For the record, I see that McEvoy had already applied the Campbellian
(Cambellesque, Campbellist) notion of "selective retention" within a "nested
hierarchy" in connection with a pet philosophical theory: the Causal Theory of
Perception. Sorry about that!
Still looking for good anti-naturalistic references to criticise!
Cheers,
Speranza
----
In "Re: The Causal Theory of Perception", THIS FORUM, McEvoy: "The ‘
external world’ does not set the ‘detection-levels’ or the 'processing-form’
of
the perceptual apparatus except via the mechanism of ‘natural selection’
[Kant’s point when understood in the light of Darwinism: for example, the
link between light-waves and perceived colours is always contingently
dependent on the perceptual apparatus involved and not a necessary, intrinsic
function of light-waves themselves]. But in ‘natural selection’,
selection-from-without by the ‘external world’ is on an ‘internal world’ that
is
never ‘instructed’ by the ‘external world’ [‘instructed’ in the
Lamarckian or inductive sense]: the ‘internal world’ of experience is the
product
of ‘blind’ variation-from-within [leading to ‘selective retention’
within a ‘nested hierarchy’, as per D.T. Campbell in his “Evolutionary
Epistemology”]."
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