Farrell, Margaret (2023) What would imaginary ancestors do? [Preprint]

Text 2023-10-08 TE draft.docx Download (84kB)

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.

---

Export/Citation:

EndNote | BibTeX | Dublin Core | ASCII/Text Citation (Chicago) | HTML Citation | OpenURL

Social Networking:

Share |

---

Item Type:	Preprint
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID Farrell, Margaret margaret.farrell@uci.edu 0000-0003-1281-889X
Keywords:	Human evolution, evolution, biology
Subjects:	Specific Sciences > Biology Specific Sciences > Psychology > Evolutionary Psychology Specific Sciences > Biology > Evolutionary Theory
Depositing User:	Margaret Farrell
Date Deposited:	25 May 2024 14:07
Last Modified:	25 May 2024 14:07
Item ID:	23477
Subjects:	Specific Sciences > Biology Specific Sciences > Psychology > Evolutionary Psychology Specific Sciences > Biology > Evolutionary Theory
Date:	2023
URI:	https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/23477

Available Versions of this Item

• What would imaginary ancestors do? (deposited 11 Oct 2023 14:22)
  • What would imaginary ancestors do? (deposited 25 May 2024 14:07) [Currently Displayed]

Monthly Views for the past 3 years

Monthly Downloads for the past 3 years

Plum Analytics

Actions (login required)

View Item