Beyond Enlightenment: the Volute Ion of Agency and the Modularity of the Mind in a Post- Darwinian World Derek Elliott
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Duquesne University Duquesne Scholarship Collection Electronic Theses and Dissertations Fall 12-21-2018 Beyond Enlightenment: The volutE ion of Agency and the Modularity of the Mind in a Post- Darwinian World Derek Elliott Follow this and additional works at: https://dsc.duq.edu/etd Part of the Continental Philosophy Commons, Other Philosophy Commons, Philosophy of Mind Commons, and the Philosophy of Science Commons Recommended Citation Elliott, D. (2018). Beyond Enlightenment: The vE olution of Agency and the Modularity of the Mind in a Post-Darwinian World (Doctoral dissertation, Duquesne University). Retrieved from https://dsc.duq.edu/etd/1737 This Immediate Access is brought to you for free and open access by Duquesne Scholarship Collection. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Duquesne Scholarship Collection. BEYOND ENLIGHTENMENT: THE EVOLUTION OF AGENCY AND THE MODULARITY OF THE MIND IN A POST-DARWINIAN WORLD A Dissertation Submitted to McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts Duquesne University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy By Derek Anthony Elliott December 2018 Copyright by Derek Anthony Elliott 2018 BEYOND ENLIGHTENMENT: THE EVOLUTION OF AGENCY AND THE MODULARITY OF THE MIND IN A POST-DARWINIAN WORLD By Derek Anthony Elliott Approved September 13, 2018: ________________________________ ________________________________ Patrick Lee Miller James Swindal Associate Professor of Philosophy Dean, McAnulty College and Graduate (Committee Chair) School of Liberal Arts Professor of Philosophy (Committee Member) ________________________________ Jeffrey McCurry Directory, Simon Silverman Phenomenology Center (Committee Member) ________________________________ ________________________________ James Swindal Ronald Polansky Dean, McAnulty College and Graduate Chair, Philosophy Department School of Liberal Arts Professor of Philosophy Professor of Philosophy iii ABSTRACT BEYOND ENLIGHTENMENT: THE EVOLUTION OF AGENCY AND THE MODULARITY OF THE MIND IN A POST-DARWINIAN WORLD By Derek Anthony Elliott December 2018 Dissertation supervised by Patrick Lee Miller Working out of the social and philosophical revolutions from the Enlightenment, contemporary action theory has unwittingly inherited several Cartesian ideas regarding the human mind: that it is unified, rational, and transparent. As a result, we have for too long conceived of action as intimately bound up with reason such that to act at all is to act for a reason, leaving us with theoretical difficulties in accounting for the behavior of non- human animals as well as irrational behavior in human beings. But rather than propose that such difficulties can be resolved by retreating to a pre-Enlightenment view of human nature, the solution is to make the philosophical turn and embrace the insights that have been secured by Charles Darwin. It is a post- Darwinian evolutionary worldview that can shed some new light on these traditional problems. Two such innovations from the theory of evolution have been evolutionary iv explanations, which attempt to understand the functions of organisms as having developed in response to environmental pressures, and modular theory, which views organisms as composed of parts with highly specialized functions. Taking these evolutionary ideas together along with the assumption of biological continuity—that there is a developmental history shared by living organisms—we can begin to conceive of more robust theories of action, mind, and human nature. Contrary to Enlightenment conceptions, reason emerges as just one mental process alongside many, the mind appears anything but Cartesian, and agency begins far earlier along the spectrum of life than we have been supposing. v DEDICATION To Family vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I would like to thank first and foremost my wife who has had all of the patience in the world with me and has been exactly what I needed, when I needed it. I want to thank my director, Patrick Lee Miller, without whom, none of this would have been possible. In Socratic fashion, you have helped me remember how to read, write, and think. Your philosophical guidance helped organize my thoughts in a way that I would have never imagined. I would like to thank Duquesne University, Gumberg Library, and the Philosophy Department, especially Joan Thompson, Linda Rendulic, and Ronald Polansky for their unending help. I also but especially thank Dean Swindal and Jeffrey McCurry for your support during one of the most difficult times in my life. Lastly, I cannot forget my friends and family, including my brother Chad, who kindly entertains my ideas from time to time and challenges them, Tim Vickers and Dom Barnabei for reading parts of my work, and Curt Simcox and Todd Diedrich for their moral support. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Abstract iv Dedication vi Acknowledgment vii Table of Figures ix Introduction: In the Beginning, the Logos x Part I. Life Along the Biological Spectrum 1 Chapter 1: The Thin, Biological Red Line 7 Chapter 2: Deconstructing Donald 39 Chapter 3: Reining in the Rational Horses 72 Part II. The Mind’s Mariana Trench 104 Chapter 4: Kings and Queens of Wishful Thinking 109 Chapter 5: To Deceive or Not to Deceive 138 Chapter 6: Siren Songs 174 Chapter 7: A Contradiction in Action 210 Part III. Surveying a New Frontier 248 Chapter 8: From Mind to Module 254 Chapter 9: From One to Many 293 Chapter 10: The Future of Our Illusions 335 Conclusion: Rational Creatures and Social Organisms 377 Bibliography 392 viii LIST OF FIGURES Page Figure 0.A: Kant’s Third Antinomy xi Figure 8.A: Hume on Habituation and Inference 265 Figure 8.B: Ideas Related by Imagination 266 Figure 9.A: Theory of Drive Satisfaction 306 Figure 9.B: Second Mind Hypothesis 314 Figure 10.A: Modular Interaction 362 ix Introduction: In the Beginning, the Logos And we can only wonder why one must become ill in order to have access to such truth. — Sigmund Freud, “Mourning and Melancholia” 0.1 | The End of an Era The Enlightenment has ended. Jean d’Alembert’s “century of philosophy par excellence” became aware of the first symptoms of its terminal illness in 1781, when Immanuel Kant discovered buried in its intellectual development unresolvable tensions known as antinomies, contradictions that emerge from a set of beliefs that otherwise appear reasonable (Gillespie 2008, 258– 9). The most notable of these, argues philosopher Michael Gillespie,1 is the Third Antinomy (see figure 0.A), in which Kant exposes the absurdity that underlies our efforts to reconcile human freedom with causal determinism (259). In his Critique of Pure Reason, Kant observes with his Third Antinomy that if we assume there is a first cause of the universe, it is, by definition, free from determinism. Proof that there is such a first cause rests in the fact there can be no causation at all without something first setting the chain of events into motion (Critique of Pure Reason, A446/B474). Such a consequence therefore yields the possibility that other such beings can similarly act freely (A450/B478). Yet, on the other hand, the assumption of determinism requires that we suppose events occur necessarily, a metaphysical requirement that is incompatible with freedom, 1 Though the symptoms presented themselves most clearly in Kant’s writings, both David Hume and Jean- Jacques Rousseau can be said to have sounded the alarm bells earlier, imploring their intellectual peers to reconsider some of their cherished assumptions. Gillespie acknowledges in particular Rousseau’s anxiety that modernity might be making human beings worse and Hume’s metaphysical skepticism that there is no necessary connection between cause and effect. In spite of these efforts, explains Gillespie, “while such criticism did not go unheard, European intellectuals were still overwhelmingly committed to modern thought in the broadest sense in 1789” (Gillespie 2009, 256). x including freedom of a first cause (Critique of Pure Reason, A445/B473). Our faith in this determinist thesis rests in the fact that we have discovered laws of nature, enabling us to make predictions and reliably replicate our discoveries (A447/B475). Contrary to the freedom thesis, we need not imagine a first cause if we assume that this dynamical universe has always existed (A449/B477). figure 0.A (Kant’s Third Antinomy) Unable to decisively prove either assumption is true or false and having good reason for both, Kant reveals to us how the use of reason sometimes issues in a manifest contradiction. How is this possible? Perhaps we can argue that this is an empty, nonsensical problem guising itself in the clothing of meaning, a clever presentation of something like a liar’s paradox with no intelligible answer? Or maybe, to the abhorrence of Enlightenment thinkers, this points to a defect in human reason? Is reason itself somehow fatally flawed? Kant rejects both of these possibilities.2 As he sees it, the problem resides neither with semantics nor a defect in reason, nor even nature herself. Gillespie elaborates: The apparent contradiction of reason with itself is thus the consequence not of the contradictory character of existence or the inadequacy of reason but of the misuse 2 Kant’s solution, as presented in the Critique of Pure Reason, is more complicated than this, requiring a discussion of his philosophical division between noumena and phenomena to appreciate fully. Though he rejects both theses, he attempts to preserve the idea that the natural world is determined and that human beings are free by arguing that because we experience ourselves as free, it is possible that we are. Whether we actually are or are not is a question, he thinks, whose answer goes beyond what can be known by reason. For an introductory, detailed discussion of this, as well as the issues that Kant’s solution raises, see Alfred Ewing’s A Short Commentary on Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason (Ewing 1967, 226–40), Allen Wood’s Kant (Wood 2005, 89–100), and Sebastian Gardner’s Kant and the Critique of Pure Reason (Gardner 1999, 257–64).