[lit-ideas] Evolutionary Theory from Empedocles to Grice -- and back
- From: "" <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> (Redacted sender "Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx" for DMARC)
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 23 May 2014 18:31:50 -0400 (EDT)
My last post today!
In a message dated 5/23/2014 4:01:53 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx writes:
"Students disrupted Wilson’s lectures and harassed even Hamilton and
Trivers."
I was amused by that! O. T. O. H., I guess Grice's lectures at Harvard (the
bi-annual Philosophy and Psychology William James series) went peacefully.
Helm goes on to quote from Wade:
"By breaking out of the specialist frameworks in which philosophers and
psychologists had long imprisoned the study of morality, De Waal established
that morality is a biological behavior and that evolution is the only
framework in which the origins of morality can be addressed."
One may take this as a simplistic account of what philosophers (or moral
philosophers even -- but as Grice say, "Philosophy, like virtue, is entire")
are up to. Any naturalistic framework (vide G. E. Moore on the naturalistic
fallacy may be reinterpreted 'evolutionarily', if that's the right adverb.
For one, Grice is thus described as 'evolutionary' in that his ethical
views fit the 'Ideal Observer' framework (cfr. Intelligent Design). And for
that matter, it all seems to have started way before Darwin's Descent or
Origin, and with Empedocles. From Wikipedia:
Empedocles attempted to explain the separation of elements, the formation
of earth and sea, of Sun and Moon, of atmosphere.
Empedocles also deals with the first origin of plants and animals, and
with the physiology of humans.
As the elements entered into combinations, there appeared strange results –
heads without necks, arms without shoulders.
Then as these fragmentary structures met, there were seen horned heads on
human bodies, bodies of oxen with human heads, and figures of double sex.
But most of these products of natural forces disappeared as suddenly as
they arose.
Only in those rare cases where the parts were found to be adapted to each
other, did the complex structures last.
Thus the organic universe sprang from spontaneous aggregations, which
suited each other as if this had been intended.
Soon various influences reduced the creatures of double sex to a male and a
female, and the world was replenished with organic life.
It is possible to see this theory as an anticipation of Darwin's theory of
natural selection, although Empedocles was not trying to explain evolution
-- since his disciples were not expected to be _expecting_ that
explanation. (And as Grice would later say, "Problem with Empedocles's
explanation is
that it itself needs an explanation").
Cheers,
Speranza
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