Cosmological and phenomenological transitions into how humans conceptualize and experience time

Biological Journal of the Linnean Society

2022

A theoretical framework is provided to explore teleonomy as a problem of self-causation, distinct from upward, downward and reticulate causation. Causality theories in biology are often formulated within hierarchy theories, where causation is conceptualized as running up or down the rungs of a ladder-like hierarchy or, more recently, as moving between multiple hierarchies. Research on the genealogy of cosmologies demonstrates that in addition to hierarchy theories, causality theories also depend upon ideas of time. This paper explores the roots and impact of both time and hierarchy thinking on causal reasoning in the evolutionary sciences. Within evolutionary biology, the Neodarwinian synthesis adheres to a linear notion of time associated with linear hierarchies that portray upward causation. Eco-evo-devo schools recognize the importance of downward causation and consequently receive resistance from the standard view because downward causation is sometimes understood as backward causation, considered impossible by adherents of a linear time model. In contrast, downward causation works with a spatial or presential time notion. Hybridization, lateral gene transfer, infective heredity, symbiosis and symbiogenesis require recognition of reticulate causation occurring in both space and time, or spacetime, between distinct and interacting ontological hierarchies. Teleonomy is distinct from these types of causation because it invokes the problem of self-causation. By asking how the focal level in a hierarchy can persist through time, self-causation raises philosophical concerns on the nature of duration, identity and individuality.

Section: Correlations Between Time and Causality Thinkingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Correlations Between Time and Causality Thinkingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Teleonomy as a problem of self-causation

Biological Journal of the Linnean Society

2022

“…Applied Evolutionary Epistemology (Gontier 2010;2017;2018c) is a philosophical theory and a scientific methodology that aims to identify and study the ontological structures foundational for biological, sociocultural, linguistic, and technological evolution and theorizing thereof. To that end, it analyzes how a plurality of units, levels, mechanisms and processes causally bring forth hierarchically-structured evolving realities that display diverging and converging patterns in the mode and tempo of their evolution.…”

Section: Three Schools With a Shared Agendamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Concerning the evolution of epistemology, applied EE (Gontier 2018c) has come to reject the idea that there is a single reality or a world as it is in itself. Thinking through the consequences of traditional EE that already synthesized organisms with epistemology, as well as the consequences of cognitive and environmental niche construction theory that founded non-adaptationist EE, and by integrating the important insights coming in from the new evolutionary sciences, Gontier (2018c) has demonstrated that the epistemology-ontology divide has become untenable. Rather than adhering to the existence of an abiotic world in itself that somehow dissociates from a biotic world, applied EE understands organisms as constructors of spatiotemporally-bounded biorealities (Gontier & Bradie 2017).…”

Section: Three Schools With a Shared Agendamentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Evolutionary Epistemology: Two Research Avenues, Three Schools, and A Single and Shared Agenda

Bradie

2021

J Gen Philos Sci

This special issue for the Journal for General Philosophy of Science is devoted to exploring the impact and many ramifications of current research in evolutionary epistemology. Evolutionary epistemology (EE) is an inter-and multidisciplinary area of research that can be divided into two ever-inclusive research avenues. One research avenue expands on the EEM program and investigates the epistemology of evolution. The other research avenue builds on the EET program and researches the evolution of epistemology. Since its conception, EE has developed three schools of thought: adaptationist, non-adaptationist, and applied EE. Although diverse in outlook and theoretical background, these research avenues and schools share the same agenda of understanding how knowledge evolves, and how it relates to the world. In this paper, we first explain wherefrom evolutionary epistemological schools of thought developed, and then we highlight current debates in EE by briefly reviewing the papers that form part of this special issue.

Hierarchies, Networks, and Causality: The Applied Evolutionary Epistemological Approach

2021

J Gen Philos Sci

Applied Evolutionary Epistemology is a scientific-philosophical theory that defines evolution as the set of phenomena whereby units evolve at levels of ontological hierarchies by mechanisms and processes. This theory also provides a methodology to study evolution, namely, studying evolution involves identifying the units that evolve, the levels at which they evolve, and the mechanisms and processes whereby they evolve. Identifying units and levels of evolution in turn requires the development of ontological hierarchy theories, and examining mechanisms and processes necessitates theorizing about causality. Together, hierarchy and causality theories explain how biorealities form and diversify with time. This paper analyzes how Applied EE redefines both hierarchy and causality theories in the light of the recent explosion of network approaches to causal reasoning associated with studies on reticulate and macroevolution. Causality theories have often been framed from within a rigid, ladder-like hierarchy theory where the rungs of the ladder represent the different levels, and the elements on the rungs represent the evolving units. Causality then is either defined reductionistically as an upward movement along the strands of a singular hierarchy, or holistically as a downward movement along that same hierarchy. Upward causation theories thereby analyze causal processes in time, i.e. over the course of natural history or phylogenetically, as Darwin and the founders of the Modern Synthesis intended. Downward causation theories analyze causal processes in space, ontogenetically or ecologically, as the current eco-evo-devo schools are evidencing. This work demonstrates how macroevolution and reticulate evolution theories add to the complexity by examining reticulate causal processes in space-time, and the interactional hierarchies that such studies bring forth introduce a new form of causation that is here called reticulate causation. Reticulate causation occurs between units and levels belonging to different as well as to the same ontological hierarchies. This article concludes that beyond recognizing the existence of multiple units, levels, and mechanisms or processes of evolution, also the existence of multiple kinds of evolutionary causation as well as the existence of multiple evolutionary hierarchies needs to be acknowledged. This furthermore implies that evolution is a pluralistic process divisible into different kinds.