TY - JOUR
T1 - Underqualified-maximal generality in Darwinian explanation
T2 - a response to Matt Gers
AU - Hodgson, G.M.
AU - Knudsen, T.
N1 - Copyright 2011 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2012
Y1 - 2012
N2 - Gers (Biol Philos, 2011) provides a positive and constructive view of the project to generalise Darwinian principles in Geoffrey Hodgson and Thorbjørn Knudsen's Darwin's Conjecture. We note considerable overlap with his work and ours, and also with important recent work of Godfrey-Smith (2009), which Gers cites extensively. But we also note that there are differences in research objectives between Gers and Godfrey-Smith, on the one hand, and ourselves, on the other. Gers and Godfrey-Smith focus on the elucidation of the most general principles possible. Our aim is to derive principles that are sufficiently abstract to span the natural and human social worlds, and then add additional principles to help understand the Darwinian evolution of human society. Furthermore, Gers and Godfrey-Smith critique a replicator concept that is different from ours. Once these points are made apparent, the criticisms are essentially disabled, and we end up in a position with different but complementary and overlapping research projects.
AB - Gers (Biol Philos, 2011) provides a positive and constructive view of the project to generalise Darwinian principles in Geoffrey Hodgson and Thorbjørn Knudsen's Darwin's Conjecture. We note considerable overlap with his work and ours, and also with important recent work of Godfrey-Smith (2009), which Gers cites extensively. But we also note that there are differences in research objectives between Gers and Godfrey-Smith, on the one hand, and ourselves, on the other. Gers and Godfrey-Smith focus on the elucidation of the most general principles possible. Our aim is to derive principles that are sufficiently abstract to span the natural and human social worlds, and then add additional principles to help understand the Darwinian evolution of human society. Furthermore, Gers and Godfrey-Smith critique a replicator concept that is different from ours. Once these points are made apparent, the criticisms are essentially disabled, and we end up in a position with different but complementary and overlapping research projects.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=80053341626&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s10539-011-9293-z
DO - 10.1007/s10539-011-9293-z
M3 - Article
SN - 0169-3867
VL - 27
SP - 607
EP - 614
JO - Biology and Philosophy
JF - Biology and Philosophy
IS - 4
ER -