Farrell, Margaret (2023) What would imaginary ancestors do? [Preprint]
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Abstract
In this paper, I identify a novel challenge to reasoning about human cognitive evolution. Theorists engaged in producing a causal history of uniquely human psychology often implicitly or explicitly take the perspective of imaginary hominins to reason about a plausible evolutionary sequence. I argue that such speculations only appear plausible because we have employed our evolved cognitive capacities to decide what the imaginary hominin would think or do. Further, I argue that we are likely to continue making this kind of mistake, and so we must continuously contend with it, even in our best approaches to human cognitive evolution.
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Item Type: | Preprint | ||||||
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Keywords: | Human evolution, evolution, biology | ||||||
Subjects: | Specific Sciences > Biology Specific Sciences > Psychology > Evolutionary Psychology Specific Sciences > Biology > Evolutionary Theory |
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Depositing User: | Margaret Farrell | ||||||
Date Deposited: | 11 Oct 2023 14:22 | ||||||
Last Modified: | 11 Oct 2023 14:22 | ||||||
Item ID: | 22649 | ||||||
Subjects: | Specific Sciences > Biology Specific Sciences > Psychology > Evolutionary Psychology Specific Sciences > Biology > Evolutionary Theory |
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Date: | 2023 | ||||||
URI: | https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/22649 |
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- What would imaginary ancestors do? (deposited 11 Oct 2023 14:22) [Currently Displayed]
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