Human evolution

compatibilist approaches

Paulo C. Abrantes

pp. 171-183

in: Décio Krause, Antonio A. Passos Videira (eds), Brazilian studies in philosophy and history of science, Berlin, Springer, 2011

Abstract

This paper discusses attempts to keep track of the evolution of the human mind which are commited to a commonsense image of ourselves as both agents and interpreters, following a compatibilist line. These attempts take also a bold stance concerning the role philosophy should play in looking for an integration of that commonsense image with an image of ourselves pressuposed by the natural sciences, especially by the biological sciences. Different scenarios for the philogeny of a distinctively human kind of mind, in the space of other animal minds, are compared. A new reading of Richerson and Boyd's dual inheritance theory is proposed by adopting that compatibilist framework.