casts doubt on the integrity of the other sciences, an integrity which they must possess if we are to take them as seriously as is required by the replacement thesis. For those attached to the replacement thesis, its rejection can be made less painful by noting that the motivation for accepting it can be accommodated in a less extreme view. The motivation is the thought that epistemology cannot be done just from the philosopher’s armchair, but must take the results of the various scientific disciplines into account. But clearly this can be done without adopting the replacement thesis. Indeed, this is apparently how epistemological investigations have traditionally been pursued, at least in that epistemological tradition which is usually taken to begin with Descartes and stretch through the empiricists.9 Epistemology is supposed to be about the status of our opinions of the world in which we live. Clifford Hooker, who also advocates a naturalistic “evolutionary” epistemology in my sense, says “epistemological theory is strongly determined by our scientific view of the world and our place in it, . . . [and] there is no class of beliefs having the privileged status of unrevisable truths” (1987, p. 22). I take this class of beliefs to include the replacement thesis, but the quotation also suggests the following positive view. A good reason to reject an epistemological theory would be if it were to be constructed a priori and also be seriously at odds with what science tells us about our various kinds of relations to the world. Similarly, a good way to begin constructing an epistemological theory would be to reflect on what science tells us about our relations to the world. However, this sort of view distances itself from that of the replacement thesis by insisting that the results of science are not to be treated as gospel; even if one begins by reflecting on the results of current science, one may in the end arrive at an epistemological view according to which they are unjustified.” This kind of naturalism is only opposed to revelationism, some kinds of rationalism, and the like. The conclusion I want to draw, then, is that one can have a naturalized epistemology without adopting the replacement thesis, for all that is involved is a willingness to begin epistemological investigations by taking the results of the special sciences seriously (and so I suppose that much of epistemology has been “naturalistic” in this regard). For Quine, as for Descartes, the sciences to be consulted first in epistemology were psychology and the physiology of perception. Recently, a very different discipline has been recommended as the touchstone of epistemology: the Darwinian theory of evolution. 2. Taking Darwin Seriously (Again) As is well known, the title of this section is also the title of a book by Michael Ruse.” Ruse’s major aim in the book is to develop Darwinian views in ethics and epistemology, and I shall have something to say about his epistemological view below. His other aim is simply to show the relevance of Darwin to philosophy, for far too large a portion of the philosophical community continues to ignore Darwin. This is a scandal, for although the Copernican Revolution removed humans from the center of the cosmos, we remained

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the “highest” species on the planet, confident in our ability to discover the secrets of the cosmos and to rule over it. This confidence remained even with Kant’s Copemican Revolution in epistemology, which told us that in an important sense we make the world which we know. The Darwinian Revolution, which C. U. M. Smith (1991, p. 45) calls the “more genuine” Copemican Revolution, suggests that this confidence might very well be misplaced, for we are products of the same natural process which produced the dinosaur rather slowly at and the dodo, a process of evolution which “. . . is going nowhere-and that” (Ruse, 1986, p. 203). However, I am getting ahead of myself. I merely wanted to note that Darwin’s theory is potentially much more important for epistemology than psychology, information theory, or cognitive science. Because of this importance, and also because the arguments for scientific realism to be considered below rest upon (what I claim is) a misunderstanding of the theory of evolution, a brief account of this theory is in order. 2.1. The Theory of Evolution The core of the theory is beautifully simple: A population evolves when there is selective retention of blind variation within that population. In a little more detail, the story is this: Mutations continually crop up among members of a particular species, independent of the environment, resulting in different phenotypic traits. The environments which these species inhabit are also continually changing. When a particular kind of phenotypic trait is better suited to the present environment than similar traits possessed by other members of the population, then the individual possessing that trait has greater fitness, or a higher chance of success at survival and reproduction. We then say that such a trait has been selected for. When the traits that have been selected for are heritable (i.e., have a genetic basis), then given a stable environment the trait will tend toward fixation in the population and the species will evolve into one in which most of the individuals possess the advantageous trait.12 This simple theory is really all that is needed to explain the existence of diverse species, their seeming adaptedness to their environments (the order of nature), and their continued evolution. We also need to keep in mind the fact that, creationist claims to the contrary notwithstanding, this simple theory can no longer be regarded as speculative, ill-supported second class science. It has as much of a claim to our allegiance as any other current and successful scientific theory. I now want to consider four further aspects of the theory that are sometimes ignored or misunderstood, particularly by some of the evolutionary epistemologists that I will consider below. First, the theory is emphatically non-teleological. There is no goal toward which evolution is working, and there is not even much sense to be made of the notion of long term improvement of a species. Many philosophers and even some biologists illegitimately move from (a) the observation that a particular trait conveys an advantage in a particular environment for individuals of a species to (b) the thought that the species itself is improving in some context-independent manner. An example will illustrate the error in this. Consider a variant of the familiar example of moths in industrial England. Imagine a species of moths comprised of individuals who differ only in the respect that roughly half are lightand half are dark-colored. Suppose that because of industrial pollution the trees the white moths use for camouflage are blackened. In this case being dark colored will be advantageous, and light colored moths will suffer a decrease in fitness. If dark individuals come to dominate the population then we might say that this is a species which has

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improved-it is better adapted to the environment than the mixed population would have been. Now suppose that the environment changes again as a result of enlightened antipollution efforts and the harvesting of dark trees so that light-colored individuals enjoy increased fitness and dark-colored ones suffer decreased fitness. Again we might say that the species has improved. Finally the environment might change back into its original state, and the distribution of the two phenotypes might reach equilibrium again-another successful adaptation of the species. The point is that although we are right to speak of improvement or adaptation to an environment which is stable in the short term, we are not on such firm ground to speak of progress over the long haul, since there is no reason to expect a stable environment over the long haul. To quote Ruse again, “evolution is going nowhere”. The second point to note is that evolution is a very slow process. One of the most prevalent criticisms of the first edition of On the Origin of Species (1859) was that the Earth had not existed long enough for Darwin’s process to accomplish its results. But this worry is now regarded as mistaken. Evolution has been going on for millions of years, and sometimes hundreds of thousands of years elapse without any evolutionary change in a particular species. This point is important for the following reason: Theorists sometimes think that the stability of a species over a considerable period of time provides some measure of the prospect of long-term success of a species, a way of predicting whether it will continue to be successful. Some evolutionary epistemologists talk as if the survival of homo sapiens for so long a time is some guarantee of our continued survival and of the truth of our theories about the world. But thinking this would be a mistake, for the life span of homo sapiens has thus far been but a moment in evolutionary time. In any case, anyone tempted by this sort of argument need only think of the dinosaurs, whose lifespans as species were far longer than homo sapiens has been up to this point. [Editor2 Note 1: Nonetheless, understand evolution,

we seem unique in the biolo&cal world in having the ability and perhaps through our technology to partially direct it.-PLj

to

Since I will not often need to return explicitly to this point below, I want to emphasize here how very important it is. I suspect that much of what lies behind the thought that our cognitive processes can be relied upon to produce true theories is the thought that, because we have survived for so long, any serious defects must have been selected against. Such a perspective suggests that not only does our survival require explanation, but we must also explain why we were selected instead of other possible human-like species with different cognitive and perceptual apparata. The typical explanation is, to put it crudely, that our large brains make us well adapted to our environment. But the real explanation is that none is required; the explanandum contains the false presuppositions that the survival of a species for 50,000 or even 100,000 years is at all remarkable, and that our selection over other real or imagined possibilities can tell us anything very significant about ourselves-we may not even be the best of a bad lot, but have just happened to fill an environmental niche for a relatively short time. The third point is that evolution is a sufficing and not an optimizing process. This just means that a heritable trait will be selected for if it confers some advantage on its possessor; it need not be the best imaginable, or even the best available (an individual that possessed many satisfactory traits might have a better overall chance of survival than its relative that possessed a few optimal traits). For an example, consider again the species of white moths whose environment changes so that the majority of the light-colored trees

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which used to be used for camouflage are now dark. Clearly, dark-colored mutants will possess a selective advantage. But suppose that the mutants still land indiscriminately on both light- and dark-colored trees. The mutation will enable the species to survive, but this would not be a very efficient survival strategy. The moths would have done better to also have evolved some way of discriminating between light and dark trees, but the theory of evolution gives no reason for thinking that they would eventually evolve such a mechanism even though it would be a more efficient survival strategy. One need not be a design engineer in order to appreciate the many inefficient design structures produced by natural selection. The fourth point, and perhaps the most important one, is related, and it is that not all traits that are selected are selected for; not all evolution is adaptation. According to the so-called “adaptationist program,” all phenotypic traits have to be seen as “good for” something. This program dominated evolutionary biology until quite recently, but what initially seemed to be its strength eventually helped to undermine it: Defenders of adaptationism needed to provide “just so” stories about the value of particular traits, and, so long as they were not lacking in imagination, they were quite good at this. But one quickly realizes that, given the right context, one can show that any trait confers some benefit on some thing. The program begins to look hollow, and, as Gould and Lewontin put it, “Panglossian”.13 There are also good biological reasons for rejecting adaptationism. I will mention two here (Gould and Lewontin review at least a dozen) which will be important later on. First, there are the phenomena known as pleiotropic effects, resulting from the fact that the genephenotype relation is often one-many. This leads one to expect and allows one to explain the existence of traits which are adaptively neutral or are even maladaptations, for if a gene causes one phenotypic trait which is highly beneficial and another which is slightly deleterious, the beneficial trait will be selected for but the other trait will also be selected. Moreover, once biologists began to look, they found that maladaptations abounded. The other problem with adaptationism is that the program fails “. . . to distinguish current utility from reasons of origin” (Gould & Lewontin, p. 252). That is, a phenotypic trait which was selected for because it resulted in increased fitness in the selective environment may now contribute to survival in a completely different manner. Or more importantly, it might now be adaptively neutral or maladaptive either because of changes in the environment or other changes in the organism. A once beneficial but now deleterious trait might be retained either because the harmful effects do not result in enough of a decrease in fitness to affect survival, because other traits have evolved which more than compensate for the harmful effects, because the genes responsible for the trait “hitchhike” on chromosomes containing beneficial genes, or because it is genetically tied to another beneficial trait (pleiotropy again). Whatever the reason, we again expect to find and in fact do find a host of traits which are no longer well adapted to the environment. These last two features of the theory of evolution have impressed a number of critics of a realist evolutionary epistemology. Valerie Gray Hardcastle (1993, p. 177), for example, suggests that some or all of our cognitive apparatus might have evolved in one of these non-adaptive ways.14 [Editor’s Note 2: See also my “Evolutionary Epistemology Without Limits,” Knowledge, June 1982, pp. 46.5-502, for arguments about the origin of some cognitive structures along non-adaptionist lines, but with an optimistic outcome for the growth of knowledge.-PLI

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2.2. The Survival of Theorizers: Evolutionary

Arguments for Realism

Distinguishing two different but related kinds of evolutionary epistemology is customary. The first concerns the selection and survival of scientific theories and knowledge in general, whereas the second concerns the selection of our cognitive and perceptual apparatus. Many writers (e.g., Wuketits, 1995, p. 357) follow Michael Bradie (1986) in referring to the former as the “evolution of theories program (EET)” and the latter as the “evolution of cognitive mechanisms program (EEM)“. Other writers such as James Robert Brown (1994) refer to the former as evolutionary epistemology and the latter as Darwinian epistemology. Since the usage is not standard, and since in what follows I will be concerned exclusively with the “EEM”/“Darwinian Epistemology” program, I will simply continue to use the term “evolutionary epistemology” to refer to that program.15 So in this section I will consider arguments which purport to establish the truth, approximate truth, or instrumental reliability of our scientific theories by appealing to certain aspects of our evolution and survival as a species. The boldest, and baldest, version of the argument runs like this: Reason (rather than strength, speed, or natural armor) is what has promoted our survival, enabling us to employ tools and language, to band together for protection in a hostile environment. That reason has so promoted survival is explained by its somehow being “in tune with” or mirroring the world, and since our theories are the deliverance of reason, so too must they mirror the world. Both Putnam (1983, pp. 230-23 1) and van Fraassen (1985, pp. 260-261) criticize versions of this argument, although neither attributes it to anyone in particular. Stephen Stich (1990, pp. 55-56) cites a number of passages which suggest that Dennett, Fodor, Goldman, and a few others might endorse this kind of argument. And in his “Evolutionary Epistemology as Naturalized Epistemology,” Michael Bradie, citing the following sentence as evidence, puts Peter Munz in this camp: “Biology suggests that our power for abstraction and our faculty of having expectations is the result of natural selection, that our cognitive apparatus is adaptive, and that the whole of our knowledge consists of theories which are embodied (i.e., organisms) proposals on disembodied (i.e., conscious theories) proposals made to the environment” (Munz, 1985, p. 8, in Bradie 1989, pp. 407-408). But “biology,” Bradie goes on to remark, “suggests no such things”. His reasons for rejecting this sort of argument, as well as the reasons given by Putnam and van Fraassen, consist essentially of those features of the theory of evolution that I highlighted at the beginning of the last section. First, not all selection is selection for; not every selected trait is an adaptation. One can grant that our ancestors survived because the size of their brains permitted, say, the development of language, but deny that the resulting further capacity to engage in scientific theorizing has any survival value at all, or that our theories therefore deliver even approximately true pictures of the world. That we possess a certain capacity and have survived only entails that any deleterious effects it has in the present environment do not lead to its being selected against; that this capacity has not led us into trouble-yet. Moreover, that our science will in the long run contribute to the survival of the human species is far from clear.16 (In this connection, one should remember the fate of the Irish Elk, whose large and beautiful antlers promoted reproductive success. Those antlers became too large and too beautiful, the Elk could not move through the forest, and the Elk’s skeleton could not support the weight of the antlers. The species is now extinct.)r7

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Second, even if any particular cognitive or perceptual capacity has been selected for, selection is merely a sufficing process. To take just one example, the (presumably false) medical theories of the primitive witch doctor did not prevent-and probably in a roundabout way promoted-the survival of the species. As this example suggests, and as Bruce Hauptli (1994) points out in his review of Nicholas Rescher’s A Useful Inheritance (1990), one cannot deduce the “truth-producing” capacity of a cognitive trait from its survival value. Finally, even if one granted that all or most of our cognitive abilities possess survival value, one needs to keep in mind the fact that our species just hasn’t been around long enough to justify the claim that our various cognitive strategies are or will continue to be well adapted to the environment. Indeed, no length of time could provide that sort of justification-remember the dinosaurs. Putnam puts this point rather nicely when he reminds us that “ . . . if rationality were measured by survival value, then the proto-beliefs of the cockroach, who has been around for tens of millions of years longer than we, would have a far higher claim to rationality than the sum total of human knowledge” (1983, p. 232). The arguments which I will consider in the remainder of this section are, in my view, just more sophisticated variants of the basic argument just considered, and so they will fail as arguments for realism for the same reasons that the basic argument failed. But since these arguments at least appear to avoid the fallacies of the bald version, and since their authors would want to distance themselves from that argument, separate treatments are warranted. Clifford Hooker offers an argument for scientific realism which, while not as bad as the argument just considered, is nevertheless related in so far as it moves from considerations of the survival of the human species to scientific realism. Hooker claims: From an evolutionary, naturalist point of view, there is a general argument [for realism] from a unitary view of mind. As remarked, the human cognitive apparatus developed with both theoretical and practical abilities; without all of these abilities, and without their intimate interaction with each other, our cognitive capacity would be much less.. . . In the absence of counterargument, the evidence favors treating all cognitive abilities on a par, within a single framework, and, as suggested above, refusing to draw any basic cognitive/pragmatic distinction [ 1987, p. 1711.

Here again, though, the realist’s conclusion does not follow. First of all, the “practical abilities” which promote survival might have resulted from any number of different “theoretical abilities”. To see this, consider another medical example: Suppose that the physician treats a certain disease by feeding the patient certain foods. The theoretical explanation is that the demon responsible for the particular disease hates that particular food. Another theoretical explanation might appeal to the relation between microorganisms and certain chemicals in the food. But what is important from the point of view of survival is the practical connection between eating the food and getting well again; the competing theoretical explanations, and more importantly the methods by which these competing theories were formulated and accepted, are really irrelevant here. But even if one grants that our own theoretical abilities play an essential role in the development of our practical abilities, this is still no argument for realism. The fact that our various

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cognitive capacities have contributed to our survival up to now is no argument that they will continue to do so, and more importantly, it is no guarantee that these abilities tend to produce accurate, rather than one of the many possible adequate, pictures of the world.” There is no evolutionary argument which goes from our survival either to the survival value or to the truth of our theories and no argument from the survival value of those theories to their truth. Anthony O’Hear nicely sums up the only acceptable conclusion: “The most that can be said from an evolutionary point of view is that we occupy an ecological niche in which the scientific game is not immediately destructive (1984, p. 212). One might think that one can employ evolutionary considerations to provide indirect support for the realist’s conclusion: Since our survival does show that the “scientific game” is not lethal, this provides some warrant for supposing that our cognitive capacities are not too wide of the mark, and so our theories are, as Robert Nozick puts it (1993, p. 123) “true enough”. This is the form of argument adopted by Quine in “Natural Kinds”:” Why should our subjective spacing of qualities have a special purchase on nature and a lien on the future? There is some encouragement in Darwin. If people’s innate spacing of qualities is a genelinked trait, then the spacing that has made for the most successful inductions will have tended to predominate through natural selection. Creatures inveterately wrong in their inductions have a pathetic but praise-worthy tendency to die before reproducing their kind [1969b, p. 1261. This argument is meant to solve the “new riddle” of induction to the extent that the puzzle admits any solution, but of course it does not, for our “subjective spacing of qualities” may just be the latest but best of a bad lot. There is no warrant for moving from “cognitive strategy x does not result in a fatal decrease in fitness” to “cognitive strategy x delivers approximately true theories,” and so the encouragement from Darwin is slim indeed. Still, Quine’s argument deserves more than this quick answer; but rather than respond to this specific example of induction, I want to complete my survey of evolutionary epistemology by considering two closely related generalizations of Quine’s argument. The first is the “Humean” view developed by Ruse in Taking Darwin Seriously. The second is the “Kantian” evolutionary approach to epistemology advanced by Lorenz, Vollmer, and Reidl.*’ (Falk, 1993, places Wuketits, 1990, 1991, with the latter group, but Wuketits himself, 1995,. mentions the similarity of his views to those of Ruse. But, as should become apparent below, the two programs really amount to the same thing; at least with respect to evolutionary epistemology, the distance between Edinburgh and Konigsberg is not very great.)*l According to Ruse, the cognitive strategies which we employ in doing science-the scientific method-are governed by a set of epigenetic rules. An epigenetic rule is “a constraint which obtains on some facet of human development, having its origin in evolutionary needs, and channelling the way in which the growing or grown human thinks and acts” (1986, p. 143). Later (p. 184), Ruse simply identifies epigenetic rules with Humean propensities. Quine’s example of our “subjective spacings of qualities,” our tendency to group colors in the way we do (pp. 143-145) and our expectations (upon which we are prepared to act spontaneously) that like causes produce like effects, are examples of epigenetic rules.

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More controversial, perhaps, is the inclusion by Ruse of our use of modus ponens, or our tendency to prefer simpler theories to more complex ones (p. 162). Ruse is sensitive to the fact that not everyone will be happy with this picture of advanced logic and mathematics as mere extensions of simple rules accepted by our early ancestors just because they were useful, an evolutionary accident at best. He is also aware of the difficulty of distinguishing real epigenetic rules from apparent ones-that is, the view seems to presuppose the dubious notion of the scientific method (Ruse’s own example of simplicity provides a good illustration of one problem in this area, and I shall discuss it below). But even supposing that one accepts this general picture of cognition, I don’t see how the new argument fares any better than the old one, for while it does establish that these rules have not been fatally misleading, it does not really advance the cause of scientific realism, and, as I will suggest below, even gives some aid to the skeptic. Before turning to this, though, let me consider the other program. The program of Lorenz, Vollmer, and Reid1 is very similar to that of Ruse, and can be summed up in the slogan “what is ontogenetically a priori is phylogenetically a posteriori”(von Schilcher & Tennant, 1984, p. 186). These philosophers seem to have (some corrected list of) Kant’s categories in mind for what is “ontogenetically a priori”. The selection of these categories is supposed to have take place in human pre-history via the same natural selection mechanisms which resulted in the retention of Ruse’s epigenetic rules (and this is why I said above that the two programs are essentially the same). Also as with Ruse’s program, we need not worry about what will make up the canonical list of categories, for we can assess what any such program can accomplish in general. Interestingly enough, Kant himself has something to say on this matter in his concluding remarks to the “Transcendental Deduction [B]” (Section 27). Kant asks whether, against his own view, the categories might be thought of as “but subjective dispositions of thought, implanted in us from the first moment of our existence, and so ordered by our Creator that their employment is in complete harmony with the laws of nature in accordance with which experience proceeds-a kind of preformation-system of pure reason (p. B167). However, he rejects this view because “I would not then be able to say that the effect is connected with the cause in the object, that is to say, necessarily, but only that I am so constituted that I cannot think this representation otherwise than as thus connected. This is exactly what the skeptic most desires. For if this be the situation, all our insight, resting on the supposed objective validity of our judgments, is nothing but sheer illusion” (p. B168). I suggest that if we replace Kant’s “ordered by our Creator” with “ontogenetically a priori but phylogenetically a posterior?’ then we have a not uncharitable characterization of the evolutionary epistemologist’s program, and I think that Kant would still be correct in claiming that “this is what the skeptic most desires”; for if we have “transcendental deductions that go through only because we are prisoners of our own perspective, then that will be a Pyrrhic victory indeed” (von Schilcher & Tennant, p. 194). The situation of Lorenz and company is actually worse than the “preformation system” that Kant considers, for on the latter program one could at least have a moral certainty that our categories harmonized with the world, whereas the evolutionary epistemologist can give no such assurance. In fact the appeal to evolution can only undermine one’s confidence in the existence of any harmony between the categories and the world. As von Schilcher and Tennant point out:

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He who espouses an evolutionary account of our cognitive structures as the best explanation of the a priori is an optimistic Kantian indeed if he does not carry over to the mental the unsentimental lessons evolutionary theory teaches us about adaption at the morphological level. We know now that adaption is imperfect; that vestigial organs remain even when they can be encumbrances; that human embryos have gills, and that even adult organisms are lumbered with design features of the past. So why not the same in the case of mental organs and their operations? Evolutionary epistemology can be expected to render revealed reason all the more vulnerable, all the less ideal, for being the product of our evolutionary past [p. 1951. Returning now to Ruse, one finds that he acknowledges the force of very similar objections to his own program (1986, pp. 168 ff.). The most that we can know is that the entire set of epigenetic rules is not lethal, we cannot know that any particular rule or set of rules reliably leads to truth, or even that it has survival value. Justification of these latter conclusions would require a strong commitment to the adaptationist program, but Ruse is well aware of the problems with this. First, the theory of evolution leads us to expect that maladaptations are prevalent, and we should expect to find examples of this in our epigenetic rules. We should also expect to find rules which have survival value, but which are judged to be irrational from some perspective. Self-deception mechanisms provide the most obvious examples of this.22 Second, the success of this argument would require the conflation of reasons of origin with current utility or reliability. The case of simplicity provides a good illustration of the problem here. Simplicity is usually taken to be a criterion of theory choice. This epigenetic rule of choosing to pursue the simpler theory might have arisen because “the primate who innately favoured the simpler option would be ahead of his/ her fellow with a taste for the complex. The former would be spending a lot less time and effort on his/ her decision-making and execution” (Ruse, 1986, pp. 162-163). However, this story of the genesis of the rule is no guarantee that it helped the primate form true theories then (the truth may have been much more complicated, but the simpler theory was satisfactory), or that the rule still has survival value (neglect of more complex theories may preclude our happening upon scientific theories which would prolong the life of the human species). Neither does this story provide any justification for our accepting this rule as a guide to truth now. The phenomena upon which these rules operate have certainly changed, particularly in this century. And in the particular case of the simplicity rule, we can say that the world is probably not simple, and even if it is, we have no reason to expect that our partial theories, which reflect our own cognitive and perceptual biases and limitations, will themselves be simple.23 To these criticisms of his own argument for scientific realism, Ruse adds a final, general criticism. He considers the possibility, perhaps even likelihood, that the entire scientific game is an illusion, and that we may not be able to recognize this. In part this is, again, because “evolution is going nowhere-and rather slowly at that” (p. 203). In part this is because natural selection “doesn’t really care” whether a theory is true. Even if theories do promote survival they need only be instrumentally reliable and so confer some increase in fitness-but even false theories can do that, as the history of science so amply confirms. In part this is because there are other real creatures who successfully play something like the scientific game with very different cognitive and perceptual apparatus,

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and there is absolutely no reason to think that we are in any way privileged (pp. 200204). [Editor’s Note 3: But see my Editor’s Note 1 above.-PL] And finally, he thinks we likely resist such thoughts only because the self-deception mechanisms inculcated by the process of natural selection “extend much further than we dream” (p. 200). My primary aim in this section has been to show that there is no evolutionary argument for realism. Traditional arguments which appeal to the success of science can at best demonstrate only the empirical adequacy of theories. The appeal to biology was supposed to bridge the gaps between our survival and the empirical adequacy of our theories, as well as between empirical adequacy and truth, by appealing to our success as a species, which in turn is explained by our being well equipped for the task of discerning the way the world is. However, in support of realism the biological evidence suggests at most that not all of our theories are completely, fatally wrong, and some philosophers have suggested that this should signal the end of (this version of) evolutionary epistemology. Kitcher, for example, suggests that at this stage of the epistemological enquiry “the appropriate response is neither optimism nor pessimism, but agnosticism” (1993, p. 301). But I find ignoring the skeptical pull of the criticisms of the evolutionary arguments for realism difficult, for the biological evidence also seems to me to go further than agnosticism and provide as much reason for being skeptical about the reliability of our cognitive practices, and so skeptical about the approximate truth or instrumental reliability of our theories. However, I have said little about just how skeptical the theory of evolution should make one, and the last argument of Ruse raises the possibility that the skepticism should be quite thoroughgoing indeed. 3. The Skeptical Consequences of Evolutionary Epistemology Even though the theory of evolution does not support realism, it is not epistemologically neutral. Many contemporary philosophers who discuss the epistemological implications of the theory of evolution reject the arguments for realism which were discussed in the last section, and for the most part they do this for the reasons given there; and while somez4 adopt pragmatism of one sort or another instead of anti-realism, others are ready to acknowledge that the only epistemological implications of the theory are skeptical implications. Let me begin this section with a brief survey of some of the latter group. Among philosophers of science who acknowledge these skeptical consequences, I have already cited Michael Ruse, who adopts internal realism in response to the threat of skepticism. Two others are Clifford Hooker and Paul Churchland. Here, for example, is Hooker describing one consequence of his “evolutionary naturalistic realism’? . . . once the evolution of science is tied into the evolution of culture the history of science becomes systematically epistemologically ambiguous. To wit there is no guarantee for any culture that it will not suffer from the following twin defects: (i) a systematically wrongheaded scientific tradition, (ii) a cultural environment which precludes either thought or recognition of this fact. Therefore no one is justified in reposing any positive degree of rational belief in any scientific tradition, no matter how long and glorious [ 1987, p. 1051.

Hooker’s argument for being a scientific realist in the face of this skepticism depends upon the notion that one can accept a theory as literally true while remaining agnostic

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or skeptical about any particular research program at the “meta-level” (pp. 106 & 182). However, I don’t see how one can prevent the skepticism of the “meta-level” from “infecting” one’s attitude toward the particular theory at the lower level. In any case, the skepticism at the “meta-level” is in my view already enough to brand Hooker an antirealist. At this point, we should look at a another sort of appeal to different levels of cognition as a way of avoiding skepticism, a way which is similar to Sellars’ distinction between the “manifest” and “scientific images”. James Barham (1990, pp. 230-231), for example,25 distinguishes between “natural” (pre-scientific, “with the aid of minimal human culture”) and “artificial” (scientific) kinds of knowledge. Using quite realist-sounding language, he speaks of artificial knowledge as providing “the ability to transcend the confines of” natural knowledge, and “laying bare a piece of the world invisible from the natural human viewpoint”(p. 23 1). But, as with Hooker, I think that this sort of distinction will not succeed in saving realism. I have two related reasons: First, the distinction is highly artificial, and in the real world disentanglement of the two kinds of “knowledge” will be difficult if not impossible. Second, even if the distinction could be made, “natural” knowledge serves as a foundation for the “artificial” knowledge, and the latter continues to be evaluated with the tools that gave us the former. So if our “natural” knowledge is tainted, so too will our “artificial” knowledge be tainted. As John O’Leary-Hawthorne (1994, p. 143) puts it, “in the language of Sellars, the Manifest Image impresses itself upon the Scientific Image”. Note that I am not denying that we could have developed knowledgeproducing capabilities which transcend our evolutionary past, for that is not the issue here. Rather, the question is whether the capacities that we do possess are compromised in some way by our Darwinian heritage, and that is what I mean to be arguing. Paul Churchland also appears to endorse a form of skepticism, to wit: Evolutionary considerations also counsel a healthy skepticism. Human reason is a hierarchy of heuristics for seeking, recognizing, storing, and exploiting information. But those heuristics were invented at random, and they were selected for within a very narrow evolutionary environment, cosmologically speaking. It would be miraculous if human reason were completely free of false strategies and fundamental cognitive limitations, and doubly miraculous if the theories we accept failed to reflect those defects [ 1985, p. 361. Unlike Hooker, Churchland really doesn’t justify his retention of scientific realism. He does want to deny that there is any epistemologically significant observable/ unobservable distinction, but a denial of this does not a realist make. The lack of any further argument has led at least one philosopher26 to wonder whether Churchland’s position deserves the realist label at all. I think it does not. So I am claiming Churchland, Hooker, and Ruse as (perhaps unwilling) allies, but the philosopher who at least for my purposes most accurately depicts the epistemological consequences of the theory of evolution is A. J. Clark. He identifies three consequences:

1) “that the physical universe exists independently 2)

of our knowledge of it (Material Realism)“; “that our knowledge of the world proceeds from a distinctively human and limited point of view and hence that our conceptions of reality are never fully accurate or unbiased pictures of the world as it really is (Cognitive bias and limitation)“;

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“that other beings may process and assess information in ways which give rise to thought and experience which is in some sense alternative to our own (Conceptual Scheme Realism)” (1984, p. 483).”

As it stands, (2) is too strong, for we might have developed the ability to create a perfectly accurate image of the world. This possibility strikes me as being as unlikely as Smart’s (1963) “cosmic coincidence” must have seemed to him, and even if it were true we could not know it, but the theory of evolution does not rule out this possibility. The name is also slightly misleading, since it omits the fact that bias is also introduced by the idiosyncrasies of our perceptual apparatus, but I have no better name to suggest. (Perhaps, though, the third thesis might have been more aptly called “Conceptual Scheme Relativism,” or, following Stich, 1990, pp. 13 ff., “cognitive pluralism”.) With these minor corrections, I think that acceptance of the theory of evolution involves acceptance of these three consequences. Let me now take them up in order. I take the thesis of material realism to be the homely thesis that we do not make the world in any non-metaphorical sense. It is not a commitment to physicalism, or to the claim that nothing exists apart from the material world; on this issue the thesis is silent. It is merely the claim that the material world which is responsible for natural selection would exist, albeit in a slightly different manner, even if we did not. This is also not to say that there is one description which would be recognized as true by all rational beings (however these are identified). We must admit that this mind-independent world may not resemble our representation of it, any more than a frog’s or a Martian’s representations (if such there be) resemble each other, or ours, or the world itself. But most of us think that these are representations of the same mind-independent world, and very strong arguments would be required to convince otherwise.** So long as we think of organisms as products of evolutionary forces, we acknowledge that there is a world which is responsible for evolution by selecting for advantageous traits. Of course, the selective environment will be different for each species at particular times, but again we do not think that this makes for a multiplicity of species-dependent or mind-dependent worlds.*’ The theses of cognitive bias and limitation, and conceptual scheme realism, follow from the criticisms of the arguments for realism presented in the last section. Since natural selection “cares” only about survival and not truth, and given what we know about the prevalence of maladaptive traits, our perceptual capacities or cognitive strategies are likely not ideally suited for gaining knowledge of the world, and we have no good reason for thinking that our abilities are any better than those of other creatures, real or imagined. These three theses generate a distinction which is analogous to Kant’s distinction between the world as appearance and the world as it is in itself. Our cognitive bias and limitations give us the former, whereas material realism is a realism about the latter (Clark, 1984, pp. 484, 487-488). Of course, the analogy with Kant is not quite apt, since in this case the world-in-itself is understood as somehow being causally responsible for our development and of the world-as-appearance (although Kant does sometimes speak as if there is a kind of causal relation between the two worlds). Turning now to the extent of the skepticism suggested by evolutionary epistemology, the most important aspect of this issue can be addressed by asking how closely the world-as-appearance corresponds to the world-in-itself.

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Note first of all that we cannot assess this correspondence directly by comparing our way of understanding the world with the world itself. Neither can we compare our way of conceiving the world with other possible ways, for such a comparison would have to be framed either from within our own perspective (and hence would be just as suspect as our own conception), or from some “God’s eye” point of view which, I take it, is not only unavailable to us but would itself have to be judged from our own perspective.” (We might, of course, come to judge that some other conceptual or perceptual scheme is better by our own standards, as for example humans might judge that x-ray eyes would be desirable, but that would not help the anti-skeptic here.) This is already a victory for the skeptic, since the impossibility of any direct evidence of correspondence shows that even in the unlikely event that we hit upon a correct theory, we could not know it, and this is one roundabout way of showing that success is not a sure guide to truth. The lack of direct evidence also forces the realist to rely on the indirect evidence of correspondence provided by the theory of evolution. On the question of indirect evidence skeptics are again on fairly firm ground, for they can appeal to the theory of evolution for at least three arguments in support of their position. 1) there is the result of the last section that the theory provides absolutely no support for realism. And this is significant, given the scarcity of other compelling arguments for this rather strong position. 2) we can say that the world seems to be quite plastic at least in this sense: species with very different ways of perceiving and conceiving the world seem to be flourishing, and the tolerance by the environment of what might appear to us to be maladaptations only seems to confirm this. What I am suggesting here is a naturalistic analogue of the underdetermination argument against scientific realism: In the philosophical case, the existence of many theories compatible with the evidence is supposed to block the inference to the truth of any one theory. I am suggesting that the many representations by different species, of one environment, make a supposition that our own is the one which corresponds to the world implausible; only an absurdly immodest anthropocentrism could lead one to suppose that we are the only epistemologically privileged species. 3) and this is the most important point, even if one focuses only upon our own theories, there are the kinds of considerations which Churchland and Ruse raise about the history and current status of our heuristics or epigenetic rules. They were selected for in an environment quite different from the one in which they are now employed, by a sufficing and not an optimizing process, and they were selected by a process which permits the retention of maladaptations. There is more on this third point: The theses of cognitive bias and limitation and of conceptual scheme realism suggest that the kinds of theories which we can even consider will be constrained, first of all, by the fact that the phenomena to be explained by science are themselves partially constituted (in the Kantian sense) by our conceptual and perceptual apparatus. The range of theoretical possibilities which is open to us will also be constrained by our cognitive history and by our conceptual scheme. A proper understanding of the mechanisms of evolution must undermine any confidence that there is a theory which saves

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the peculiar phenomenal world of our epistemic community, or that if there is such a theory that it lies within the space of possibilities which is open to us (conceivable by us). An example might help make this point clear. Imagine a community of inquirers who suffer (at least according to our lights) from the following handicaps. Their mathematical calculations are all undertaken in base 60, and they are psychologically and physiologically so constituted that they can only conceive of space along a three-dimensional Euclidean model. This community would still be capable of a good deal of scientific activity (witness Ptolemy’s Almugesr), but from our perspective we should regard their mathematical abilities as inhibiting, and their conceptual scheme as precluding, their formulating theories that are more empirically adequate or even true. I want to use this example to make two points. First, at the very least we cannot know that we are not in a similar handicapped position, with restrictions that we cannot even discover. Further, I take the theory of evolution to suggest that it would be miraculous if we did not have such handicaps.” Taken together, I think that the three arguments of this paragraph permit one to say that we likely-at least more likely than not-do not possess the cognitive capacities which would enable us to produce true theories. Neither do I think that a retreat to the notion of approximate truth can help the anti-skeptic here, for in the absence of a touchstone (in this case a magical glimpse of the world-in-itself) the notion of approximate truth seems to be empty. One can conceive that, for example, a successful Martian theory might be completely different from one of our own, precisely because his/her/its phenomenal world is different, but does that mean that they are both approximately true? Is the proto-theory of the frog (which apparently can only perceive things in motion) also approximately true? Again, the most the realist can say is that his cognitive strategies and his theories are tolerated by the environment.32 This notion of toleration might be seen as providing some comfort to the realist, by providing an analog of the notion of approximate truth without the problems which attend that notion. The realist can argue: “At least we know that our theories are not too far off the mark, for if they were the environment would not tolerate them.” But what is the justification for this? There is no direct evidence of what the environment will or will not tolerate, and so one must rely on the indirect evidence in nature, and here again we see that nature is quite tolerant of what we would regard as mistakes and maladaptations.33 The lack of any direct evidence of correspondence, and the weakness of the indirect evidence, also render the claim that science is converging on the truth quite dubious. The notion of convergence seems to presuppose a context-independent or absolute notion of progress, but recall that there is no place for any such notion within the theory of evolution. On a less grand scale, we have no means of directly measuring progress toward the truth, and so the justification of claims of convergence will be difficult, at best. Moreover, there is reason for thinking that we are not converging on the truth, since the heuristics which govern the way in which we do science were probably not selected for that purpose, and will probably contain mistaken and maladaptive research strategies. Finally, these same considerations suggest that our science will not even reach a stable resting place, some theory or family of theories which will at least “save the phenomena”. O’Hear is worth quoting again: “The most that can be said is that we occupy an ecological niche in which the scientific game is not immediately destructive” (1984, p. 212).

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The inevitable conclusion is that the theory of evolution provides some confirmation of the skeptics doubts; it provides positive reasons for thinking that our theories are not true, and are not converging on the truth. It does this, not because it fails to rule out the fantastic doubts of the armchair philosopher-these do not enter into the picture herebut because it provides scientific reasons for thinking that we are not ideally or even adequately equipped for gaining knowledge of the world. I find gauging the extent of the skepticism dictated by evolutionary epistemology more difficult (this is inevitable given the theory of evolution, since we don’t know how “plastic” the environment is). Clearly there is no question of our worrying whether we are deceived by evil demons or are brains in vats. On the other hand, the position is much more skeptical than fallibilism, for the fallibilist only holds that we should not be dogmatic in our beliefs (even at some ideal limit of inquiry). And when one reflects on examples like that of the water shrew (see note 33), and on the considerations raised in this and the last section, I think that the conclusion is that the position should be quite skeptical indeed. We cannot just be content to be like the pragmatists and fallibilists who merely say that they would not be surprised if our present theories change. Rather, reflection on the many and various conceptions of the world which are possible, and the probable history of our own conceptual scheme, give us positive reasons for expecting that our scientific theories will change and keep changing without converging on the truth. The vagueness of the position does not present a worry here, since the conclusion that I am aiming for is still established. The skepticism which results from naturalism tells us that we are not warranted in believing that our scientific theories are true, or that the scientific enterprise is in the process of producing true theories in the long run. More important, it provides positive reasons for thinking that from the point of view of our cognitive and perceptual makeup and history we are not ideally suited for engaging in the scientific enterprise, and so positive reasons for thinking that we cannot produce true theories, even if allowed sufficient time and resources. Since I assume that we will continue to accept our theories and judge them better or worse, this means that accepting a theory need not involve the belief that it is true, and that a new, non-realist attitude toward science is called for. Let me note three things in closing this section. First, obviously up to this point my skeptical conclusions depend upon my accepting the correspondence metaphor34 or the correspondence theory of truth. I acknowledge this, and I adopt the correspondence view without argument or apology, since I suppose that even those who reject it will admit that it is the “natural” view, that “its roots lie in our everyday practices”(Kitcher, 1993, p. 130), and that good reasons would have to be given for rejecting it. One such reason, and the one which I think motivates most internal realists, is the threat of skepticism discussed here. But if this is the only or even the chief reason then I think it would be a bad one. If the skepticism were generated by a Descartes in his study, I would be more sympathetic to this sort of argumentative strategy, but since the skepticism results from science itself, I’m not clear how good a reason it can be for rejecting the correspondence theory, since realists in particular tend to think that use of philosophy to dictate scientific results is a bad procedure. The second point to emphasize is that there is another dimension to the skepticism which is not related to the correspondence between the world-as-appearance and the world-in-itself. Rather, it is confined to the world-as-appearance and concerns our confidence in our continued ability

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to produce theories which are at least tolerated by the environment-which are instrumentally reliable. The same considerations which suggest that our theories do not correspond to the world also suggest that our heuristics may have limited applicationthere may be a limit to human ingenuity (recall the example of simplicity). My thought is that even with respect to the phenomenal world, evolution likely has not equipped us to come up with one theory which “saves the phenomena,” and that the best we will be able to do is to come up with a number of theories which are incomplete and inconsistent with one another. As Churchland puts it, our evolutionary past suggests that science is on “a probably endless and not obviously convergent journey” (1985, p. 36). This should call the notions of convergence and the ideal limit of inquiry into question even for those who reject the correspondence metaphor. We might call this an “internal skepticism,“since it is a skepticism about our ability to save the phenomena, and to come up with a theory which is at least true-for-us. On another occasion I hope to show that, contrary to the claim of internal realism and other forms of pragmatism that global skeptical worries do not arise, this sort of skepticism fatally plagues internal realism. Thus the reason for the name “internal skepticism”.35 Finally, having argued at length for a strong form of skepticism, I want to confess at least one misgiving. I do not want to be too dogmatic in my skepticism, and I want to emphasize that my skeptical conclusion is a tentative, working conclusion. (It cannot be any more than that, if the position is not to undermine itself.) And while I am not impressed by claims that skepticism of any kind is self-defeating or philosophically uninteresting, there is one objection which has me worried. In fact, I have already considered it in part in my description of the theory of evolution. I claimed that our species has not been around long enough to warrant any conclusions about how well adapted we are to the environment. But this cuts both ways. Perhaps the short time that we have been playing the scientific game is just not long enough, from an evolutionary point of view, to warrant any conclusions about its future, including my pessimistic ones. I don’t really know how to answer this except to note that it is I who am making a risky conjecture based on a developing theory, while my imaginary opponent is the one who commends the conservative epistemic policy. So, I acknowledge that my arguments need not for this reason be compelling, and would just add that, if I had to bet, I would bet on my skeptical position being vindicated, but would not play the game for very high stakes. 4. Conclusion I want to conclude by responding to the objection that my position is plagued by circularity and my skepticism is self-undermining. The objection is this: If I am correct then I have reasons for thinking that all scientific theories are not true, including evolutionary biology. If that is the case, then my positive reasons for being skeptical are undermined, so I no longer have any reasons for being skeptical. I am not sure how this objection should be completed, since obviously the objector cannot go on to claim that we now have reasons for assuming a realist attitude. This gives a clue to the answer to this objection, which can be neatly formulated as a dilemma: Either we should accept the results of science as true (or as progressing toward the truth) or we should not. If not, we should reject scientific realism. If we should accept scientific theories

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as true, then we should believe what one of our best scientific theories tells us about our perceptual and cognitive apparatus: that it will not provide us with a (necessarily) true account of the world, even in the long run. Thus again scientific realism should be rejected.36 The basic point here is that unlike the anti-realist position the realist’s position is unstable. If one assumes that the theory of evolution is true then one is led to skepticism. If one then tries to use that skepticism to undermine the theory of evolution then one has already given the game up for lost. I think that this reply, which is a kind of reductio ad absurdum of scientific realism, is formally correct, but I also recognize that it needs to be complemented by a more positive response, so let me close by emphasizing that the view I am developing is not meant merely as a criticism of scientific realism; my skepticism is not an end but a beginning. Like most anti-realists, I regard the scientific enterprise as rational, successful, and progressive. Thus my position also demands a non-realist account of theory-change and theory-acceptance which can reflect these features of science while incorporating the healthy skepticism dictated by evolutionary epistemology. The development of such an account must be left for another article.37

Notes 1. Discussions of Nietzsche’s skeptical “evolutionary” epistemology may be found in Herrmann-Pillath (1993), and in Smith (1986, 1987, 1992). 2. See, for example, the criticisms of “constructive Empiricism” collected in Churchland and Hooker (1985), and the essays in Leplin (1984a). 3. In the introduction to his anthology Scientzjk Realism, Jarrett Leplin (1984a) culls ten formulations of realism from recent literature. I intend that my formulation capture what is common to them. 4. For example, Churchland (1985), Ellis (1985, 1990), Falk (1993), Gray Hardcastle (1993), Hauptli (1994), Hooker (1987), Kitcher (1993), Nozick (1993), Putnam (1981, 1983), Ruse (1986), Sterelny (1995), Stich (1990), Stroud (1981, 1984, 1985), Tennant (1983), and van Fraassen (1985, 1989). 5. In “Natural Kinds”, Quine retreats somewhat from the replacement thesis. See Stroud’s The Significance of Philosophical Skepticism (1984, Ch. 6) for a review of Quine’s position. Briefly, in “Natural Kinds” Quine appeals to Darwinian considerations in order to answer traditional epistemological questions (in this case ajustification of induction). I shall discuss this sort of argument further, but I do think that a concern with justifying our epistemological opinions to the skeptic, as opposed to merely reporting how human beings actually reason or process information, betokens a rejection of the replacement thesis. 6. In a review article, Michael Bradie (1989) mentions Davidson (1973), Dennett (1978), Harman (1986) and Kornblith (1985). Ronald Giere (1988) also adopts the replacement thesis. 7. For critical discussions of the replacement thesis, see Almeder (1990) and Manicas (1993). 8. I do not mean to imply that there cannot be a normative dimension to a scientific theory of science. Cognitive science or psychology, for example, could recommend more efficient methods of information processing or more fruitful ways of generating new hypotheses. A good discussion of the extent to which a strongly naturalistic view can also address normative issues can be found in Harman (1986, pp. 7-9). See also Stich (1990) and Kitcher (1993). 9. For two simple examples, one need only look at the extent to which the epistemological views of Descartes and Berkeley respectively depend on the scientific views developed in “Dioptrics and Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision.”

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10. This is close to what Robert Almeder (1990, p. 263) calls the “third distinct form of naturalized epistemology”. See also Gray Hardcastle (1993). 11. I cannot resist reproducing the quotation from Darwin with which Ruse opens his book, for, excepting the insult to monkeys, it is almost as good as the fragment from The Gay Science for conveying the general sense of this essay: “Plato . . . says in the Phaedo that our ‘imaginary ideas’ arise from the preexistence of the soul, are not derivable from experience-read monkeys for preexistence” (Charles Darwin, 1837). Note by the way that this appears some 22 years before the publication of On the Origin of Species. 12. Philosophers of biology will recognize that I am running roughshod over lively and current debates in the area-the units of selection controversy, the problem of how define the environment, etc.-but nothing in my argument hinges on how these questions are resolved. In any case, I think I have aptly described the mainstream position. 13. The paper by Gould and Lewontin, “The Spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian Paradigm: A Critique of the Adaptationist Programme”(1978, reprinted in Sober, 1984) is probably the best non-technical article criticizing the adaptationist program. See also Gould’s “Cardboard Darwinism” (1987, pp. 26-50). 14. On these points, see, for example, Kitcher (1985), Sterelny (1995), and Stich (1990). 15. I should say that I am quite sympathetic to the evolution of theories program, and I see the two kinds of evolutionary epistemology as closely related pursuits, but I cannot discuss those topics here. A comprehensive bibliography of evolutionary epistemology can be found in Campbell and Cziko (1990). A much less comprehensive list of more recent treatments, a number of which emphasize the connections between the two programs, include Barham (1992), Bradie (1994), Brown and Greenhood (1991), Brown (1994), Campbell et. al. (1991), Falk (1993), Geiger (1992), Gray Hardcastle (1993), Hauptli (1994), Herrmann-Pillath (1993), Kitcher (1993), Martin and Kleindorfer (1991), Smith (1991), Sterelny(l994,1995), Thompson (1994), and Wuketits (1991, 1995). 16. This is the argument offered by Putnam (1981, pp. 38 ff.; 1983, p. 232). 17. See Gould’s “The Misnamed, Mistreated, and Misunderstood Irish Elk” in Ever Since Darwin (1977, pp. 79-90). Of course, there is much more to the story than this, but Gould’s main point in the paper is to illustrate another way-allometric growth-in which the adaptationist program fails. 18. To be fair to Hooker, I should note that in the cited passage his main concern is to argue against the significance of an observable/unobservable distinction, and although I do not think that he is successful in this, elsewhere (1987, pp. 23,106,237-238) he does acknowledge both the weakness of this kind of argument, and the skeptical consequences of the theory of evolution. Indeed, in Section 3 I claim Hooker as an ally. 19. In “Scientific Realism and Naturalistic Epistemology” (1980), Richard Boyd also seems to endorse this view. 20. For my account of this latter program I rely on the critical but sympathetic discussion in von Schilcher and Tennant’s Philosophy, Evolution and Human Nature (1984), and Tennant’s own “A Defense of Evolutionary Epistemology” (1983). There is also an informative review by Anthony CYHear (1985) of Reidl’s Biology of Knowledge: T&eEvolutionary Basis of Reason (1984). 21. For more on the “Kantian” approach, see Smith (1991), and Brown and Greenhood (1991, pp. 295 ff.). [Editork Note 4: See also “Zhe Mtising Link in Kant’s Interactionism” in my Mind at Large: Knowing in the Technological Age, Greenwich, CT: JAI Press, pp. 66-73.-PI,] 22. Stephen Stich (1990, ch. 1) describes in detail a number of examples of apparently bad reasoning. 23. See van Fraassen (1985, p. 285) and Cartwright (1983) for further discussions of this point. 24. Without suggesting that the threat of skepticism is in all cases a major reason for their adopting pragmatism, I note that Kitcher (1993) and Stich (1990) opt for pragmatic, consequentialist

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theories of rationality, Ellis (1985, 1990) for pragmatic “internal” realism, and Wuketits (1995) for a coherence theory. 25. See also Kantorovich (1990, pp. 265 ff.). 26. According to Churchland (1985, p. 46) it was Stephen Stich. 27. In a later paper, “Evolutionary Epistemology and Scientific Method” (1986), Clark abandons the thesis of “material realism” in favor of “internal realism”. He offers two main reasons for .-_ this _____(nn. XI-r-’ 159-lhl)k --_ ---I-

The fire;! is narsimnnv. ~__________,

rt~llv . the ___-thesip ------1 is -- not --___ _-__,rccmircd __l-___-. The

second_ is a worry

about coherence: He is worried that talk about a “world-in-itself,” about which we admit we can know nothing, is meaningless. I think that both of these worries are addressed in the earlier paper, and Clark doesn’t say what he thought was wrong with the earlier paper. Clearly my response to the first worry is that far from being dispensable, we cannot avoid talk about a world-in-itself, and so the response to the second worry will be that if we cannot avoid such talk it cannot be meaningless. 28. By speaking of representations (either human or those of other sentient creatures) I do not want to be committed to any particular view in the philosophy of mind. I merely want to employ a convenient way of speaking about how we and other creatures respond to environmental stimuli, and so my argument should not be affected, whatever one’s view in philosophy of mind might be. Similarly, I do not think that any harm will result from speaking of other creatures as possessing something like theories or proto-theories of the world. I am also assuming that the relation between cognition and the world can be explicated in terms of the biological sciences, but I cannot defend that assumption here. 29. To forestall a possible objection that the thought of other conceptual schemes is not really a coherent one, note that the thesis of conceptual scheme realism does not require that we be able to frame any positive conception of other “ways the world might be”. The three theses merely require a “negative” (or “Kantian”) conception of the world-in-itself and of other possible conceptual schemes. The fact that we can at least conceive of our own perceptual and conceptual schemes as being different than they actually are is sufficient to make the thesis intelligible. 30. van Fraassen (1985, p. 257) makes a similar point in reply to an objection by Churchland. 3 1. Obviously I mean to echo here the passage from Churchland which I cited at the beginning of this section. . ,.^^_. 32. T‘he idea of the environment toierating a theory is found in ciark (1986). 33. Here is a rather nice example of this taken from Lorenz and cited in Clark: “The water shrew . . is distinguished . . in virtue of its incapacity to find a shortcut (literally) to save its life. For having once laid down a route to B from A via C, it can never progress to a direct route A to B even if the trip to C involves a long, looping detour” (1986, p. 152). 34. “Correspondence metaphor”is O’Hear’s term (1984, p. 198). I prefer to employ it because the metaphor, and not a full blown theory of truth, is all that is required from an epistemological point of view, and I want to avoid disputes about theories of truth as far as is possible. From my point of view, whatever theory of truth one adopts does not really matter, since I assume that the theory of evolution will be regarded as true by realists whatever their accounts of truth, and so the skepticism which I commend will arise in any case. can be found in 35. Arguments against interna! rea!ism and other forms of pragmatism chapters 3 and 4 of my dissertation (1990). 36. This kind of formulation of the response to the circularity objection can be found in Stroud’s “The Significance of Naturalized Epistemology” (1985). Hooker (1986, pp. 141-143 & p. 270) also provides a good discussion of and a convincing response to the circularity objection. See also Martin and Kleindorfer (199 1). 37. I have attempted such an account in chapters 5 and 6 of my dissertation (1990), but 1 am no longer satisfied with that attempt.

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Acknowledgements I would like to thank Catherine Elgin, Sally Haslanger, Steve Rieber, Gideon Rosen, Lyle Zynda, and most of all Bas van Fraassen, for many helpful written comments on earlier drafts of this paper. Versions of this paper were also presented to the philosophy departments at Princeton University, University of Wyoming, University of Nebraska (Lincoln), and John Carroll University. I profited from the discussions which followed these presentations. About the Author Paul Thomson completed his doctoral work at Princeton University under Bas van Fraassen. His initial interest in critiquing realist positions in philosophy and science has developed into an attempt to construct a positive anti-realist program.