DARWINIAN EPISTEMOLOGY: ASSESSING THE IMPLICATIONS FOR
RELIABLE COGNITION IN A NON-ADAPTIVE DOMAIN OF BELIEF
by
Andrew Brigham

A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF
THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS
in
THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES
Master of Arts in Interdisciplinary Humanities, Philosophy Stream

We accept this thesis as conforming to the required standard

...............................................................................
Dr. Myron A. Penner, PhD; Thesis Supervisor

................................................................................
Dr. Phillip H. Wiebe, Ph.D.; Second Reader

................................................................................
Dr. Helen De Cruz, Ph.D.; External Examiner

TRINITY WESTERN UNIVERSITY
16/07/2014
© Andrew Brigham

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am grateful to Trinity Western University for their continuing support over the course of
my graduate program. I must express deep appreciation to my thesis supervisor, Dr.
Myron A. Penner. Myron set high standards for the project and very patiently assisted me
in order to meet those standards. My achievements are largely the result of his sound
advice and helpful criticisms. I am extremely grateful to the rest of my thesis committee,
Dr. Phillip Wiebe and my external examiner, Dr. Helen De Cruz. Phillip provided
extensive comments and motivated me to be critical of several unsupported assumptions
throughout the project. This proved to be both insightful and helpful in the final defence.
I found Helen’s expertise in the field invaluable. She corrected me on several factual
errors and exposed some problems with the central argument. I feel very honoured to
have had all three of these excellent scholars on my examining committee.
I owe a great deal of gratitude to my parents, Jane and Monty, for their love and devotion,
and raising me with the necessary work ethic to pursue the rigour of graduate studies. I
would like to thank my uncle, Stephen Lafontaine, for his many hours of tutelage
throughout my academic career. Special thanks to my undergraduate professor of
philosophy, Ken Nickel, and to my friends, David Hill and Steven Greenaway, for
encouraging me to pursue graduate studies at TWU in the first place. Finally, and most
importantly, I must thank my wife, Leigha. I would not have completed the project
without her love, support and great sacrifice. Despite all of my doubts and uncertainties,
Leigha never wavered in her conviction that I should pursue graduate studies and an
academic career.
Andrew Brigham
July, 2014
Langley, British Columbia

ii

ABSTRACT
Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace departed ways on the implications of evolution for
human cognition. While Darwin argued that natural selection affected both the reliability
and unreliability of human cognitive faculties, Wallace rejected the idea that natural
selection could explain higher order intelligence. If Wallace is right, then Darwinian
epistemology seems implausible. However, I argue that this position is false. In Chapter 1
I survey a history of Darwinian epistemology. In Chapter 2 I examine the Scope
Objection to Darwinian epistemology: that evolution did not supply us with the natural
cognitive capacities for achieving non-adaptive true beliefs. In Chapter 3 I respond to the
Scope Objection by assessing Robert McCauley’s theory of natural cognition. In Chapter
4 I evaluate two difficulties with my response to the Scope Objection. I conclude that
evolution is sufficient for explaining the reliability of human cognitive faculties in nonadaptive domains of belief.

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CONTENTS
Introduction
I.
II.
III.
IV.

V.

The General Problem: Evolution and Reliable Cognition
Statement of the Problem
Significance of the Problem for Epistemology
Plan of Research
A. Inquired Study and Philosophical Reflection
B. Definitions
C. Chapter Summary
Conclusion

Chapter 1: A Brief History of Darwinian Epistemology
I.

II.

III.

Evolutionary Supporting Arguments: Mapping the Landscape
A. Darwin’s Origin of Species
B. Lorenz’s A Priori
C. Ruse’s Humean Skepticism
Evolutionary Debunking Arguments: Mapping the Landscape
A. Wallace’s Darwinism
B. Nietzsche and The Gay Science
C. Nagel’s Darwinian Skepticism
Conclusion

Chapter 2: The Scope Objection to Darwinian Epistemology
I.

II.

III.
IV.

Alvin Plantinga’s Evolutionary Debunking Argument
A. The Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism
1. Premise One: Darwin’s Doubt
i. Reductive and Non-Reductive Materialism
ii. Materialism and EAAN
2. The Remaining Premises
3. Responses to EAAN
i. Thomas Crisp’s weaker EAAN
ii. Michael Bergmann and Common-sense
Naturalism
4. Plantinga’s weaker EAAN
Griffiths’ and Wilkins’ Evolutionary Supporting Argument
A. True Belief and Pragmatic Success
B. Common-sense Beliefs and Pragmatic Behaviour
The Scope Objection
Conclusion
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Chapter 3: The Application and Evolution of Practiced Natural Cognition
I.

II.

III.

Natural Cognition and the Scope Objection
A. Natural Cognition
1. Maturational and Practiced Naturalness
i. Maturational Natural Perception
ii. Maturational Natural Logic
iii. Practiced Natural Logic
The Evolution of Practiced Natural Cognition
A. Preliminaries
B. Two Criteria for the Rise of Science
1. The Evolution of Practiced Naturalness
i. Environmental Complexity Thesis
ii. External Media Thesis
iii. Pinker’s Niche Construction and Metaphorical
Abstraction Thesis
iv. Sober’s Evolution of Rationality Thesis
C. The Scope Objection Revisited
Conclusion

Chapter 4: Objections, Responses, and Conclusions
I.
II.
III.

Plantinga’s EAAN Revisited
Lewontin’s Skepticism
A. The Problem with Evolutionary Theories of Cognition
Conclusions and Problems for Further Thought

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INTRODUCTION
I. THE GENERAL PROBLEM: EVOLUTION AND RELIABLE COGNITION
Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection is one of the great
achievements of western science.1 Indeed, E.O. Wilson ranks On the Origin of Species as
one of the most important books ever written.2 Wilson’s high regard for The Origin is
appropriate not only for understanding biological change, but also for considering human
nature.3 Darwin states in The Origin that evolution impacts future domains of inquiry and
that psychology will be based on new foundations.4 In a similar way, Ernst Mayr thinks
that “evolution has an impact on every aspect of man’s thinking: his philosophy, his
metaphysics, his ethics…”5 More recently Daniel Dennett proclaims that evolution
“…eats through just about every traditional concept, and leaves in its wake a
revolutionized world-view, with most of the old landmarks still recognizable, but
transformed in fundamental ways.”6 Thus, according to many biologists and
philosophers, we have reason to think that Darwin’s theory will yield new understanding
about human nature in general and human psychology in particular.

1

Michael Ruse and Joseph Travis, Evolution: The First Four Billion Years (Cambridge: Belknap
Press, 2009), ix.
2

E.O Wilson, “Forward,” in Evolution: The First Four Billion Years (Cambridge: Belknap Press,

2009), vii.
3

See E.O Wilson, Sociobiology: The New Synthesis (Massachusetts: Belknap Press, 1975).

4

Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species: Or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the
Struggle for Life (London: John Murray, Albemarle, 1859), 449. Helen De Cruz argues that this reference
to Darwin exaggerates a foreshadowing of a whole new program of Darwinian epistemology. Perhaps this
is true, but neither was Darwin fully aware of the implications of his theory for epistemology.
5

Ernst Mayr, “Interview,” Omni, March/April 1988, 46.

6

Daniel Dennett, Darwin’s Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life (New York:
Simon and Schuster Paperbacks, 1995), 63.

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Evolution is a process of change over time within a population of organisms and
includes three related ideas. 7 First, evolution refers to descent with modification: all
living things are all related and the diversity and relationship of species to one another is
the product of a long history of change through genetic inheritance.8 Second, evolution
describes when and where species split from various lineages and the changes that took
place.9 Third, evolution refers to the mechanisms driving biological change, including
natural selection, sexual selection, and genetic drift.10
Questions arise about the impact of evolution on our cognitive capacities. Karl
Popper understood human knowledge and our abilities for rationality a product of natural
selection: “The specifically human ability to know, and the ability to produce scientific
knowledge, are the results of natural selection.”11 But not everyone shares an optimistic
view that evolution delivered reliable cognition. Friedrich Nietzsche argued that our
cognitive faculties are unreliable given their evolutionary origin. For Nietzsche the result
is a universal scepticism about the human capacity to form true belief. If the evolutionary
process for generating knowledge and rational belief is unreliable, whence the
evolutionary support for our beliefs? Can we be optimistic about the truth of our
7

Ernst Mayr, What Evolution Is (New York: Basic Books, 2001), 8; Carl Zimmer and Douglas J.
Emlen, Evolution: Making Sense of Life (Colorado: Roberts and Company Publishers, 2013), 3-5.
8

Ruse and Travis, Evolution, ix; Ernst Mayr, What Evolution, 7; Francisco Ayala, “The Evolution
of Life,” in Evolutionary and Molecular Biology: Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action, eds., Robert
John Russell, William R. Stoeger, S.J. and Fancisco J. Ayala (Berkeley: Center for Theology and the
Natural Sciences and Vatican Observatory Publications, 1998), 27.
9

Ruse and Travis, Evolution, ix; Ayala, “The Evolution,” 27.

10

Ruse and Travis, Evolution, ix; Ayala, “The Evolution,” 27; Stephen Jay Gould, “The Evolution
of Life,” Scientific America, (October 1994): 92. See also Mayr, What, 115. Natural selection is only one
mechanism driving change. Other mechanisms include sexual selection and genetic drift; see Zimmer and
Emlen, Evolution, 46-7.
11

Karl Popper, “Evolutionary Epistemology,” in Evolutionary Theory: Paths into the Future, ed.
J. W. Pollard (London: John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 1984), 239.

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philosophical and scientific beliefs when the causal process responsible for these beliefs
is unreliable? Nietzsche doesn’t think so. Instead, he argues that human beliefs are the
product of selected faculties shaped for survival regardless of truth.12
Nietzsche is not alone in this skeptical pronouncement. Several contemporary
philosophers reject the claim that evolution was able to generate reliable cognitive
faculties, either with respect to cognition generally or within specific cognitive
domains.13 While some philosophers and biologists argue that evolution generated
reliable cognitive faculties, others argue that evolution precludes cognitive reliability.
These opposing views underscore the division between evolutionary supporting
arguments (ESAs) and evolutionary debunking arguments (EDAs).14
ESAs typically argue that if our ancestral environment included disease, nutrition
and predation, then there would have been pressure for organisms to form true beliefs
about the environment. Individuals within a population that reliably form true beliefs will
likely survive and reproduce, passing their fitness enhancing genes on to future
generations. This evolutionary process need not be perfect or optimal insofar as ESAs
are concerned as long as sub-optimality does not interfere with the selection of fitness

12

Friedrich Nietzsche, “Notebook 36, 1885,” in Nietzsche: Writings from the Late Notebooks, ed.
Rudiger Bittner (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 26; Nietzsche, The Gay Science, trans.
Walter Kaufmann (New York: Random House, 1974), 110.
13

See Thomas Nagel, The View from Nowhere (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), and
more recently Thomas Nagel, Mind and Cosmos: Why The Materialist New Darwinian Conception of
Nature is almost certainly false (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012); Stephen Stich, The
Fragmentation of Reason: Preface to a Pragmatic Theory of Cognitive Evaluation (MIT Press, 1990).
14

I have altered the terminology slightly. ESAs typically go by the term evolutionary arguments
(EAs). But this is confusing because evolutionary arguments could (in principle) take the form of a
debunking strategy. For a summary, see Helen De Cruz, Maarten Boudry, Johan De Smedt, and Stefan
Blancke, “Evolutionary Approaches to Epistemic Justification.” dialectica Vol. 65, no. 4 (2011): 517–535.
ESA’s and EDA’s are also synonymous with the terms “evolutionary supporting strategies” and
“evolutionary debunking strategies.”

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enhancing and reliable cognitive faculties. Consequently, the most promising
evolutionary supporting strategies defend the reliability of common-sense faculties
because such mechanisms are the most likely to have been selected for by evolution. 15
EDAs attack ESAs in two ways.16 The first way distinguishes between adaptive
value and true belief. Proponents of this way argue that faculties that typically generate
fitness enhancing false beliefs are just as likely to have been selected for as faculties that
reliably produce true belief. So, according to the first type of EDA the probability that
our cognitive faculties are reliable given evolution by natural selection remains
inscrutable. The second way of attack is more limited in scope. According to this second
type of EDA, although evolution may have selected for some reliable faculties, faculties
divorced from adaptive value remain invisible to selection.17 Therefore, faculties
producing non-adaptive beliefs in the domain of science and philosophy should be treated
with suspicion if the mechanisms responsible for these beliefs were to have evolved.18
EDAs also target moral and religious beliefs. Richard Joyce argues that the
evolution of the belief in objective moral facts diminishes the justification for the belief

15

See Paul Griffiths and John Wilkins (in press), “When do evolutionary explanations of belief
debunk belief?” in Darwin in the 21st Century: Nature, Humanity, and God, ed. P.R Sloan (Notre Dame:
Notre Dame University Press, forthcoming), 5-7; De Cruz et al., “Evolutionary Approaches,” 520.
16

For a brief introduction, see Guy Kahane, “Evolutionary Debunking Arguments,” Nous, vol 45,
no. 1 (2011): 103–125. I depart from Kahane’s schema because at this point our question is about
cognitive reliability and not necessarily epistemic justification.
17

I depart from the traditional understanding of evolutionary debunking strategies that suggest
natural selection is of limited importance in shaping cognition, while other evolutionary processes are more
liable to have produced unreliable faculties. First, it seems to me that natural selection is of optimal
importance in shaping reliable cognition. Second, it also seems that sexual selection plays an important role
in shaping cognition; indeed, recent studies affirm cognitive delay in the absence of sexual selection. See
Brian Holis and Tadeusz J. Kawecki, “Male Cognitive Performance Declines in the Absence of Sexual
Selection,” The Royal Society, vol. 281, no. 1781 (2014). The point I wish to draw is that EDAs of the
second sort are domain specific, unlike the former, universal debunking strategies.
18

De Cruz et al., “Evolutionary Approaches,” 525.

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in objective morality. The reason for this is two-fold. First, objective moral facts are not
natural facts.19 That is, objective moral facts do not contribute to natural selection
because they do not fall within the purview of natural facts. Second, our belief in
objective moral facts would obtain by natural means even if such facts failed to exist. In
other words, our moral awareness does not track the truth of moral facts. This implies
that human’s objective moral intuition is counter-factually insensitive and is therefore
unjustified.20
Religious facts follow a similar pattern of being counter-factually insensitive.
Pascal Boyer argues that the human mind was hard-wired for religion by evolution for
holding minimally counter-intuitive beliefs in the existence of supernatural beings.21 The
essential point is that religious concepts are advantageous enough for acquiring cultural
transmission, but not overly counter-intuitive to lose appeal. Therefore, humans would
hold religious beliefs regardless of whether or not supernatural beings existed. This
implies that religious beliefs do not track the truth of religious facts and so religious
belief is unjustified. 22
19

Although Joyce presses this point, others reject that moral facts are not natural facts; see
especially Scott James, An Introduction to Evolutionary Ethics (Oxford: Blackwell, 2011). I’m thankful to
Helen De Cruz for raising this point.
20

See Richard Joyce, The Myth of Morality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006).
Joyce seems to nuance his understanding of moral ontology, in apart from Michael Ruse and E.O Wilson,
“Moral Philosophy as Applied Science,” Philosophy, Vol. 61, No. 236 (Apr., 1986), 173-192. See also S.
Street, 2006, “A Darwinian Dilemma for Realist Theories of Value,” Philosophical Studies 127: 109-66.
21

Pascal Boyer, Religion Explained: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought (New
York/London: Basic Books/Heinemann, 2001).
22

See also Paul Bloom “Religious Belief as an Evolutionary Accident,” in The Believing Primate:
Scientific, Philosophical, and Theological Reflections on the Origins of Religion, eds. Michael Murray and
Jeffrey Schloss (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 119. For response, see Michael Murray,
“Scientific Explanations of Religion and the Justification of Religious Belief,” in The Believing Primate:
Scientific, Philosophical, and Theological Reflections on the Origins of Religion, eds. Michael Murray and
Jeffrey Schloss (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 168, 173. Also see Kelly James Clark and Justin
Barrett, “Reidian Religious Epistemology and the Cognitive Science of Religion,” Academy of Religion 79

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II. STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
If our non-adaptive beliefs, including our systematic theories about knowledge
and rational belief, are beyond the scope of our evolved cognition, then epistemology
should be treated with suspicion. Darwinian epistemology (hereafter, DE) argues that
evolutionary processes are sufficient for explaining the reliability of our cognitive
facilities.23 But debunking strategies undermine DE, since non-adaptive belief is beyond
the scope of evolved, cognitive faculties. Consider the following Scope Objection to DE.
A. The Scope Objection
1. DE is plausible only if evolution supplied us with the natural cognitive capacities
for achieving non-adaptive true beliefs.
2. Evolution did not supply us with the natural cognitive capacities for achieving
non-adaptive true beliefs.
3. So, DE is implausible.
In this thesis I argue that the Scope Objection to DE fails. More specifically, I argue that
premise two of the Scope Objection is false. I employ Robert McCauley’s distinction
between maturationally natural cognition and practiced natural cognition and note how
the application and evolution of practiced naturalness supports DE. Moreover, I consider

(2011): 639-675. It is important to note that debunking arguments also apply to truth and falsity, not only
justification. Joyce has recently abandoned his earlier view relating debunking with justification. For this
discussion, see Richard Joyce, “Evolution, Truth-Tracking, and Moral Skepticism,” (forthcoming),
accessed March 1, 2014,
http://www.victoria.ac.nz/staff/richard_joyce/acrobat/joyce_evolution.truthtracking.moral.skepticism.pdf;
and Ben Foster, “Evolutionary Debunking Arguments and the Reliability of Moral Cognition,”
(forthcoming), accessed March 1, 2014,
https://www.academia.edu/3350289/Evolutionary_Debunking_Arguments_and_the_Reliability_of_Moral_
Cognition#.
23

This does not include all our cognitive mechanisms. Evolutionary processes would likely have
supplied faculties that are also unreliable. We explore this position in chapter 2 and 3.

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two criteria necessary for the rise of science as an example of practiced naturalness and
note how evolution supplied faculties as such. If this is right, then it seems plausible that
evolution supplied practiced natural faculties for non-adaptive beliefs more generally,
including our theories of knowledge and rational belief.
III. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE PROBLEM FOR EPISTEMOLOGY
As I have noted above, according to some epistemologists the evolution of human
cognition leads to a universal skepticism about its capacity to form true belief. But true
belief addresses only one aspect of epistemology, because epistemology also considers
the question of epistemic justification. Justification refers to the degree of support
obtained for true and false beliefs. Therefore, assessing the implications of evolution for
epistemology must also consider the impact on epistemic justification.
A primary significance for this research concerns its contributions to dealing with
scepticism. According to evolutionary debunking strategies, evolutionary theory
functions like a present-day Cartesian Demon, by undermining the justification for true
and false beliefs.24 Evolutionary supporting strategies draw the opposite conclusion, such
that evolution replaces the need for postulating Descartes’ God for justifying true belief.25
Still, it remains unclear exactly how evolution and epistemic justification coincide,
especially with respect to the justification of non-adaptive belief. Although I explore the
importance of evolutionary justification in the conclusion, I generally ignore the issue.
That is because the literature relevant to DE remains unclear about the relationship
between evolution and justification. In some cases, philosophers and biologists use

24

De Cruz, “Evolutionary Approaches,” 522.

25

Sober, “The Evolution,” 110.

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epistemic concepts differently when discussing the connection between evolution and
justification, while at other times epistemic concepts are ignored altogether.26 Certainly,
DE must include viable theories of justification, but only after it defends a plausible view
of truth-conducive reliability.
IV. PLAN OF RESEARCH
A. Inquired Study and Philosophical Reflection
The primary focus of this project defends DE from critics who claim that
evolution cannot account for reliable cognitive faculties in non-adaptive domains of
belief. I argue that ESAs succeed in this way. In defense this claim, I intend to evaluate
Alvin Plantinga’s evolutionary debunking strategy and Paul Griffiths’ and John Wilkins’
evolutionary supporting strategy. Although both arguments arrive at different
conclusions, they accept the evolution of reliable common-sense faculties, thereby
providing the right context for stating the Scope Objection. I then argue that the Scope
Objection is false by defending two contentions. First, I reject premise two by nuancing
the term “natural” in order to distinguish between two types of natural cognition, one of
which overcomes evolved limitations and produces non-adaptive beliefs. Second, I
provide an example of the evolution of practiced natural faculties responsible for the rise
of science, and note how evolutionary processes are sufficient to explain the reliability of
such faculties.27

26

Michael Ruse ignores the topic of justification and focuses only on truth. Richard Joyce, Paul
Griffiths, and John Wilkins focus on justification by way of truth-tracking, but define truth-tracking
differently than traditional concepts of truth-tracking. This isn’t a problem only that it creates some
confusion about how evolution relates with justification.
27

Robert McCauley, Why Religion is Natural and Science is Not (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2012), 107-8, 138.

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B. Definitions
Darwinian Epistemology: The claim that evolution supplied reliable cognitive faculties
for generating true belief. This is a restricted definition of DE that precludes justification.
Moreover, in this case DE includes other evolutionary mechanisms besides natural
selection for the development of human cognitive faculties. Perhaps other evolutionary
forces (e.g. sexual selection, by-products, biological emergence, and genetic drift)
contributed to human cognitive development. Thus, I refrain from using the term
“selected for” as much as possible as to not restrict the wide range of evolutionary
processes that may have contributed to the reliability of human cognition. Finally, I’ve
chosen the term Darwinian epistemology and not Evolutionary Epistemology, so as to
avoid a wide range of distinctions in Evolutionary epistemology and Naturalized
epistemology more broadly.
Evolutionary Justification: The view that S’s belief that p is justified in degree x if and
only if: S believes p, p is true, and p tracks truth. Conversely, negative accounts of
evolutionary justification reject condition three, arguing that human cognitive faculties
are not truth-tracking.
Truth-tracking (traditional notion): A faculty F is truth-tracking if and only if F does not
produce counter-factually insensitive beliefs. S’s belief that p is counterfactually
insensitive if and only if S would believe P even if P were false.28
Cognition. Cognition is the broad understanding of how human minds/brains represent
and process information, perception, thought, and action. Natural cognition concerns the
invisible and non-reflective part of human’s mental lives that operate fast, intuitively, and
without effort; in contrast to unnatural cognition that requires reflection, time, and
effort.29
Maturational Natural Cognition. Maturational Natural cognition represents the
immediate, intuitive beliefs and actions in cognitive domains without awareness.
Speaking a native language, chewing, belief in naïve physics are all representative of
maturational skills.30 At times, I use the term maturational to coincide with common
sense and it never implies the act of “maturing.”

28

This definition is different than the one given by Griffiths and Wilkins: “Organisms track truth
optimally if they obtain as much relevant truth as they can afford, and tolerate no more error than is needed
to obtain it.” This definition resembles Richard Joyce’s. I’m unclear how GW relate truth-tracking with
justification but this is irrelevant for establishing the Scope Objection.
29

See McCauley, Why Religion, 4.This includes pre-reflective cognitive modules generating
beliefs about physical objects, (e.g. my naïve physics: beliefs that solid objects fall and do not pass through
solid objects; naïve biology: beliefs that species give birth to their own kind; and theory of mind:
knowledge about other agents, their intentions and desires by using cognitive tools for mind reading. It is
generally accepted that this cognitive capability would have incurred selective advantage. McCauley,
Why, 76-82; “Theory of Mind,” accessed December 14 2013, http://www.iep.utm.edu/theomind/.
30

McCauley, Why Religion, 5

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Practiced Natural Cognition. Practiced Natural cognition represents skills that require
tools and specialized training in some specific cognitive domain. For example,
specializing in engineering requires applying practiced natural cognition, unlike
maturational natural cognition.31
Non-Adaptive Belief. Beliefs that would have been unnecessary for fitness and survival,
including philosophical and scientific beliefs.
Adaptive Belief. These are beliefs that would have been necessary for our ancestors’
survival. For example, perceptual beliefs are often cited as holding adaptive value.
C. Chapter Summary
Chapter 1 surveys a brief history of DE, from Charles Darwin and Alfred
Wallace, to contemporary accounts like Michael Ruse and Thomas Nagel. The purpose of
this chapter provides a context for understanding the relationship between evolution and
epistemology. In Chapter 2 I examine Plantinga’s EDA and Griffiths’ and Wilkins’
common-sense ESA in order to state and examine the Scope Objection at the end of the
chapter. In Chapter 3 I respond to the Scope Objection by introducing Robert
McCauley’s theory of natural cognition and his criteria for the rise of science. I focus
specifically on McCauley’s distinction between maturational naturalness and practiced
naturalness, and his criteria for the rise of science. In Chapter 4 I assess two objections to
my response to the Scope Objection. First, Plantinga’s debunking strategy undermines
my solution because he distinguishes between cognitive indication and belief content.
Second, Richard Lewontin remains skeptical that theories of cognitive evolution are
tenable.32 If Lewontin is right, then premise two of the Scope Objection remains
inscrutable. I consider both objections and note how they fail to undermine my response
to the Scope Objection.
31

McCauley, Why Religion, 5, 20-30

32

Richard Lewontin, “The Evolution of Cognition: Questions We Will Never Answer,” in An
invitation to cognitive science, Volume 4: Methods, models, and conceptual issues, ed. Scarborough and S.
Sternberg (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. 1998).

xv

V. CONCLUSION
Those who support evolutionary debunking strategies do so by defining natural
cognition by way of maturational naturalness, and then argue that such common-sense
capacities are incapable of achieving non-adaptive beliefs. This position is true but also
neglects the wider complexity of human cognition. A more nuanced assessment of human
cognition includes practiced natural faculties, such that humans possess cognitive
capabilities for overcoming maturational biases and with the potential to form nonadaptive beliefs. If this is right, then proponents of evolutionary supporting strategies
enjoy a wide range of theses describing how evolution supplied faculties necessary for
achieving non-adaptive beliefs, including systematic theories of epistemology.

xvi

Chapter One
A BRIEF HISTORY OF DARWINIAN EPISTEMOLOGY
In this chapter I map a brief history of DE in order to set the context for my
analysis of Chapter 2 and the Scope Objection. A history of DE begins with Charles
Darwin, who briefly examined the impact of evolution on human cognitive faculties.
Darwin’s contemporary Alfred Russell Wallace drew a different conclusion and was
sceptical about evolution’s capacity for explaining the non-adaptive features of human
natural cognition.
I. EVOLUTIONARY SUPPORTING ARGUMENTS: MAPPING THE
LANDSCAPE
Darwin affirms that human cognitive abilities reflect their evolutionary origin.
But only in the mid twentieth-century is there substantial application of Darwin’s theory
for epistemology. Konrad Lorenz applies evolution by natural selection with Immanual
Kant’s synthetic a priori, suggesting that Darwin’s theory of evolution superseded Kant’s
theory of knowledge. More recently philosophers of biology express new ways of
relating Darwin’s theory with epistemology. These theories include assessing nonadaptationist paradigms of evolution, while noting the consequences for theories of truth.
In order to appreciate these historical developments, one must begin with Darwin.
A. Darwin’s Origin of Species
Darwin affirms that the mind is part of the material world and thus prone to
selection.33 The central idea is that belief formation reflects the biological heritage to the

33

By selection I mean “natural selection.” I do not consider whether Darwin attributed the
evolution of the mind to sexual selection as well; see Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man and Selection in
Relation to Sex, second edition (New York: A.L. Burt Company, 1874), 695. See also Geoffrey Miller, The
Mating Mind: How Sexual Choice Shaped the Evolution of Human Nature (London: William Heineman,

1

extent that evolution selected cognition necessary for survival.34 Hence, the mind is not,
following the empiricist John Locke, a blank sheet open to experience, but rather arrives
“pre-assembled” with the cognitive hardware necessary for survival.35 Our “would be”
ancestors who failed to apply beliefs necessary for survival would not have reproduced,
whereas heritable, fitness-enhancing cognition would be passed to future generations. As
a result, Darwin states: “Origin of man now proved – metaphysic must flourish – he who
understands baboon would do more towards metaphysics than Locke.”36 Although
traditionally within the purview of philosophical reflection, Darwin thinks that belief
formation can be understood empirically by describing the cognitive constraints selected
by evolution.37
According to Darwin, one implication of evolution for epistemology is the
employment of evolutionary concepts prior to any philosophical endeavour:
To study Metaphysic[s], as they have always been studied appears to me to be
puzzling Astronomy without Mechanics. Experience shows the problem of the

2000). I depend mostly on Ruse’s introduction to Darwin’s epistemology; Ruse, Philosophy After Darwin,
18-20; and Ruse, The Philosophy of, 136-40; See also Robert Richards, “Darwin’s Metaphysics of Mind,”
in Darwin and Philosophy, eds. V. Hoesle and C. Illies (Notre Dame University Press, 2005).
34

Ruse, Philosophy After Darwin, 18.

35

Ruse, The Philosophy, 139; Ruse, Philosophy After, 18; Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man
and Selection in Relation to Sex, 2nd edition (New York: A.L. Burt Company, 1874), chapter 2. See Todd
Tremlin, Minds and Gods: The Cognitive Foundations of Religion (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2006), chapter 1. Tremlin argues, “Our minds evolved in conjunction with our ancestral ways of life…All
life on earth now exists or survived for its time in the past because it was designed and equipped to exploit
a particular environmental niche.” Tremlin, Minds and Gods, 38. Kim Sterelny’s recent view attempts to
reconcile the Lockean view, such that our cognitive mechanisms are not “pre-assembled,” but rather that
humans possess learning mechanisms. See Kim Sterelny, The Evolved Apprentice (MIT Press, 2012), xi.
36

Charles Darwin, “Notebook M84e,” August 16, 1838, in Charles Darwin's notebooks, 18361844: Geology, transmutation of species, metaphysical enquiries, eds. P. H. Barrett, P.J. Gautrey, S.
Herbert, D. Kohn, and S. Smith, 1987 (British Museum of Natural History; Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1987).
37

Ruse, Philosophy After, 19.

2

mind cannot be solved by attacking the citadel itself. The mind is a function of the
body. We must bring some stable foundation to argue from.38
In other words, Darwin’s theory informs other domains of inquiry, including the social
sciences and philosophy.39 While Darwin was not a philosopher, he lays the foundation
for supporting DE, a project further undertaken by Konrad Lorenz through his
interpretation of and response to Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason.40
B. Lorenz’s A Priori
In his Critique of Pure Reason, Immanuel Kant revolutionizes the empiricist and
rationalist conceptions of knowledge. Empiricists thought knowledge obtained through
the senses, while rationalists thought knowledge was based on the innate principles of
pure reason.41 Kant synthesized both views of knowledge by postulating that human
understanding of experience requires identifying its metaphysical categories.42 In other
words, knowledge bears the mark of both experience and reason together.43
Kant’s theory of knowledge has two implications for DE. First, the a priori
categories necessary for understanding experience are metaphysical. Kant argues that a

38

Barrett, et al., Darwin’s Notebooks.

39

E.O Wilson, “Sociobiology and the Darwinian Approach to Mind and Culture”, in Evolution:
From Molecules to Men, ed. D.S Bendall (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 545.
40

Ruse, Philosophy After Darwin, 19.

41

This distinction between empiricism and rationalism is a bit careless. We find convergence
between empiricists and rationalists, for instance, between Locke and Descartes. For a summary, see Peter
Markie, "Rationalism vs. Empiricism", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2013 Edition),
ed. Edward N. Zalta, n.p, accessed August 9, 2013,
http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2013/entries/rationalism-empiricism/>.
42

Rohlf, Michael, "Immanuel Kant", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2010
Edition), ed. Edward N. Zalta, accessed August 10, 2013,
http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2010/entries/kant/>. Roger Scruton, Kant: A Brief Insight (New York:
Sterling, 2010), 26-8. See also Charles Parsons, “The Transcendental Aesthetic,” in The Cambridge
Companion to Kant, ed. Paul Guyer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 62-92.
43

Scruton, Kant, 26.

3

priori categories govern experience by providing the basic structure for interpreting
experience. For example, one must already assume that every event has a cause in order
to understand the experience of causation. Making sense of one’s experience of causation
requires presupposing the basic metaphysical categories of causation.44
The second implication of Kant’s theory of knowledge for DE is that we cannot
know the world “as it is in itself” since we cannot have knowledge beyond experience.
Part of the Critique challenges the rationalist assumption that pure reason provides
knowledge without appealing to experience.45But this is absurd, according to Kant. Pure
reason presupposes the point of view of the knower in that awareness of the a priori
obtains from experiences of the world. Thus, for Kant objective knowledge can be found
only within the confines of appearance, whereby the form of appearances requires the
employment of a priori categories.
Lorenz rejects both of Kant’s metaphysical commitments in light of Darwin’s
theory. He argues that the metaphysical concepts that enable an understanding of
experience are physical constraints put in place by evolution and are knowable.46 Lorenz
questions Kant, asking:
Is not human reason with all its categories and forms of intuitions something that
has organically evolved in a continuous cause-effect relationship with the laws of
the immediate nature, just as has the human brain?…categories and forms of
perception, fixed prior to individual experience, are adapted to the external world

44

Immanual Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, trans. J. M. D. Meiklejohn; accessed Aug 11, 2013,
http://www2.hn.psu.edu/faculty/jmanis/kant/critique-pure-reason6x9.pdf, 82; Scruton, Kant, 26-8, 33-5.
45

Scruton, Kant, 27-8. See also Paul Guyer, “The Transcendental Deduction of the Categories,” in
The Cambridge Companion to Kant (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 13.
46

Konrad Lorenz, “Kant’s Doctrine of the A Priori in the Light of Contemporary Biology” in
Philosophy After Darwin: Classic and Contemporary Readings, ed. Michael Ruse (New Jersey: Princeton,
2009), 231.

4

for exactly the same reasons as the hoof of the horse is already adapted to the
ground of the steppe before the horse is born…47
Unlike Kant’s metaphysical a priori categories, Lorenz believes such categories are
cognitive constraints put in place by evolution corresponding to the objective world.48 If
this is right, then Kant’s metaphysical conception of the a priori remains physical and
knowledge of the “thing in itself” becomes attainable.
Lorenz’s commitment to realism is apparent, suggesting that evolutionary theory
provided faculties capable for generating objective knowledge about the world
independent of human experience. This is because human cognitive faculties operated
according to a truth-tracking mechanism – natural selection, in this case – independent of
human perception. But there’s a catch. Lorenz’s argument requires accepting that a priori
knowledge remains incomplete, since the process by which we obtain a priori knowledge
originates through a posteriority.49 Humans could have evolved differently with greater a
priori awareness or perhaps future evolution will yield an enhanced understanding of a
priori knowledge. As such, Lorenz states:
One must realize that this conception of the ‘a priori’ as an organ means the
destruction of the concept: something that has evolved in evolutionary adaptation
to the laws of natural external world has endowed a posteriori in a certain sense,
even if in a way entirely different from the abstraction or deduction from previous
experience.50
This passage implies that human cognitive evolution may provide a different
understanding of a priori concepts and the “thing in itself,” suggesting that human
47

Lorenz, “Kant’s Doctrine,” 231-46; See also Konrad Lorenz, Behind the Mirror: A Search for a
Natural History of Human Knowledge (Methuen, London, 1977).
48

Lorenz, “Kant’s Doctrine,” 233.

49

Lorenz, “Kant’s Doctrine,” 235.

50

Lorenz, “Kant’s Doctrine,” 232.

5

knowledge operates as “a working hypothesis in the coping of our species with the
absolute reality of the environment.”51Therefore, unlike knowledge traditionally
construed by rationalists, Lorenz’s DE implies that human “a priori” knowledge remains
liable to change if humans were to have evolved.52
Lorenz’s commitment to realism draws criticism from proponents of DE, since it
implies evolutionary adaptationism.53 This means that evolution selected traits
corresponding with the objective world. But recent accounts of DE reject adaptationism,
suggesting that DE must focus on non-adaptationist views of evolution.54Adaptationist
accounts of evolution fail to incorporate the point of view of the organism and fall short
of providing a sufficient picture of evolutionary theory. In his article, “The View from
Somewhere,” Ruse rejects Lorenz’s realist and adaptationist approach, and instead
applies Hume’s sceptical, non-realist philosophy with a non-adaptationist view of
evolution.

51

Lorenz, “Kant’s Doctrine,” 235-6.

52

The a priori is simply a mode by which a proposition is justified. I’m thankful to Myron A.
Penner for pointing this out, in addition to challenging Lorenz’s epistemology more broadly. Penner also
suggests that if human faculties responsible for a priori modes of justification are by-products of evolution,
then Lorenz’s criticisms seem unwarranted. This is because it is hard to see why the outputs of such a mode
of justification would be “liable to change,” especially when considering the justification of analytic truths.
53

See also Vollmer, “On Supposed Circularities in an Empirically Oriented Epistemology,” in
Evolutionary Epistemology, Theory of Rationality, and the Sociology of Knowledge, eds. G. Radnitzky and
WW Bartley III (LaSalle: Open Court, 1987), 163-200.
Franz Wuketits, “The Philosophy of Donald Campbell: A short review and critical appraisal,” Biology and
Philosophy, no. 2, vol 16 (2001), 173.
54

Ruse, Philosophy After, 223-4, See Franz Wuketits, “Evolutionary Epistemology: A NonAdaptationist Approach,” in Evolutionary Epistemology, Language, and Culture, ed. N. Gontier, Jean Paul
Van Bendegem, Diederek Aerts (Netherlands: Springer, 2006), 33; Franz Wuketits, “Cognition: A nonadaptationist view”. La Nuova Critica 9-10, 5-15; Paul A. Weiss, “The living system: Determinism
stratified.” Studium Generale 22, (1969): 361-400; Richard C Lewontin, “Organism and environment,” in
Learning, development, and culture: essays in evolutionary epistemology, ed. Henry C. Plotkin (Chichester:
Wiley: 1982), 151-170; David Sloan Wilson, “Species of Thought: Some Comments on Evolutionary
Epistemology,” Biology and Philosophy, no. 5 (1990): 37-62. Conversely, De Cruz argues that there is no
shift towards non-adaptationist perspectives, but that the broader field is still adaptationism.

6

C. Ruse’s Humean Skepticism
Hume would have rejected Kant’s metaphysical certainty. For Hume the rational
grounds for judgements about matters of fact, value, causation, and induction remain
uncertain and unsettling: “The intense view of these manifold contradictions and
imperfections in human reason has wrought upon me, and heated my brain, that I am
ready to reject all belief and reasoning, and can look upon no opinion even as more
probable or likely than another”.55
Not only does scepticism dominate Hume’s philosophy but any attempt to
overcome sceptical biases confronts some insurmountable problems:
This sceptical doubt, both with respect to reason and the sense, is a malady, which
can never be radically cured, but must return upon us every moment, however we
may chase it away, and sometimes may seem entirely free from it.56
Hume’s scepticism also implies non-realist views of the objective world, and, as noted,
rejects knowledge beyond experience.57 Ruse agrees with Hume, and is uncomfortable
with acknowledging a world independent of experience.58
According to Ruse, non-adaptationist evolution supports Humean scepticism. The
non-adaptationist view focuses on change that occurs from the point of view of the

55

David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, ed. L.A Selby-Bigge (Oxford, 1888), 268-9.

56

Hume, A Treatise, 218. See also Richard H. Popkin, “David Hume: His Pyrrhonism and his
Critique of Pyrrhonism,” in Hume: A Collection of Critical Essay, ed. VC Chappel (London: MacMillan,
1966), 56; Robert J. Frogelin, “Hume’s Scepticism,” in The Cambridge Companion to David Hume
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 90-115.
57

See Jani Hakkarainen, “Hume’s Scepticism and Realism: His Two Profound Arguments against
the Sense in An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding,” Academic Dissertation, accessed July 28
2013, http://tampub.uta.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/67790/978-951-44-7106-3.pdf?sequence=1. It’s possible
that Hume’s philosophy isn’t as dominated by scepticism as typically considered.
58

Ruse, Philosophy After, 225; See also Michael Ruse, “Does evolutionary epistemology imply
realism?” in Evolution, and Realism: Studies in Evolutionary Epistemology, ed. Rescher N (Lanham, New
York, 1990): 101–110.

7

organism and not solely from the pressure of the external environmental.59 In fact,
according to some, Darwin had already alluded to non-adaptationist views in The Origin:
Naturalists continuously refer to external conditions, such as climate, food, etc., as
the only possible source of variation. In one limited sense … this may be true; but
it is preposterous to attribute to mere external conditions, the structure, for
instance, of the woodpecker, with its feet, tail, back, and tongue, so admirably
adapted to catch insects under the back of trees.60
The point is that evolution would not have guaranteed the selection of cognitive faculties
that would have accurately reflected the external world.61 Human faculties may have
been selected for by the internal perception necessary for survival, regardless of whether
those perceptions are reliable. As Franz Wuketits argues:
From our everyday perspective stones are really stones, trees are really trees,
wine-glasses are really wine-glasses, and so on and so forth. Well, but what else
should these objects be, if not stones, trees, wine-glasses, etc.? This, however, is
not the point. In our everyday life we may believe that all (perceived) things are
as they appear to be. What counts is that our perceptions help us to survive.62
Wuketits supports Ruse, arguing that living organisms are not puppets that passively
accept environmental change, but are active participants inadvertently shaping
evolutionary results.
Ruse’s DE has two implications for epistemology. First, we should abandon
metaphysical realism, and second, we should accept a coherence theory of truth – that is,
that beliefs hang together within a coherent structure, with no guarantee that such beliefs
59

In a similar way, Richard Lewontin argues that “to understand how much of what is ‘out there’
is the product of what is ‘in here.” Richard Lewontin, “Organism and Environment,” 169.
60

Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species. See also, Wuketits, “Cognition: A Non-adaptationist

view.”
61

Ruse’s account differs considerably from more recent adaptationist accounts supporting the
trustworthiness of domain specific beliefs, see Steven Stewart-Williams, “Innate Ideas as a Naturalistic
Source of Metaphysical Knowledge,” Philosophy and Biology 20, (2005):791–814.
62

Wuketits, “Cognition: A Non-Adaptationist View.”

8

accurately describe the external world.63 Ruse adopts Hilary Putnam’s internal realist
view, one that compromises between metaphysical realism and metaphysical idealism,
who writes as follows:
One of these perspectives [on realism] is the perspective of metaphysical realism.
On this perspective, the world consists of some fixed totality of mind-independent
objects. There is exactly one true and complete description of “the way the world
is.” Truth involves some sort of correspondence relation between worlds or
thought-signs and external things and sets of things.64
But metaphysical realism is unintelligible, says Putnam:
What does it mean . . . to speak of mind independency? Human minds did not
create the stars or the mountains, but this “flat” remark is hardly enough to settle
the philosophical question of realism versus anti-realism. What does it mean to
speak of a unique true and complete description of the world?65
Putnam’s rejection of metaphysical realism also precludes correspondence theories of
truth, in exchange for supporting a coherence theory of truth:
Truth, in an internalist view, is some sort of (idealized) rational acceptability—
some sort of ideal coherence of our beliefs with each other and with our
experiences as those experiences are themselves represented in our belief
system—and not correspondence with mind-independent of discourseindependent states of affairs.66
Putnam’s views have changed over time, and more recently adopts a “natural realism”
that favours a common-sense approach. Even so, he maintains that a correspondence
theory of truth remains deficient. Ruse does not abandon correspondence theory entirely

63

Ruse, Philosophy After, 225-6.

64

Hilary Putnam, Reason, Truth, and History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 49.
See Maria Baghramian, “Realism back to Realism: Putnam’s Long Journey,” Philosophical Topics, Vol.
36, no. 1, 2008.
65

Hilary Putnam, Realism with a Human Face (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,
1990), 31; Hilary Putnam, Reason, Truth, and History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 4952; See Ruse, Philosophy After, 225-6.
66

Hilary Putnam, Reason, 49-50.

9

but asserts that a contemporary understanding of evolution implies that epistemology
should favour a coherence theory of truth.
Ruse’s application of Hume requires closer examination. First, DE cannot be
extracted from a realist view insofar as evolutionary processes reflected an actual world
independent of experience. How else could evolution have taken place? Changes that
occur within a population reflect something, even if those changes are not perfect
adaptations to the external world.67 Perhaps a more tempered non-adaptationist view
should adopt Donald Campbell’s understanding:
I…can’t do better than the example of the salamander’s leg: When it regenerates
when broken off, does it regenerate until it reaches the ground? No! It regenerates
until an internal vicarious monitor for leg length is completed. But if this regularly
led to regenerated legs that were, say, too long, then an external selection would
select mutations that adjusted that internal selector.68
Internal monitors provide the necessary link between environment and adaptation. This
means that environmental pressure acts upon external features of an organism but that
those external features are controlled by internal monitors. These internal monitors do not
always reflect the truth in the objective sense, but more often control physical features
that garner adaptability. But even if Campbell is right, it doesn’t follow that Humean nonrealism is a plausible application of non-adaptationism, nor does it follow that
adaptationist theories of cognition are entirely false.
Similarly, David Sloan Wilson argues that a strong argument for adaptationism of
mental representations must provide evidence of a phenotype-environment correlation.

67

Ruse will agree that one cannot preclude correspondence truth. And it’s at this point that I fail
to see the degree to which he applies non-realism.
68

Donald Campbell quoted from W. Callebaut, Taking the Naturalistic Turn (Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1993), 298.

10

This means that if the environment requires species to exhibit certain phenotypic traits to
survive and reproduce, and species within those environments exhibit the right traits, then
we possess a strong argument for adaptationism.69 According to Wilson, the problem
with this view is that each ecosystem contains a multitude of different species exhibiting
different necessary traits for survival and reproduction. This implies that different species
would have perceived the environment in different ways while still exhibiting adaptive
behaviour.
Wilson concludes that human mental representations of the world are somewhat
analogous to various species’ representation of the ecosystem. There are a variety of
ways in which humans might perceive their environment – and, thus, behave differently
for the purpose of survival and reproduction – without holding a direct mental correlation
with the “real world.” Adaptive behaviour requires only some instances of “real world”
correlation.
Suppose we accept a non-adaptationist approach to DE in support of non-realism,
what follows? The answer may lie with distinguishing between maturational and
practiced natural cognition. Recall that maturational capacities include pre-reflective
skills while practiced natural capacities include more advanced skills. Maturational skills
sometimes reflect a common-sense, non-realist picture of the world. For instance, the
maturational natural belief that tables are solid objects is mostly false and does not reflect
the “real” world.70 Even still, it doesn’t follow that one remains bound by maturational
bias. Through practiced naturalness one can overcome the common-sense limitations

69

Wilson, “Species of Thought,” 54.

70

See footnote 149. By “real” world I mean the atomic world.

11

about the nature of solid objects and form a more accurate view: that tables are mostly
empty space. The success of science is partially due to accurately describing the “real
world.” The reason doctors can successfully transplant human kidneys is because they
know true things about human bodies. This suggests that human cognition and its ability
to overcome its evolved limitations is unique. This observation may further suggest that
human cognition differs from other species in its ability to correlate knowledge with the
real world.
Even if the evolutionary past of human cognitive development is the result of a
non-adaptationist paradigm and reflects a non-realist conception of the world, more
recent cognitive development provides the capacity to overcome these restrictions and
generate truth in the realist sense. Thus, granting Ruse’s argument for non-adaptationism,
his application of Hume applies only to the distant evolutionary past and fails to
incorporate a more sophisticated apparatus of human cognition. Perhaps at this point the
non-adaptationist DE no longer applies. Indeed, if humans can overcome maturational
biases and employ practiced naturalness, then perhaps the non-realist view of truth
becomes more problematic.
Summary:
Evolutionary supporting strategies argue that natural selection is sufficient for
explaining the nature of human cognitive capabilities, including non-adaptive belief.
Darwin and Lorenz understood evolution as shaping natural cognition, such that faculties
producing true belief resulting in survival would be passed down to future generations.
According to Ruse, a flourishing DE should adopt a non-adaptationist view of evolution,
implying that epistemology focus on coherence theories of truth and a rejection of

12

metaphysical realism. In the next section, I summarize and evaluate several popular
debunking strategies and some reasons for affirming the Scope Objection’s second
premise.
II. EVOLUTIONARY DEBUNKING ARGUMENTS: MAPPING THE
LANDSCAPE
Alfred Russell Wallace thinks that ESAs are insufficient for explaining the nature
of human cognitive capacities and non-adaptive beliefs. Others in the history of
philosophy stress a similar hesitation for accepting the reliability of evolved faculties,
most notably Friedrich Nietzsche and Thomas Nagel. Nietzsche argues that all human
cognitive faculties are unreliable as a consequence of evolution. Nagel’s argument is
more similar to Wallace’s than Nietzsche’s in that the cognitive capacities responsible for
non-adaptive belief are beyond the scope of natural selection.
A. Wallace’s Darwinism
Wallace initially supported natural selection as the sole mechanism for the
evolution of the human brain.71 Indeed, Darwin approved Wallace’s initial claim that
eventually the brain would have become the chief target of selection and primary vehicle
for incurring human survival and reproduction.72
Wallace eventually rejected his thesis.73 In his book Darwinism, Wallace denies

71

A.R Wallace, “The Origin of Human Races and the Antiquity of Man Deduced from the Theory
of Natural Selection,” Anthropological Review, 1864, accessed July 28, 2013,
http://people.wku.edu/charles.smith/wallace/S093.htm.
72

Charles Darwin, Letter to J. Hooker, May 22. Darwin Correspondence Project Database,
accessed July 28, 2013, http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/entry-4506. For an in depth look, see Gross,
“Alfred Russell,” 499.
73

Gross, “Alfred Russell,” 499. There are subtleties here. Some historians have argued that
Wallace’s views are more continuous, that there isn’t a radical shift in opinion. See Martin Fichman,
“Science in Theistic Contexts: A Case Study of Alfred Russell Wallace on Human Evolution,” in Science

13

that natural selection explains the “special faculties” possessed by humans,74 and attacks
Darwin’s universal application of natural selection for explaining human cognition.75 By
“special faculties” Wallace has in mind cognitive capacities responsible for spiritual,
moral, and intellectual beliefs:
…the existence in man of a number of his most characteristic and noblest
faculties, those which raise him furthest above the brutes and open up possibilities
of almost indefinite advancement. These faculties could not possibly have been
developed by means of the same laws which have determined the progressive
development of the organic world in general, and also of man’s physical
organism.76
In support of his scepticism, Wallace argues:
…as far as we yet know, of the pre-historic races, we have an organ so little
inferior in size and complexity to that of the highest types (such as the average
European), that we must believe it capable, under a similar process of gradual
development during the space of two or three thousand years, of producing equal
average results. But the mental requirements of the lowest savages…are very little
above those of many animals. The higher moral faculties and those of pure
intellect and refined emotion are useless to them, are rarely if ever manifested,
and have no relation to their wants, desires, or well-being. How, then, was an
organ developed so far beyond the needs of its possessor? Natural selection could
only have endowed the savage with a brain of little superior to that of an ape,
whereas he actually possess one but very little inferior to that of the average
members of our learned society.77
in Theistic Contexts: Cognitive Dimensions. Osiris, 2nd Series, Vol. 16, (2001): 227-250. I’m thankful to
Helen De Cruz for raising this point.
74

A.R. Wallace, Studies scientific & social. Vol. 2. New York: Macmillan, 1900. Cited from Gross,
“Alfred Russell,” 502.
75

A.R. Wallace, “Darwinism Applied to Man,” in Darwinism (London: Macmillan, 1889). The
manuscript is online at: http://people.wku.edu/charles.smith/wallace/S724CH15.htm. See also Michael Shermer,
In Darwin’s Shadow: The Life and Science of Alfred Russell Wallace (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002).
76

A.R. Wallace, “Darwinism,” accessed July 26/13,
http://people.wku.edu/charles.smith/wallace/S724CH15.htm. Also see Shermer, In Darwin’s, 174-5.
77

Alfred Russell Wallace, 1869a. Sir Charles Lyell on geological climates and the origin of species,
Reviews of principles of geology (10th ed.), 1867–68, and Elements of geology (6th ed.) 1865, both by Sir Charles
Lyell]. Q Rev 126:359–394. This quotation was cited from Charles Gross, “Alfred Russell Wallace and the
evolution of the human mind,” Neuroscientist, 16 (2010): 500; Stephen Jay Gould, “Wallace’s fatal flaw.” Natural
History (1980): 89:26–40

14

Although a contemporary reading of Wallace would reject his appraisal of the human
race, S.J. Gould notes that Wallace’s arguments are noteworthy and beyond his time;
Gould notes:
Wallace advanced several arguments for the uniqueness of human intellect, but
his central claim begins with an extremely uncommon position for his time, one
that commands our highest praise in retrospect. Wallace was one of the few
nonracists of the nineteenth century. He really believed that all human groups had
innately equal capacities of intellect.78
Wallace thinks that every human shares innate capacities for generating non-adaptive
beliefs. But unlike Darwin, to Wallace this observation seemed at odds with his
understanding of human evolution. Thus, Wallace concludes that, “while admitting to the
full extent the agency of the same great laws of organic development in the origin of the
human race as in the origin of all organized beings, yet there seems to be a Power which
has guided the action of those laws (of organic development) in definite directions and
for special ends.”79
Wallace often appealed to spirituality; indeed, he was a committed dualist and
Mesmer.80 But Wallace did not consider his spirituality at odds with natural science.
Rather, spiritual truth could provide explanation where science failed.81 Whether for a
commitment to spirituality or a lack of scientific evidence, Wallace departed from
Darwin and rejected the universal application of natural selection.82

78

Gould, “Wallace’s.”

79

Cited from Stephen E. Glickman, “Charles Darwin, Alfred Russell Wallace and the Evolution/Creation
of the Human Brain and Mind,” Gayana 73 (2009): 36.
80

Alfred Russell Wallace, On miracles and modern spiritualism. Three essays (London: J. Burns,

81

Gross, “Alfred Russell,” 502.

1875).
82

See J. Schwartz, “Darwin, Wallace, and the Descent of Man,” Journal of the History of Biology
17, no. 2 (1984): 271-89; Shermer, In Darwin’s, 22.

15

Wallace rejects the explanatory scope of natural selection and thus challenges DE,
since the causal belief-forming mechanism responsible for producing DE would have
been invisible to selection. Wallace expounds an early debunking strategy in that many
scientific and philosophical faculties would not have been within the selective purview of
evolution and therefore attempting to ground the reliability of these non-adaptive
faculties in evolutionary theory remains unsupported.
Wallace sets the stage for a future line of evolutionary scepticism. But unlike
Wallace, Nietzsche’s scepticism goes beyond non-adaptive belief, and criticizes the
reliability of human cognitive faculties more generally.
B. Nietzsche and The Gay Science
Lorenz was not the only one to contemporize Kant insofar as evolution impacted
human cognitive faculties. Nietzsche argued that evolution replaces the Kantian question
about knowledge, arguing that truth and our modes of justification are the result of
cognitive mechanisms operating for incurring survival:
It is high time to replace the Kantian question, ‘How are [a priori moral
judgements] possible?’ by another question, ‘Why is belief in such judgements
necessary?’ – and to comprehend that such judgements must be believed to be
true, for the sake of the preservation of creatures like ourselves; though they
might of course be false judgements for all that!83
In The Gay Science, Nietzsche argues that true belief does not correspond to the objective
world, but represents belief that comes with age, “on the degree to which [knowledge]
has been incorporated, on its character as a condition of life.”84 Thus, Nietzsche’s

83

Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future (Leipzig:
Neumann, 1886), I, II, 3); Ruse, Philosophy After, 23.
84

Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science, trans. Walter Kaufmann (New York: Random House,
1974), taken from Ruse, Philosophy After, 32-3.

16

epistemology adopts Darwinian overtones:
Over immense periods of time the intellect produced nothing but errors. A few of
these proved to be useful and helpful to preserve the species: those who hit upon
or inherited these had better luck in their struggle for themselves and their
progeny. Such erroneous articles of faith, which were continuously inherited, until
they became almost part of the basic endowment of the species, include the
following: that there are enduring things; that there are equal things; that there are
things, substances, bodies; that a thing is what it appears to be; that our will is
free; that what is good for me is also good in itself.85
Nietzsche’s epistemology is not reassuring for generating true belief. As such, he draws
the opposite conclusion to Lorenz and more closely resembles Hume. One commentator
notes:
Nietzsche insists that there is no such thing as absolute truth, and argues instead
that all thinking and perception comes from a particular perspective, and that
different perspectives will produce different views of truth. There are only these
views of truth, or interpretations; there is no objective reality beneath them, no
independent standard that they refer to.86
Nietzsche’s view does not entail that all beliefs are false, only that we lack the
support (i.e. the justification) for their truth and falsity. Nietzsche articulates his
skepticism clearly in the following passage:
It is unfair to Descartes to call his appeal to God’s credibility frivolous. Indeed,
only if we assume a God who is morally our like can “truth” and the search for
truth be at all something meaningful and promising of success. This God left
aside, the question is permitted whether being deceived is not one of the
conditions of life.87
This means that without a theistic ontology, natural forces would not guarantee the
reliability of human cognitive faculties. Nietzsche seems to suggest that the implications

85

Nietzsche, The Gay Science, taken from Ruse, Philosophy After, 32-3.

86

Clare Carlisle, “Beyond Good and Evil: Why Insist on Truth?” Richmond Journal of Philosophy
4 (2003): 1.
87

Friedrich Nietzsche, “Notebook 36, June-July 1885, 26,” in Nietzsche: Writings from the Late
Notebooks, ed. Rudiger Bittner (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003).

17

of evolution for epistemology are that all truth becomes unsupported if our faculties were
to have evolved. This is a radical view, and one not necessarily shared by contemporary
debunking strategies.
C. Nagel’s Darwinian Scepticism
Similar to Wallace, and more charitable than Nietzsche, Thomas Nagel has long
been sceptical about the explanatory force of reductive science in general and
evolutionary theory in particular.88 His reason for doubting DE derives from the
conviction that in order to ascertain DE, one must postulate an evolutionary story
explaining the development of non-adaptive faculties, and one must already assume a
concept of reason that is independent of biological origin. But unlike Wallace, Nagel
does not appeal to spirituality but rather postulates a naturalized teleology within
biological processes.
In his earlier work, Nagel figures that evolutionary accounts of non-adaptive
belief face problems similar to those noted by Wallace: “The question is whether not only
the physical but the mental capacity needed to make a stone axe automatically bring with
it the capacity to take each of the steps that have led from there to the construction of the
hydrogen bomb….I see absolutely no reason to believe that the truth lies within a
[Darwinian explanation].89 Rejecting arguments of this sort is common for Nagel, dating
back to his previous work “What is it like to be a bat?” by which he rejects a scientific
(and a materialist reductionist) explanation for subjective experience.90 Nagel’s recent
88

Thomas Nagel, “What is it like to be a bat?” The Philosophical Review, vol. 83, No. 4. (1974);
Thomas Nagel, The View from Nowhere (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), 79-81.
89

Thomas Nagel, The View from Nowhere (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), 79-81.

90

Thomas Nagel, “What is it like to be a bat?” The Philosophical Review, vol. 83, No. 4. (1974).

18

work, Mind and Cosmos, raise similar concerns. Although Nagel expresses doubt about
the scope of evolutionary theory in general, he considers the implications of evolution for
human cognition more specifically.91
According to Nagel, a successful DE must overcome two obstacles.92 The first is
that evolution did not generate faculties for non-adaptive belief: “that natural selection
should have generated creatures with the capacity to discover by reason the truth about a
reality that extends vastly beyond initial appearance – as we take ourselves to have done
and continue to do collectively in science, logic, and ethics.”93 The second obstacle is
attempting to explain the faculty of reason responsible for non-adaptive belief in a
naturalistic way.94
Nagel illustrates the first obstacle by summarizing a common “just so” story about
evolution and the positive impact on human cognitive faculties:
[Proponents must]…explain how innate mental capacities that were selected for
their immediate adaptive value are also capable of generating, through extended
cultural evolutionary history, true theories about a law-governed natural order that
there was no adaptive need to understand earlier.95
Even in the wild, it isn’t just perception and operant conditioning that have
survival value. The capacity to generalize from experience and to allow those
generalizations, or general expectations, to be confirmed or disconfirmed by
subsequent experience is also adaptive. So is a basic disposition to maintain
logical consistency in belief, by modifying beliefs when inconsistencies arise. A
further, very important step would be the capacity to correct individual
91

Nagel also addresses these questions in Nagel, The Last Word (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1997), chapter 7.
92

Thomas Nagel, Mind and Cosmos: Why The Materialist New Darwinian Conception of Nature
is almost certainly false (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 74.
93

Nagel, Mind and Cosmos, 74.

94

Nagel, Mind and Cosmos, 74.

95

Nagel, Mind and Cosmos, 76.

19

appearances not only by reference to other conflicting appearances of one’s own
but also by reference to how things appear to other perceivers. That requires
recognition of other minds, an ability with obvious adaptive potential. The reach
of these capacities can be greatly extended and deliberately exercised with the
help of language, which also allows knowledge to be collectively created,
accumulated, and transmitted. With language we can hold in our minds and share
with others alternative possibilities, and decide among them on the basis of their
consistency or inconsistency with further observations. Complex scientific
theories that entail empirical predictions are therefore extensions of the highly
adaptive capacity to learn from experience – our own and that of others.96
He thinks such accounts are improbable, especially when they include the manifestation
of non-adaptive belief. Nevertheless, he’s willing to grant the argument and proceeds to
the second obstacle. He argues that reason is beyond the scope of evolutionary theory
since reason is presupposed by an understanding of the process itself.
For the present purpose, the relevant objection is the first one. How does Nagel
know that evolutionary processes lack the potential for producing faculties in nonadaptive domains of belief?97 Caution should be taken before dismissing a scientific
hypothesis as evidentially exhausted. This does not imply that science explains
everything; indeed, perhaps explaining the evolution of such faculties is beyond the scope
of scientific explanation. But then Nagel must demonstrate that either the evolution of
non-adaptive faculties can never be evidentially supported or that such explanations lie
beyond the domain of science. Nagel fails to address either question. He concedes such
evolutionary story-telling and then proceeds to his second objection.
There is no reason to accept Nagel’s first objection, especially when his
evolutionary story is contingent on accepting both natural selection as the primary vehicle
for shaping cognition, as well as upholding an adaptationist view of evolutionary
96

Nagel, Mind and Cosmos, 76.

97

I’m thankful to Phillip H. Wiebe for raising this point.

20

processes. But as noted, it is possible that both of these evolutionary concepts lack the
proper nuance for explaining the subtleties of cognitive evolution.
Summary:
Wallace, Nietzsche and Nagel think that evolutionary supporting strategies are
overly optimistic about evolution and its explanatory scope. Darwin and Wallace parted
ways on the issue, while Nietzschean scepticism attacks the reliability of all human
faculties. For Nagel, the essential problem for DE is that evolutionary processes cannot
explain the development of human faculties responsible for non-adaptive beliefs, and in
order to postulate an evolutionary account of reason, one must already assume reason
independent of evolutionary forces.
Although this summary serves as only a basic analysis for understanding
debunking strategies, it is hard to identify the problem. What exactly is the argument that
undermines the descriptive process by which evolution generated reliable cognitive
faculties responsible for non-adaptive beliefs? Both Nietzsche and Nagel hint that
evolutionary processes would have provided reliable cognitive mechanisms for incurring
fitness and reproductive advantage. And both argue that non-adaptive domains are
beyond the scope of evolutionary processes. But it is hard to identify their reasons for
asserting this position. Wallace’s skepticism relates with his observation of the diversity
of the human race. But why exactly was natural selection (or perhaps other evolutionary
mechanisms) incapable of supplying reliable mechanisms for higher intelligence across
the human race.
Thus, it seems that prima facie debunking strategies do not offer much by way of
argument and therefore it remains difficult to assess the strength of the Scope Objection.

21

III. CONCLUSION
A brief history of DE raises conflicting accounts about evolution and the
implications for epistemology. ESAs affirm that evolution supplied cognitive faculties for
generating true belief while EDAs deny this conclusion. More recently, evolutionary
supporting strategies articulate their defense by way of linking non-adaptive beliefs with
common-sense cognition. Evolutionary processes were sufficient for producing reliable
common-sense cognition and from this fact proponents of ESAs postulate the
manifestation of non-adaptive belief. In the next chapter, I consider two conflicting
arguments: Plantinga’s evolutionary debunking strategy and Griffiths’ and Wilkins’
evolutionary supporting strategy. Plantinga grants that evolution was sufficient for
generating common-sense mechanisms but lacks the scope for including faculties in nonadaptive domains. Griffiths and Wilkins defend a common-sense ESA and then argue
that such capacities are sufficient for including non-adaptive domains. The point is to
navigate both arguments to establish a common ground: evolutionary processes are
sufficient for explaining the development of common-sense faculties. And from this we
can infer the main point of contention: that evolution did not supply us with reliable
faculties in non-adaptive domains of belief.

22

Chapter 2
The Scope Objection to Darwinian Epistemology
In this chapter I consider arguments by Alvin Plantinga, Paul Griffiths, and John
Wilkins. Plantinga’s evolutionary argument against naturalism (EAAN) claims that the
probability that human cognitive faculties are reliable given naturalism and evolution is
low. Griffiths and Wilkins argue that evolution selected reliable common-sense faculties
and that this reliability supports scientific beliefs. My aim is to acquire details from both
arguments in order to suggest that evolution supplied reliable cognitive faculties in
common-sense domains. From this we can properly outline the Scope Objection at the
end of the chapter.
I. PLANTINGA’S EVOLUTIONARY DEBUNKING ARGUMENT
In this section I summarize EAAN, noting the particulars that are relevant for
understanding the Scope Objection. Plantinga doesn’t reject evolutionary theory – guided
or unguided – nor does he attack the position that evolution results in cognitive
unreliability. Rather, Plantinga’s aim is to argue against metaphysical naturalism by way
of evolution. But in the process, Plantinga argues that unguided evolution results in a
universal scepticism about true belief.
A. The Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism
EAAN attacks naturalism generally and materialism in particular by raising a
conflict between naturalism and evolution. More precisely, although it is possible to
believe that either naturalism or evolution is true, one cannot rationally believe both
positions in conjunction. Plantinga’s EAAN can be summarized as follows: where the
proposition R represents the claim that human cognitive faculties are reliable, N is the

23

claim that naturalism is true, and E is the claim that human cognitive faculties are the
product of evolution by natural selection.98
1. P(R/N&E) is low.
2. Anyone who believes N&E and sees that P(R/N&E) is low has a defeater for R.
3. Anyone who has a defeater for R has a defeater for any other belief she thinks she
has, including N&E.
4. If anyone who accepts N&E thereby acquires a defeater for N&E, N&E will be
self-defeating and can’t rationally be accepted.
5. So, N&E can’t rationally be accepted.
1. Premise One: Darwin’s Doubt
The first premise states that the probability that human cognitive faculties are
reliable given naturalism and evolution is low. Plantinga supports premise one by citing
Darwin, who doubts the reliability of human cognitive faculties given their evolutionary
origin; Darwin states, “With me the horrid doubt always arises whether the conviction of
man’s mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any
value or at all trustworthy. Would anyone trust in the convictions of a monkey’s mind, if
there are any convictions in such a mind?”99
Expanding on “Darwin’s doubt,” Plantinga then considers the contemporary
philosopher Patricia Churchland and her description of the four “F’s”:
Boiled down to essentials, a nervous system enables the organism to succeed in
the four F’s: feeding, fleeing, fighting and reproducing. The principal chore of the
98

Plantinga, Where the Conflict, 317, 344-5.

99

Charles Darwin, “Letter to William Graham, Down, July 3rd, 1881,” in The Life and Letters of
Charles Darwin Including an Autobiographical Chapter, ed. Francis Darwin (London: John Murray,
Albermarle Street, 1887), vol. 1, 315-16.

24

nervous system is to get the body parts where they should be in order that the
organism may survive…Improvements in sensorimotor control confer an
evolutionary advantage: a fancier style of representing is advantageous so long as
it is geared to the organism’s way of life and enhances the organism’s chances of
survival. Truth, whatever that is, definitively takes the hindmost.100
Churchland argues that evolution forged cognition for the purpose of adaptive behaviour
– that is, the nervous system getting the right parts in the right place for increasing
survival – and thus evolution does not make true belief probable.101 In support of
Churchland’s claim, Plantinga examines both reductive and non-reductive conceptions of
belief and concludes that neither conception provides sufficient reason for denying the
first premise.
i. Reductive and Non-reductive Materialism
The materialist argues that a belief is an event in the brain and nervous system.102
More specifically, a belief is built on the neurophysiological properties (hereafter, NP
properties) of the brain that interact with the nervous system providing adaptive
behaviour.103 Beliefs also include propositional content. The belief that “all men are
mortal” includes the propositional content that “all men are mortal” and it is the content
of a belief that is true or false. So, a belief according to the materialist has two properties,
one physical and one mental: the NP properties affecting the nervous system providing
adaptive behaviour and the propositional content determining the truth or falsity of the
belief.

100

Patricia Churchland, “Epistemology in the Age of Neuroscience,” Journal of Philosophy 84
(October 1987), 548.
101

Churchland, “Epistemology,” 548.

102

Plantinga, Where the Conflict, 321.

103

Plantinga, Where the Conflict, 321.

25

The reductive materialist thinks that beliefs are reduced to NP properties; that is, a
belief is just the NP properties that constitute the belief. Conversely, non-reductive
conceptions of belief argue that beliefs supervene on NP properties. This acknowledges
the dependency relation between beliefs and their correlated NP properties and
reductionism is precluded altogether. Either way, Plantinga argues that both reductive
and non-reductive conceptions of belief are determined by their correlated NP
properties.104
ii. Materialism and EAAN
Both reductive and non-reductive materialists accept that NP properties determine
the content of belief. But is this content true? Plantinga answers this question by
considering the C. elegans worm.105 If Churchland is correct, then the survival of C.
elegans depends on the adaptability of its NP properties to a given environment.106 C.
elegans also generates propositional content reduced to or supervening on its NP
properties. But why should we think that this propositional content is true? We shouldn’t,
according to Plantinga. The content of C. elegans’ belief is irrelevant for achieving
adaptive behaviour. The propositional content could be true but it’s just as likely to be
false. In the least, the probability that C. elegans’ faculties are reliable in forming true
belief given evolutionary processes remains low or inscrutable.

104

Plantinga, Where the Conflict, 324.

105

Plantinga randomly selects C. elegans as an example of an organism with sufficient neural
complexity for generating propositional content. If this false, then simply move up the evolutionary scale
until arriving at an organism with sufficient neural complexity.
106

Plantinga, Where the Conflict, 327.

26

A helpful example illustrating Plantinga’s claim is the hyper-sensitive agency
detection device (HADD, for short).107 HADD is a cognitive tool with the purpose of
triggering belief that agency is present within one’s environment. You’re walking down a
dark alley and hear a noise behind you. In this case HADD triggers a reflex of fear,
causing you to either fight or flee. Thus, HADD is a form of protection useful for survival
and thus under the power of selection. The upshot is that false positive triggers are also a
cheap form of protection: the noise in the dark alley is just the wind, yet HADD triggers
nonetheless. Why do false positives occur? They occur because nature selected affordable
mechanisms that provide adaptive behaviour.108 So HADD’s trigger does not depend on
the truth of the propositional content– i.e. according to the content that “it is true that
there is a predator behind me” – but rather according to the NP properties getting the
right parts in the right place in forming the reflexive reaction. In this case, the formation
of HADD does not depend on propositional truth but just adaptive behaviour.
If the formation of human cognitive faculties isn’t contingent on the content of
true belief, then why think that our cognitive infrastructure is reliable? According to
Plantinga, we should favour that P(R/N&E) is low or inscrutable. That is to say, like
Nietzsche and Darwin, we should doubt the reliability of human belief-forming faculties
given their evolutionary origin.109

107

Justin Barrett, “Finding agents everywhere,” in Why would anyone believe in God? (AltaMira
Press: Walnut Creek, 2004).
108

Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker (London: Penguin Books, 1986), 9.

109

For more discussion, see Alvin Plantinga’s “A New Argument Against Materialism,”
Philosophia Christi, vol. 14, No.1 (2012): 9-27; and Alvin Plantinga and Michael Tooley, Knowledge of
God (Oxford: Blackwell, 2008).

27

2. Remaining premises
Suppose the naturalist accepts that P(R/N&E) is low or inscrutable, what follows?
The second premise indicates that if premise one is true, then one acquires a defeater for
R. Suppose there is a toxic drug called XX that after consumption results in unreliable
cognitive faculties. Suppose that Mary consumes XX. The result is that she now faces a
defeater that undermines the reliability of her cognitive faculties: that is, she faces a
defeater for R. As such, accepting premise one is analogous to consuming XX. Mary is in
a state such that she cannot trust the reliability of her cognitive faculties.
Premises three and four state that if one acquires a defeater for R, then one also
acquires a defeater for all beliefs produced by R. But if this is true, then one should doubt
the belief that both naturalism and evolution are true.110 In other words, according to
Plantinga naturalism in conjunction with evolution provides reason to doubt that both
naturalism and evolution are true. It follows that if the premises are true, then the
conclusion must be true and naturalism cannot be rationally accepted. As Ruse
comments, if Plantinga is right, then everything “collapses into a contradictory mess, the
whole Darwinian epistemology ends in a reductio ad absurdum.”111
3. Responses to EAAN
In what follows, I consider some objections to EAAN and responses to these
objections and then bring EAAN into sharper focus with the Scope Objection.

110

Plantinga, Where the Conflict, 343-5.

111

Ruse, The Philosophy, 149. This isn’t quite right. It’s not DE that ends up in a contradictory
mess but rather metaphysical naturalism. DE does not imply that naturalism is true. DE is a research
program that examines the descriptive properties responsible for reliable cognition and assesses their
implications for epistemology. Plantinga’s EAAN is perfectly consistent with the evolution of reliable
cognitive faculties (although Plantinga himself remains skeptical as such), provided God directs the genetic
mutations according to a good design plan aimed at truth.

28

i. Thomas Crisp’s weaker EAAN
One criticism to EAAN is that it is likely that evolution would have supplied
reliable faculties in common-sense domains.112 For example, individual organisms within
a population applying reliable perception are likely to survive and reproduce. In light of
this objection, Thomas Crisp defends a weaker version of EAAN. Crisp attacks
naturalism by assigning a low probability to the reliability of recondite philosophical
faculties.113 His argument can be formulated as such: P(Rr/A&E) is inscrutable, where Rr
is the probability that recondite philosophical faculties are reliable, A is atheism, and E is
the fact that human cognitive faculties are the product of evolution.114
Why think that P(Rr/A&E) is inscrutable? According to Crisp, it is inscrutable
because human faculties result from the blind, unguided forces of evolution. How does a
blind process responsible for the selection of adaptive traits within a population favour
abstract philosophical faculties?115 Or suppose that human philosophical faculties are by-

112

Evan Fales, “Darwin’s Doubt, Calvin’s Calvary,” in Naturalism Defeated? Essays on
Plantinga’s Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism, ed. James Beilby (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University
Press, 2002), 43-60; Brandon Fitelson and Elliot Sober, “Plantinga's Probability Arguments Against
Evolutionary Naturalism,” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 79:2 (1998): 115–129; Jerry Fodor, "Is Science
Biologically Possible?" in Beilby, Naturalism Defeated?, 30-42; William Ramsey, “Naturalism Defended,”
in Beilby, Naturalism Defeated?, 15-29. Ernest Sosa also hints at this form of response but in support of
the weaker argument for EAAN, by distinguishing Descartes’ notion of reflective knowledge. According
to Sosa, Plantinga’s aim is similar in that Descartes underwrites his epistemology by virtue of the reliability
in God’s epistemological provision, unlike naturalism. Ernest Sosa, “Plantinga’s Evolutionary
Meditations,” in Naturalism Defeated? Essays on Plantinga’s Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism
ed. James Beilby (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2002), 100-2.
113

Thomas M. Crisp, “An Evolutionary Objection to the Argument from Evil,” in Evidence and
Religious Belief (eds. Kelly James Clark and Raymond Van Arragon; Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2011), 123-4.
114

Crisp, “An Evolutionary,” 116.

115

Crisp doesn’t seem to provide an argument for why this is true, however. Crisp merely
rehearses the same sort of support common with this rebuttal; namely, that our philosophical faculties are
unreliable because they are disconnected from the reliability attributed to adaptive advantage.

29

products of evolution – faculties existing on the basis of other adaptive traits.116 Crisp
grants the possibility, but suggests there is no good argument supporting this claim.117
Crisp’s version of EAAN is important for articulating Plantinga’s weaker EAAN. But
first, there is an important objection to both Plantinga and Crisp that requires attention.
ii. Michael Bergmann and Common-sense Naturalism
Michael Bergmann criticizes both accounts of EAAN. Bergmann argues that
even if the naturalist accepts that P(R/N&E) is low, this does not amount to a defeater for
R. The naturalist may draw upon non-propositional evidence following Thomas Reid’s
common-sense epistemology to support N. This move justifies R even if one holds that
P(R/N&E) is low or inscrutable.118 In support of this rebuttal, Bergmann appeals to
Plantinga’s response to the problem of evil.119
In responding to the problem of evil, Plantinga argues that even if we have good
circumstantial evidence against a belief that p, we may rationally hold p so long as we
obtain additional non-propositional evidence. Suppose there’s good circumstantial
evidence claiming that you stole a letter from work. You respond to the charges with an
116

Stephen Jay Gould and Richard Lewontin, “The Spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian
Paradigm: A Critique of the Adaptationist Program,” Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Series B,
Vol. 205, No. 1161 (1979): 581-598. Crisp allows this possibility, and yet seems to think that we have no
good argument for supporting this claim. As we have seen, Sober and Ruse reject this line of thought.
117

Myron A. Penner raises an important point here. Suppose that the faculties responsible for nonadaptive beliefs are simple by-products of evolution, as Crisp grants. Isn’t this fact sufficient to undermine
premise 2 without explicating the evolution of practiced naturalness? If so, then this would be another way
to reject premise 2 of the scope objection. This point may raise additional questions about whether spandrel
accounts of non-adaptive cognition satisfy externalist accounts of justification for non-adaptive beliefs. But
these questions are beyond the scope of this project.
118

Michael Bergmann, “Commonsense Naturalism,” in Naturalism Defeated? Essays on
Plantinga’s Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism (ed. By James Beliby; Cornell University Press,
2002), 82-8.
119

Alvin Plantinga, “Epistemic Probability and Evil,” in Daniel Howard-Snyder,
ed., The Evidential Problem of Evil (Bloomington: Indiana University Press,
1996), 69-96.

30

alibi: you remember walking in the woods at the time of the theft. Your colleagues
disagree; they doubt that you were walking in the woods at the time of the theft and
maintain that the circumstantial evidence overrides your alibi. Consider then the
following: P (W/k) is low, where W represents you walking in the woods at the time of
the theft, and k is the circumstantial evidence claiming that you stole the letter. Suppose
that both you and your colleagues agree that P(W/k) is low. Even if this is true, Plantinga
argues that you have access to non-propositional evidence unavailable to your colleagues,
such as your memory. If your memory provides a sufficient and reliable experience, then
you are rational to believe that W is true despite the fact that P(W/k) is low.120 Plantinga
responds to the problem of evil in a similar way. Despite the circumstantial evidence
from evil against God’s existence, theists may support belief that God exists provided
they obtain sufficient, non-propositional evidence.
Bergmann applies Plantinga’s response to the problem of evil to criticize EAAN.
Even if the naturalist accepts premise 1, they may appeal to their non-propositional
common-sense beliefs in support of naturalism. Following Thomas Reid’s definition of
common sense, Bergmann considers the faculty responsible for generating the emotion of
ridicule; Reid says:121
We may observe that opinions which contradict first principles are distinguished
from other errors by this; that they are not only false, but absurd: and, to
discountenance absurdity, nature has given us a particular emotion, to wit, that of
ridicule, which seems intended for this very purpose of putting out of countenance
what is absurd, either in opinion or practice.122
120

Plantinga, “Epistemic,” 89. See also Thomas M. Crisp, “An Evolutionary Objection to the
Argument from Evil,” in Evidence and Religious Belief, eds. Kelly James Clark and Raymond Van
Arragon (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 123-4.
121

Thomas Reid, Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1969), 593,
630; also see Bergmann’s interpretation of Reid, “Commonsense,” 593, 630.
122

Thomas Reid, Essays, 606.

31

According to Bergmann, the atheist may appeal to non-propositional commonsense beliefs to support their recondite philosophical belief. Plantinga replies to
Bergmann, but more relevant for the present purpose is Crisp’s response:
Why don’t I have such non-propositional evidence for my belief that my
philosophical faculties are reliable? I don’t experience any emotion of ridicule
when I entertain the possibility that my cognitive faculties are unreliable with
respect to obtuse philosophical matters far removed from the everyday concerns
of life. That possibility doesn’t strike me as crazy or ridiculous. I don’t notice any
powerful seeming or seeing to be true when I consider the proposition that my
philosophical faculties are reliable; it doesn’t strike me as just obvious that they
are. In fact, when I consider the multitude of crazy views philosophers have
defended over the centuries and the rampant disagreement among philosophers
over almost of everything of substance, I find it wholly unobvious that we
humans, myself included, have reliable philosophical faculties.123
Crisp asks how the faculty responsible for the emotion of ridicule (or any common-sense
faculty) could substantiate the warrant for recondite philosophical beliefs. It is unclear
why appealing to common sense warrants beliefs beyond the scope of common-sense
domains. Bergmann must defend this explanatory gap.
4. Plantinga’s weaker EAAN
Plantinga’s recent version of EAAN grants Crisp’s weaker argument:
Perhaps those faculties that produce beliefs that appear to be relevant to survival
and reproduction are more likely to be reliable than those faculties that produce
beliefs of other kinds. For example, one might think that perceptual beliefs are
often more likely to be relevant to adaptive behaviour than beliefs about, say, art
criticism, or postmodernism, or string theory.124
Consider the following argument by Plantinga: P(MR/N&E) is low, where MR is the
proposition that metaphysical faculties (and philosophical faculties generally) are formed
in a reliable way and generate true belief. Even in this case, naturalism in conjunction
123

Crisp, “An Evolutionary,” 124-5.

124

Plantinga, Where the Conflict, 348.

32

with evolution undermines MR. So, according to Plantinga the probability that
philosophical faculties are reliable given naturalism and evolution remains low or
inscrutable.
Summary:
Plantinga allows Crisp’s version of EAAN for argument’s sake, accepting the
reliability of common-sense faculties. Thus, Plantinga’s weaker EAAN – that
P(MR/N&E) is low – grants that adaptive, common-sense faculties deliver true, commonsense beliefs. But why think that Plantinga’s weaker argument is true? Why think that
evolution accounts for reliable, common-sense faculties at all? Plantinga only grants the
argument. Establishing the evolution of reliable common-sense cognition requires
additional support.
II. GRIFFITHS AND WILKINS’ EVOLUTIONARY SUPPORTING ARGUMENT
Paul Griffiths and John Wilkins (hereafter, GW) argue that evolution would have
selected reliable common-sense cognition. GW then argue that common-sense reliability
substantiates scientific beliefs but not moral and religious beliefs. My purpose for the
Scope Objection is to focus on the first part of GW’s argument regarding the selection of
common-sense faculties.
A. True Belief and Pragmatic Success
GW defend their evolutionary supporting strategy by focusing on the link
between true belief and pragmatic success. Before defending this claim, GW respond to
two challenges of evolutionary skepticism, outlined in the following argument:125

125

Griffiths and Wilkins, “When do evolutionary”; See also Paul Griffiths and John Wilkins,
“Evolutionary Debunking Arguments in Three Domains: Fact, Value, and Religion,” (forthcoming) In A
New Science of Religion, eds. James Maclaurin Greg Dawes (Routledge).

33

6. Evolution did not select for truth-tracking unless truth-tracking coincides with
fitness.
7. The fittest belief forming mechanisms are not always those designed to produce
the largest proportion of true beliefs, or the most accurate beliefs.
8. Therefore, we should not have a general expectation that evolved organisms will
track truth.
GW focus on premise seven, suggesting that: (i) fitness-tracking and truth-tracking
coincide, even though (ii) evolution also selected unreliable cognitive faculties. These
two claims require closer examination.
In support of (i), GW describe the evolution of frog communication. Although
frogs normally use vocalization to communicate with their conspecific, they have also
developed communication by leg-waving.126 There are two advantages to leg-waving.
First, leg-waving is quiet, thereby increasing the avoidance of predators. Second, leg
waving is advantageous in noisy environments because of its visual cue. But what was
the target of selection, quiet leg-waving or visible leg-waving? Even if the target of
selection was one feature over another, this does not imply that each target is an
alternative to fitness. That is, it makes no sense to say that evolution selected for visible
leg-waving or fitness. Both targets of selection, jointly or individually, have the potential
for contributing to the overall fitness of frogs. In a similar way, truth-tracking is not an
alternative to fitness but remains a property for contributing to fitness. Even if another
feature was selected over truth-tracking, this does not preclude truth-tracking and does
not imply that evolution selected for fitness over truth.
126

Griffiths and Wilkins, “Evolutionary Debunking.”

34

The main point is that truth-tracking and fitness tracking are not alternative targets
of selection; and, thus, truth-tracking coincides with fitness. Truth-tracking is a measure
of ecological interaction exhibited by an organism in correlation with its environment.127
If an organism tracks truth more effectively than its conspecific, change within the
population would have been more likely to favour truth-tracking. Thus, (i) is probably
true.
The second claim is that evolution was more likely to have selected unreliable
cognitive faculties. But according to GW, even if this is true, it doesn’t follow that
evolution failed to select for truth-tracking. That is because truth-tracking is a property of
fitness, as (i) contends, and that fitness determines the degree to which truth-tracking
applies. That is, truth-tracking is under the constraint of overall fitness. Consider GW’s
argument in support of (ii):
9. If our evolved cognitive mechanisms were not selected for tracking truth, then
either they are not adaptations, or they were selected for some other, substantial
ecological benefit.
10. The hypothesis that human cognitive mechanisms are not adaptations is highly
implausible because they are so expensive.
11. So, our evolved cognitive mechanisms are probably adaptations.
12. If they are not adaptations for truth-tracking, then they must be adaptations for
something else.

127

Griffiths and Wilkins, “Evolutionary Debunking.”

35

13. But it’s hard to see what cognition could be selected for other than tracking
truth.128
14. So, our evolved cognitive machinery has evolved for truth-tracking.”
GW defend premise ten by detailing the cost of the human brain. One fundamental
constraint to selection is cost. The human brain is only 2% of total body mass, yet it
requires 20% total oxygen to function. Thus, following premises nine and ten, human
cognitive mechanisms are costly and are therefore adaptations. Premises twelve and
thirteen support truth-tracking as the only viable explanation for why human faculties are
adaptations. In order to reject these premises, critics must suggest another reason why
human cognitive mechanisms are adaptations. So, the conclusion follows.
The argument suggests that evolution selected for truth-tracking faculties in order
to maximize fitness, provided this selection was not overly disadvantageous. If that is
right, then it becomes easier to understand why (ii) is true, but does not preclude the
selection of reliable cognitive faculties, since fitness constrains truth-tracking.
Therefore, even if premise eight is true, it doesn’t imply that evolutionary
processes failed to select cognitive capacities that track truth. This latter claim is perfectly
consistent with both objections from evolutionary skepticism, provided fitness constrains
truth-tracking and both modes of tracking coincide
B. Common-sense Beliefs and Pragmatic Behaviour
According to GW, a precise definition of a truth-tracking cognitive faculty
includes the following: “Organisms track truth optimally if they obtain as much relevant
128

Some find this premise controversial. But GW already state that its controversy hinges on
critics demonstrating that truth-tracking was necessary for some other cognitive advantage. Until critics
provide such an account, premise thirteen seems prima facie true.

36

truth as they can afford, and tolerate no more error than is needed to obtain it.”129
Common-sense beliefs follow suit. Common-sense beliefs may be false in certain
domains since they are the product of faculties forged in the struggle for survival. Hence,
common-sense faculties generated true belief only insofar as fitness required.130
In support of GW’s claim, consider again Reid’s common-sense epistemology in
relation to cognitive science. Reid argues that common-sense faculties should be
considered reliable unless shown otherwise. According to cognitive scientist Justin
Barrett, Reid’s common-sense faculties resemble non-reflective beliefs in naïve physics:
belief in other minds and that biological species give birth to their own kind.131
The problem with naïve physics is that they are restricted to specific domains,
producing false beliefs beyond the scope of their design.132 Anthropologist Scot Atran
argues,
By nature, human minds everywhere are endowed with common sense. They
possess universal cognitive dispositions that determine a core of spontaneously
formulated representations about the world. The world is basically represented in
the same way in every culture. Core concepts and beliefs about the world are
easily acquired . . . yet they are restricted to certain cognitive domains and are
rather fixed.133
In short, non-reflective, common-sense faculties that include naïve physics generate true

129

Griffiths and Wilkins, “Evolutionary Debunking.”

130

See also John Maynard Smith, “Optimization Theory in Evolution,” Annual Review of Ecology
and Systematics 9 (1978): 32.
131

Justin Barrett, Cognitive Science, Religion, and Theology: From Human Minds to Divine
Minds (PA: Templeton Press, 2011), 87-95; Barry Smith, “Formal Ontology, Commonsense, and Cognitive
Science,” accessed December, 2012, http://ontology.buffalo.edu/focscs.pdf; Reid, “An Inquiry,” 23; Clark
and Barrett, “Reidian,” 8.
132

Boulter, “The evolutionary argument,” 376; Scot Atran, Cognitive Foundations of Natural
History: Towards an Anthropology of Science (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 263-4.
133

Scot Atran, Cognitive Foundations, 263-4.

37

belief, but remain defective in various circumstances beyond the scope of their proper
function.134 But this seems to be enough to defend GW’s claim.
Although naïve physics generate false beliefs in certain domains, this does not
preclude their truth-tracking potential.135 Moreover, true beliefs delivered by naïve
physics would have resulted in pragmatic behaviour. Consider perceptual faculties.
Although fallible, perception tracks truth in domains necessary for enhancing fitness (e.g.
navigating uneven terrain, night vision, and so forth.) Even if perceptual faculties
function in unreliable ways (say, by creating optical illusions), they still track truth within
the normal environment for which they were designed. So, evolution selected faculties
responsible for common-sense naïve physics so long as those faculties generated
pragmatic beliefs and were not adverse to overall fitness.
Summary:
GW argue that evolution selected reliable common-sense faculties that function
according to the overall fitness of an organism. In defense of this claim, GW clarify the
false distinction between truth-tracking and fitness-tracking such that truth-tracking is a
property contributing to fitness and not an alternative to fitness. Correcting the distinction
between the two forms of tracking solves the second problem of unreliable cognition.
Evolution would have selected some unreliable cognitive faculties only when truthtracking interfered with overall fitness. With these details in place, consider the Scope
Objection in detail.
134

Steven Boulter argues that common sense gets it wrong when we attempt to solved questions
about the intricate laws of the universe; but this is not the domain of common sense. All that is required for
common sense to function properly is to form true belief about space and time – two conditions necessary
for us to study the intricate laws of the universe. See footnote 164.
135

Helen De Cruz notes that naïve physics can still generate false beliefs within their proper
domain. This is true, but does not undermine the main point that at least some common-sense mechanisms
like naïve physics do function reliably.

38

III. The Scope Objection
Plantinga grants that evolution supplied reliable common-sense faculties while
GW support this weaker claim. The point of contention is whether evolution accounts for
the reliability of faculties in non-adaptive domains of belief. Consider now the Scope
Objection to DE.
15. DE is plausible only if evolution supplied us with the natural cognitive capacities
for achieving non-adaptive beliefs.
16. Evolution did not supply us with the natural cognitive capacities for achieving
non-adaptive beliefs.
17. So, DE is implausible.
The Scope Objection concludes that DE is implausible since evolution did not supply
reliable cognitive faculties for producing non-adaptive beliefs. Consider each premise
more closely.
Premise twenty-three states a necessary condition for the plausibility of DE. In
order to achieve DE, evolution must have supplied the right cognitive faculties for nonadaptive belief. This seems uncontroversial since DE requires non-adaptive beliefs. That
is, if evolution did not supply faculties responsible for non-adaptive beliefs, then how
could the non-adaptive application of DE ground itself within evolution?
Premise twenty-four is more controversial. It denies that evolution supplied the
required belief-forming faculties for achieving DE. That is to say, evolution only supplied
reliable faculties in common-sense domains, not faculties responsible for systematic
theories of epistemology. If this is right, then the conclusion follows. But why think that
this premise is true? Why think that evolutionary processes cannot account for the
39

reliability of faculties in non-adaptive domains? As we shall see, there are two ways to
respond to this premise. The first way is to postulate scientific hypotheses that support
the evolution of such faculties, while the second way includes assessing whether or not
such a process is even logically possible.136
IV. Conclusion
In this chapter, I briefly examined Plantinga’s EDA and Griffiths’ and Wilkins’
common-sense ESA. Although these authors argue beyond my respective claims, my
purpose is to establish a general consensus that evolution supplied reliable, commonsense cognition. Thus, we can present the Scope Objection to DE: that evolution did not
supply us with the natural cognitive capacities for achieving non-adaptive true beliefs. In
the next chapter I reject the Scope Objection by nuancing the term natural cognition and
by offering reasons for thinking that evolution supplied faculties responsible for nonadaptive beliefs

136

I will consider the importance of logical possibility in the next chapter. In particular, the claim
that logical possibility is a weak standard for truth.

40

Chapter 3
The Evolution of Practiced Natural Cognition
In this chapter I respond to the Scope Objection by denying its second premise:
that evolution did not supply us with the natural cognitive capacities for achieving nonadaptive true beliefs. I evaluate Robert McCauley’s distinction between maturationally
natural cognition and practiced natural cognition and note how the application and
evolution of practiced naturalness is sufficient for defending the plausibility of DE. My
response to the Scope Objection requires defending two contentions. First, I nuance the
term “natural” in order to distinguish between two types of natural cognition, one of
which overcomes evolved limitations. Second, I assess two criteria necessary for the rise
of science as an example of practiced natural cognition and note how evolution supplied
faculties as such.137 If this is true, then it seems plausible that evolution supplied the
natural cognition responsible for non-adaptive beliefs more generally, including
systematic theories of epistemology.
I. Natural Cognition and the Scope Objection
In this section I examine McCauley’s definition of natural cognition and then
consider the implications for the Scope Objection. McCauley notes that evolution would
have supplied common-sense cognition, but that these capacities are insufficient for
generating non-adaptive beliefs.138 If natural cognition only specifies maturational
naturalness, then the Scope Objection succeeds. But limiting the definition of natural
cognition in this way is false, according to McCauley. Humans also possess practiced

137

McCauley, Why Religion, 107-8, 138.

138

McCauley, Why Religion, 106-7.

41

natural capacities that provide cognitive abilities beyond common-sense domains.139
A. Natural Cognition
Natural cognition generates skills non-reflectively. This means that humans can
apply cognitive abilities without the need for deliberation, unlike reflective skills that
operate slowly and require deliberation. The primary mode of reflective development is
through the process of reading off already instilled mental tools responsible for nonreflective beliefs. A man runs out of a retail store with a large bulge in his shirt knocking
over the store clerk. Several non-reflective mental tools participate to create a single
reflective belief: that the man is shoplifting.140
According to McCauley, non-reflective skills divide into two natural types:
maturationally natural and practiced natural. Maturational natural skills include walking,
chewing, and speaking, as well as believing in naïve physics. These types of skills are
universal across cultures, since they require almost no specialized training. Conversely,
practiced natural capacities include driving a car and playing the piano, as well as
believing and applying advanced logic and math, extracting DNA and so forth.141
Practiced skills differ across cultures, since they require specialized training and support.
1. Maturational and Practiced Naturalness
Maturational natural skills generate considerable knowledge about the
environment and it is likely that humans possess these common-sense capacities because
of their adaptability. But these common-sense faculties remain limited in scope since
139

Although McCauley seems skeptical that evolution could have supplied faculties as such; see
McCauley, Why Religion, 107-8.
140

Barrett, “Cognitive Science,” 77-80.

141

I’m thankful to Helen De Cruz for clarifying some factual errors about the nature of practiced

naturalness.

42

their reliability operates within specific domains. This limitation carries significant
implications for the Scope Objection. According to the second premise, evolution did not
supply us with the natural capacity to form non-adaptive true belief. If by “natural” one
delineates only maturational naturalness, then the second premise is true. To see this,
consider the implications for perceptual and inferential faculties. Both sets of faculties
function well within their respective domains but fail to generate true belief beyond the
scope of their design. In other words, they fail to function in a reliable way in nonadaptive domains of belief.
i. Maturational Natural Perception
According to McCauley, the limitation of perceptual faculties is clear by
considering a variety of optical illusions. In many cases, we cannot overcome optical
illusions without additional tools and support. Take for example the Adelson
checkerboard illusion. In figure 1.1 below, the picture on the left hand side displays two
boxes A and B with slightly different shades of grey. The second figure on the right hand
side illustrates that A and B are in fact identical shades of grey.

43

Overcoming the illusion requires attaching A and B with a grey line, since maturationally
natural cognition requires additional support. We must utilize independent tools in order
to overcome these common-sense biases.
McCauley considers the Muller-Lyer Illusion. Figure 1.2 illustrates a similar
common-sense deficiency: that we are unable to overcome the persistence of certain
optical illusions without independent support.
Figure 1.2

The bottom line appears shorter than the top line; while measuring both lines establishes
their equal length. McCauley notes that the Muller-Lyer Illusion provides two conflicting
beliefs: we perceive one line longer than the other while simultaneously believing that
this observation is false.142
Optical illusions do not imply that all perceptual faculties are unreliable. In fact,
some optical illusions can be overcome by closing one’s eyes and changing
environments. This fact presupposes some basic reliability.143Nevertheless, it is clear that
perceptual faculties generate false beliefs when operating in environments beyond the
scope of their design. This observation shouldn’t be surprising, since these faculties were

142

McCauley, Why Religion, 3.

143

McCauley, Why Religion, 43. See also Jerry Fodor, The Modularity of Mind (Cambridge: MIT
Press, 1983); and also Robert McCauley and J. Henrich, “Susceptibility to the Mull-Lyer Illusion, Theory
Neutral Observation, and the Diachronic Cognitive Penetrability of the Visual Input System.”
Philosophical Psychology 19, (2006): 79-101.

44

forged within a particular environment for adaptability.144 When these faculties operate in
environments foreign to their design, optical illusions persist.
Suppose we defend an evolutionary supporting strategy for perceptual cognition.
That is, we attempt to ground the reliability of perceptual faculties within an evolutionary
story. If by “natural” we imply maturationally natural, then the result is an effective
debunking argument, since evolution also supplied unreliable perceptual faculties. More
specifically, one might postulate a Scope Objection against the reliability of evolved,
perceptual faculties given their evolutionary origin.145 Thus, an ESA supporting human
perceptual faculties delineating only maturationally naturalness is found wanting.
Consider now non-adaptive beliefs more specifically. Similar to perception,
McCauley notes that the maturational, common-sense capacity for logical inference
suffers a similar deficiency.
ii. Maturational Natural Logic
The Scope Objection to DE becomes clear when assessing logical and inferential
abilities. In support of this claim, consider the Wason Selection Task Experiment.146
Leda Cosmides and John Tooby illustrate the inability for accurately inferring
conditionals presented in abstract ways. Consider the following:

144

Evolutionary psychologists identify mental modules that would have been selected by
evolution for their domain specific functions. As discussed in chapter two, common-sense faculties like
naïve physics are not always perfect or optimal. Still, they function reliably within domains relevant for our
evolved ancestors. McCauley, Why Religion, 54; See also Tremlin, Minds and Gods, 37-9.
145

This type of argument raises other limitations of our perception. Our evolved perception does
not provide true belief about many counter-intuitive theories accessed by science. Authur Eddington’s “two
tables” illustrates the point. The everyday solid table described by common sense is actually mostly empty
space. See McCauley, Why Religion, 109. I doubt this would amass to a powerful debunking argument. But
the point is that some debunking arguments assume that evolved, natural cognition only includes
maturationally naturalness.
146

McCauley, Why Religion, 56-7.

45

A

B

2

3

“If a card has a vowel on one side, then it has an even number on the opposite side.
Assuming that each of these cards has a letter on one side and a number on the opposite
side, indicate only those cards(s) that you definitely need to turn over in order to ascertain
that this conditional is true.”147 The correct answer is A and 3. Now consider a second
example:

Drinking
Beer

Drinking
Coke

25 years
old

16 years
old

“If a person is drinking beer, then he or she must be over 20 years old. Assuming that
each of these cards has information about what a person is drinking on one side and about
his or her age on the other, indicate only those card(s) that you definitely need to turn
over in order to ascertain if any of these people are breaking this law.”148 Both tests share
the same logical form. And yet participants are more successful with the second test.
They answer correctly by flipping the cards “drinking beer” and “16 years old.”
Wason’s test reveals the limitations of maturational, common-sense faculties such
that they operate correctly only within their proper domain. Participants score higher on
the second test because the description is in sociological terms, conducive to human
common-sense outputs. This observation fits well with understanding the nature and
limitations of evolved minds, since evolution supplied cognitive adaptability and not

147

I adopt McCauley’s version of the test; see McCauley, Why Religion, 56-57.

148

McCauley, Why Religion, 57.

46

abstract reflection.149 Moreover, the test exposes the limits of common-sense inferences
applied in non-adaptive ways. When the test describes abstract scenarios, applicants
commit logical fallacies like affirming the consequent. Thus, the scope of maturationally
natural skills remains limited, and therefore we have a Scope Objection against the
reliability of logical inference.
If by “natural” we imply only maturational capacities, then the non-adaptive
practice of DE remains implausible. But we needn’t limit the definition of “natural” in
this way. According to McCauley, humans possess practiced natural cognition capable of
overcoming maturational biases.
iii. Practiced Natural Logic
If the term natural cognition includes practiced naturalness, then maturational
limitations can be overcome. Consider again Wason’s experiment. In order to
successfully answer both tests, participants must apply the inference modus ponens (i.e. if
p then q, p, therefore, q) and modus tollens (i.e. if p then q, not ~q, therefore, not ~p), as
well as to avoid committing the logical fallacy of affirming the consequent (i.e. if p then
q, q, therefore, p). By practicing these rules of deductive inference, humans are able to
overcome maturational natural biases about logic and form true beliefs in abstract
domains. Therefore, even if human natural cognition suffers from evolved constraints and
is unreliable in certain domains, this does not preclude the ability to overcome and
generate true non-adaptive beliefs.
The main point is that there are obvious cases in which practiced natural
applications of deductive inference are reliable. This does not imply that a full-blown
epistemology of practiced natural knowledge succeeds. Indeed, human faculties continue
149

McCauley, Why Religion, 106-7.

47

to generate false beliefs even after the application of reliable deductive inference occurs.
Nevertheless, rejecting the Scope Objection only requires a sound picture of practiced
natural reliability and not a robust theory of practiced natural epistemology.150
Summary
It is clear that maturationally national cognition and its common-sense outputs
remain limited in scope. Although these cognitive faculties generate true belief within
their respective domains, they are unreliable beyond the scope of their design. If by
“natural cognition” the second premise delineates only maturational naturalness, then the
Scope Objection succeeds. However, my first contention clarifies the term “natural
cognition” to include practiced naturalness. If humans possess practiced natural skills,
then maturational biases can be overcome.
The first contention provides minimal support for DE, since an evolutionary
account of practiced naturalness remains essential. I proceed then to examine the strength
of my second contention that grounds practiced natural cognition and skills within human
evolution.
II. The Evolution of Practiced Natural Cognition
In this section I argue that evolution supplied practiced natural cognition and
skills. By way of example, I assess two criteria listed by McCauley as necessary
conditions for the rise of science and then figure how recent theories of cognitive
evolution satisfy these conditions. This does not suggest that these conditions are
sufficient. Perhaps future scientific discovery will yield new evidence for strengthening
(or weakening) the proposal. However, if current theories from cognitive evolution are
accurate, then we shouldn’t be surprised that evolution forged cognitive capacities for
150

I’m thankful to both Helen De Cruz and Myron A. Penner for clarifying this issue with me.

48

non-adaptive beliefs. If this is right, then it seems plausible that evolution supplied
faculties responsible for non-adaptive beliefs more generally, including systematic
theories of epistemology.
A. Preliminaries
Some preliminaries are required. First, there is divergence over whether theories
of cognitive evolution succeed. Lewontin remains skeptical, while others continue to
project “hypotheses” for describing cognitive evolution, both with respect to biological
organisms generally and human faculties in particular. Second, critics undermine
adaptationist theories of cognitive evolution as nothing more than “Just so” stories.151
But this objection is irrelevant for my purpose. Recall that affirming the weaker form of
DE does not require defending epistemic justification. Perhaps it is nothing short of a
lucky fluke that evolutionary processes generated reliable faculties for non-adaptive
beliefs. Indeed, perhaps the truth of this claim is forever inscrutable. Either way, it is not
logically impossible for evolutionary processes to succeed in producing faculties as such,
in conjunction with the fact that skeptics lack any obvious undercutting defeater for my
objection to premise two.
B. Two Criteria for the Rise of Science
McCauley credits the first criterion for the rise of science to Aristotle’s claim that
“All men by nature desire to know.”152 Aristotle argues the search for knowledge is the
fulfillment of human nature. Humans not only possess faculties for practical reasoning,

151

See Stephen J. Gould, “Evolution: The Pleasures of Pluralism,” New York Review of Books
(1997); for response, see Ernst Mayr, “How to Carry Out an Adaptationist Program,” The American
Naturalist, Vol. 121, no. 3. (1983): 324-334.
152

McCauley, Why Religion, 107.

49

but, according to Aristotle, possess a rational mind for theoretical reflection.153 In order
for human beings to flourish, they must apply intellectual virtue, by learning to “plan and
deliberate, to ponder alternatives and strategize, and generally to chart courses of
action.”154 Similarly, scientific reflection requires that its practitioners apply cognitive
abilities above adaptive means. More precisely, science requires abstract thought beyond
the scope of common-sense faculties.
The second criterion necessary for the rise of science is external media, including
tools, writing, and symbolic notation. External media is necessary for recording counterintuitive data and providing criticism of non-adaptive beliefs. Moreover, external media
allows scientific theories to be publicly accessible. Public awareness and accessibility
provides a means for peer review and accountability, safeguarding against poorly devised
theories.155 Hence, in order for science to emerge and succeed, humans rely on the
embeddedness of human cognitive outputs.156
The two necessary conditions required for the rise of science are faculties for
theoretical reflection and faculties responsible for external media. I argue that these two
conditions are rooted within human cognitive evolution. For brevity, I’ll define the
former as theoretical faculties and the latter as outsourcing faculties.157

153

Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, trans. David Ross (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009),
vi 8 1143a35-b5.
154

Christopher Shields, “Aristotle's Psychology", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed.
Edward N. Zalta, accessed September 20, 2013, http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2011/entries/aristotlepsychology/
155

McCauley, Why Religion, 140.

156

McCauley, Why Religion, 94-5.

157

McCauley refers to the former as “speculative” faculties; see McCauley, Why Religion, 101.

50

1. The Evolution of Practiced Naturalness
Recent theories that support the evolution of practiced naturalness include a
family of hypotheses, such as: environmental complexity, external media, niche
construction, social living, and theory of mind. I briefly consider each hypothesis and
then figure how each contribute to my second contention. I’ll then summarize and assess
Sober’s evolution of rationality thesis to show that the evolution of practiced naturalness
is not logically impossible. Although logical possibility establishes very little, it becomes
more relevant when operating in conjunction with a no-defeater clause, whereby we
possess no good reason for denying such possibility.
i. Environmental Complexity Thesis
In order to postulate the evolution of practiced natural cognition, it is necessary to
state the conditions required for the evolution of theoretical faculties. One necessary
condition for the rise of science includes possessing cognitive faculties capable of
overcoming common-sense bias. Maturationally natural capacities deliver true belief
within their limited scope but are in conflict with the scientific capacity to form nonadaptive beliefs. The environmental complexity thesis states that some organisms possess
cognitive flexibility for dealing with environment change. That is, organisms possess
faculties with greater plasticity for responding to environmental pressure. If this is right,
then it is possible to imagine environmental complexity as a foundation for future
developments of human cognition operating in non-adaptive ways.158
Peter Godfrey-Smith argues that organisms display first and second order
behaviour. First order behaviour is an organism’s response to their environment in a fixed
158

Godrey-Smith argues just this, but is careful to state that the environmental complexity thesis is
only a general foundation for developing future theories of cognitive evolution.

51

way, while second order behaviour profiles the ability to learn from experience.159
Individuals within a population that exhibit the ability to adjust to the complexity of their
environment may have garnered advantage over those lacking the ability. Environmental
complexity includes behaviour within a species, seasonal changes, disease and predation
that force individuals to respond in specific ways. The implication is that over time
evolution may have selected organisms with an assorted cognitive tool kit with a
diversity of behavioural responses.160 Analyzing human cognitive evolution requires
exploring this type of cognitive tool kit, one that is not fixed or closed in shaping
cognition but rather open and flexible for allowing greater plasticity.161
We might extend the idea of cognitive plasticity with Ernst Mayr’s closed and
open behaviour program.162 According to Mayr, a closed program is one innately
acquired and cannot be altered by experience. Organisms possess a nervous system that
instills a variety of behaviours determined by its genetic makeup. The closed genetic
program states that nothing can be inserted into the organism’s behavioural outputs. This
implies that animals will react to their environment in a rigid way, since the genotype
159

Peter Godfrey-Smith, Complexity and the Function of Mind in Nature (Cambridge University
Press, 1998), 26. For his more recent work, see: “Environmental Complexity and the Evolution of
Cognition,” In The Evolution of Intelligence, eds. R. Sternberg and J. Kaufman Lawrence (Erlbaum
Associates, 2001).
160

See also Stephen Boulter, “The Evolutionary Argument the Metaphilosophy of
Commonsense,” Biology and Philosophy (2007): 375.
161

Ernst Mayr, “Behavior Programs and Evolutionary Strategies,” American Scientist Vol. 62, no.
6 [November 1976]: 3-11. See also Ernst Mayr, Evolution and the Diversity of Life (Cambridge, Mass.: The
Belknap Press, Harvard University Press, 1976), 2.
162

It’s important to note that Mayr was at odds about the evolution of human cognition, thinking
the probability of such an event was astronomically low. See Mayr, “Can SETI Succeed? Not Likely.”
Bioastronomy News, vol. 7, no. 3 (1995): 3-11. Helen De Cruz argues that the gosling example does not
support my second contention, since the gosling’s mapping abilities does not illustrate practiced
naturalness. It is true that the gosling does not reflect practiced naturalness, but this isn’t the point. Rather,
the idea is to demonstrate the building blocks necessary for practiced naturalness to be realized.

52

responsible for shaping the nervous system determines the type of behavioural program
they will possess.163 In other words, a closed program determines behaviour that includes
cognitive capabilities lacking any plasticity.
Mayr defines the open behaviour program to include input to the organism from
the external world. This means that new information inserts into the behavioural program
of the nervous system. A certain species of goose exhibit an open program when goslings
consider the first moving object they hear as the biological parent.164 This experience
affects the gosling’s nervous system, leading to altered types of behaviour that include
abandoning the biological parent. In this case, the gosling’s behaviour follows external
indicators rather than innate instinct.165 This process of imprinting new information into
the behavioural program of the organism incurs advantage over the closed, genetic
program that remains fixed.166
Applying Mayr’s thesis to the evolution of the human mind, Popper argued that
an open program includes the possibility for personal reflection, especially about one’s
environment. As such, Popper speculates into the rudimentary evolution of decision
making; he states:
Ecological conditions like those that favor the evolution of open behavioral
programs sometimes also favor the evolution of the beginnings of consciousness,

163

Mayr, “Behavior Programs,” 3-11

164

See also Konrad Lorenz, Evolution and Modification of Behavior (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1965); and Lorenz, The Year of the Graylag Goose (Hardcourt Brace Javanovich, 1979).
165

Mayr, “Behavior Programs,” 3-11.

166

Mayr, “Behavior Programs,” 3-11.

53

by favoring conscious choices. Or in other words, consciousness originates with
the choices that are left open by open behavioral programs.167
Although Popper argues that decision making (and consciousness more specifically)
reflects an emergent property, the rudimentary building blocks are indeed evolutionary.
Here Popper cites Richard Dawkins, who argues that natural selection would have
favoured organisms that simulate hypothetical scenarios. By postulating counter-factual
intuitions, organisms create mechanisms for avoiding danger.168 Evolution may still have
determined a probabilistic outcome, but the open program allows the input of information
independent from the organism’s innate restrictions.169
One final consideration is Kim Sterelny’s thesis of decoupled representation.
Following the work of Godfrey-Smith, Sterelny focuses on organisms’ ascending grades
of belief. Initial grades include beliefs necessary for survival – beliefs responsible for
navigation, for example – and trigger reflexive behaviour without any deliberation.170
The final grade of belief Sterelny calls “decoupled representations”: that is, “…internal
states that track aspects of the world, but which do not have the function of controlling
particular behaviors.”171 These functions are not fixed but allow for reflective awareness

167

Karl Popper, “Natural Selection and the Emergence of Mind,” in Evolutionary Epistemology,
Rationality, and the Sociology of Knowledge, eds. Gerard Radnitzky and W.W. Bartley (Illinois: Open
Court: 1987), 150-1.
168

Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976), 62. Keith Ward
makes a similar point about the nature of consciousness, that is “the carrier of possibilities;” see Keith
Ward, “God as the Ultimate Informational Principle,” in Information and the Nature of Reality: From
Physics to Metaphysics, eds. Paul Davies and Niels Henrik Gregersen (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2010), 287.
169

Popper, “Natural”, 150-1.

170

Kim Sterelny, Thought in a Hostile World: The Evolution of Human Cognition (Oxford:
Blackwell, 2003). 14.
171

Sterelny, Thought, 29.

54

of one’s environment, particularly one’s social environment. He goes on to argue that
applying decoupled representations as a way of forming complex behavior only appears
late in the evolutionary process, specifically with primates. And although it is not explicit
that decoupled representations form actual beliefs, it is reasonable to infer that they are
“belief like”.172
The environmental complexity thesis supports the development of non-adaptive
beliefs. These types of beliefs originate from cognitive flexibility and may have
contributed to human cognitive evolution. If human ancestors possessed the cognitive
capacity for reflecting about the environment, then this may account in part for the
evolution of theoretical faculties. Of course these hypotheses remain speculative and do
not assume that such behaviour programs would instill reliable faculties. Nevertheless,
the evolution of practiced natural skills would require some rudimentary capabilities
beyond closed programs. As Godfrey-Smith argues, perhaps these “open” evolutionary
trajectories provide a foundation for understanding cognitive evolution.
As already noted, however, possessing theoretical faculties remain insufficient for
the rise of science. As indicated by McCauley, science requires the embeddedness of
cognitive outputs, contingent on tools and technology. Without the outsourcing of
theoretical reflections to the objective world, science would be impossible.
ii. External Media Thesis
According to McCauley, science requires extending non-adaptive theories to the
objective world by external media in order for those theories to receive criticism. Within

172

See Wayne Christensen, “The decoupled representation theory of the evolution of cognition– a
critical assessment,” British Journal of Philosophy of Science (2009); H. Dreyfus, “The Return of the Myth
of the Mental,” Inquiry 50 (2007): 352-365; J McDowell, “What Myth?” Inquiry 50 (2007): 338-351.

55

the past thirty-thousand years Homo sapiens have dominated more than any
representative in their genus, largely because of mastering tools and technology.173
Archeologists have discovered tools and forms of communicative art dating back to the
late Pleistocene era, suggesting that humans orchestrated forms of communication
through external media.174
A good example illustrating the human ability to outsource maturational
knowledge is temperature.175 According to Helen De Cruz et al., human bodies generate
reliable thermoreception necessary for regulating body temperature. But experience of
temperature does not always provide an accurate reading because the sensitivity of
human receptors varies across the body. For example, the human scalp is sensitive to cold
in order to protect the brain from excessive cooling; but the scalp is not a reliable source
of detecting temperature.176 This type of thermoreception is sufficient for survival but
remains unreliable when operating beyond its domain. Overcoming thermoreceptive bias
requires outsourcing maturational experience of temperature to independent external
media like thermometers. Thermometers placed in a fixed position detect temperature
independent of maturational bias. The point is clear: humans output their maturational
knowledge to the external world by way of tools and technology, thereby allowing
greater control of the environment.
Tools and technology allow humans to control their environment. Control of the
environment ensures theoretical activities divorced from adaptive struggles: activities like
173

Tremlin, Minds and Gods, 21-3.

174

De Cruz et al., “Evolutionary Approaches,” 532.

175

De Cruz et al., “Evolutionary Approaches,” 532.

176

De Cruz et al., “Evolutionary Approaches,” 532.

56

philosophy, art, and scientific theorizing.177 This type of cognitive niche, along with
applying methods of external media, may have provided the right conditions for
theoretical and outsourcing faculties to flourish and, thus, responsible for realizing the
growth of scientific inquiry.
There are good reasons for grounding theoretical and outsourcing faculties within
an evolutionary story. This does not imply that all such faculties would have generated
true beliefs. Indeed, in many cases practiced natural faculties would have generated false
beliefs. As already noted, however, this observation needn’t interfere with the fact that
some practiced natural capacities function reliably in tracking truth, even if such
mechanisms operate in a more rudimentary sense.178
With these details in place, Steven Pinker’s recent thesis about the evolution of
cognitive faculties in non-adaptive domains is relevant because he considers both
conditions respectively. The general idea is that Homo sapiens evolved within a cognitive
niche: an environment shaped by hominid cognitive abilities.
iii. Pinker’s Niche Construction and Metaphorical Abstraction Thesis
Pinker outlines his ESA for non-adaptive belief by assessing two hypotheses. The
first hypothesis is niche construction. It is not uncommon for species to improve their
environment for increasing survival and changing their evolutionary trajectory.179 Pinker

177

Tremlin, Minds and Gods, 23.

178

I’m thankful to Helen De Cruz for correcting this essential part of the argument.

179

See also K.N Laland and G.R. Brown, “Niche Construction, Human Behavior, and the
Adaptive-Lag Hypothesis”, Evolutionary Anthropology, 15, (2006): 95–104; De Cruz, “Evolutionary
Approaches,” 531; See also Kim Sterelny, “Externalism, Epistemic Artefacts and the Extended Mind,” in
The Externalist Challenge. New Studies on Cognition and Intentionality, ed. by Richard Schantz (New
York: de Gruyter, 2003).

57

argues that the same type of environmental change occurred with Hominids. He inquires
into Wallace’s skepticism about the explanatory force of natural selection, stating:
…Nonetheless it is appropriate to engage the profound puzzle [Wallace] raised;
namely, why do humans have the ability to pursue abstract intellectual feats such
as science, mathematics, philosophy, and law, given that opportunities to exercise
these talents did not exist in the foraging lifestyle in which humans evolved and
would not have parlayed themselves into advantages in survival and reproduction
even if they did?180
In response to Wallace, Pinker argues that humans evolved within a cognitive niche. A
cognitive niche is a mode of survival characterized by humans’ control of their
environment through reasoning and social interaction.181 Niche construction alters a
species’ environment and therefore affects the selective pressure attributed to that
species.182
Pinker’s niche construction thesis is important because it suggests that human

180

Steven Pinker, “The cognitive niche: Coevolution of intelligence, sociality, and language,” see
also Steven Pinker, How the Mind Works (New York: WW Norton and Company, 1997), 186-90.
181

Pinker, “The cognitive.” Pinker’s theory rests on the original thesis by J. Tooby and I. DeVore,
“The reconstruction of hominid evolution through strategic modeling” in The Evolution of Human
Behavior: Primate Models, ed. W. Kinzey (SUNY Press: Albany, 1987).
182

Pinker notes that language also became a necessary adaptation. In fact, the debate between
language and the explanatory scope of natural selection is wide and diverse. Linguistic EDAs closely
resemble Noam Chomsky’s resistance to a Darwinian explanation of the design and incorporation of a
linguistic automaton. Chomsky argues: “In studying the evolution of mind, we cannot guess to what extent
there are physically possible alternatives to, say, transformational generative grammar, for an organism
meeting certain other physical conditions characteristic of humans. Conceivably, there are none – or very
few – in which case talk about evolution of the language capacity is beside the point. Noam Chomsky,
Language and Mind (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1972), 98. The late Stephen Jay Gould agrees with
Chomsky, insisting that the evolution of some language faculty is a by-product of evolution; he states:
…The universals of language are so different from anything else in nature, and so quirky in their structure,
that origin as a side consequence of the brain’s enhanced capacity, rather than a simple advance in
continuity from ancestral grunts and gestures, seems indicated. Stephen Jay Gould, “Tires to Spandrels.”
Natural History, 8-15. Naturally, others reject Chomsky and Gould’s objections. Steven Pinker and Paul
Bloom argue that “Many people have argued that the evolution of the human language faculty cannot be
explained by Darwinian natural selection. Chomsky and Gould have suggested that language may have
evolved as the by-product of selection for other abilities or as a consequence of as-yet unknown laws of
growth and form…We conclude that there is every reason to believe that specialization for grammar
evolved by a conventional neo-Darwinian process.” Steven Pinker and Paul Bloom, “Natural Language
and Natural Selection.” Behavioural and Brain Sciences, vol. 13 (1990): 707. See also John Searle, The
Rediscovery of the Mind (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1992), 88, 244-5.

58

cognitive evolution included the freedom to practice theoretical reflection and apply
external media. Presumably, organisms that applied practiced naturalness would only
pass down their genes to future generations provided it was not adverse to selection.183
The second arm of Pinker’s thesis includes the ability to perform “metaphorical
abstraction.” Cognitive faculties necessary for projecting concrete beliefs also have the
capacity to form metaphorical abstractions. In support of this claim, Pinker considers
psycholinguistic scenarios. The sentences “Rose forced the door open” and “Rose forced
Sadie to go” differ in their usage of the verb “force.” The first sentence reflects a concrete
idea, while the second illustrates a metaphorical abstraction. Pinker suggests that
grammatical faculties utilize concrete descriptions of “force” to then postulate
metaphorical abstractions of the same concept. As such, faculties typically reserved for
adaptive purpose – that is, faculties necessary for concrete descriptions – may create
abstract concepts analogous to non-adaptive beliefs. If this is right, and given the right
cognitive niche, then evolution may have supplied faculties with the capacity in forming
non-adaptive beliefs.
183

A relevant digression from Pinker’s niche construction thesis includes assessing more
specifically the environment in which Homo sapient brains evolved. Sterelny’s recent work, The Evolved
Apprentice, details the immense social life of early Hominins, and the fast progression from the great ape
lineage. Sterelny analyzes the “Social Intelligence Hypothesis”, by which he argues that human, cognitive
evolution depends largely on internal psychological features relevant for social cohesion; see Sterelny, The
Evolved, 6-9. A great deal more could (and should) be said about Sterelny’s thesis, especially the focus of
“positive feedback loops” that provide a bedrock for cognitive plasticity and learning. It is because
Hominins developed adaptive learning skills with each other, as well as passing down these skills to the
next generation, that gave way for Homo sapient adaptability within various environments.
Sterelny’s account also motivates other similar theses. As Hominins evolved into larger groups,
selection included social pressure within kin. Humans must regularly detect cheaters, free loaders, friends,
and enemies, as well as comprehend group politics, etiquette, and cultural queues in order to flourish. In
other words, following Popper’s thesis, within a social environment human survival required a keen sense
of intuition, postulating choices, and tentatively simulating hypothetical scenarios; See Karl Popper,
“Natural,” 62. See also R.I.M Dunbar, “The Social Brain Hypothesis and Its Implications for Social
Evolution,” Annals of Human Biology 36 (2009): 562-72; and Dunbar, “Brain and Behaviour in Primate
Evolution,” in Mind the Gap. Tracing the Origins of Human Universals, eds. P.M Kappeler and J.B. Silk
(Berlin: Springer, 2010), 315-30; Todd Tremlin, Minds and Gods, 33-4.

59

We possess a wide range of theses for defending my second contention. Although
controversial, theories of cognitive evolution provide some support for understanding the
evolution of the faculties responsible for the rise of science. In other words, we possess
accounts depicting the evolution of theoretical and outsourcing faculties and, thus, the
evolution of practiced naturalness.
Now suppose these accounts amount to “Just so” stories, as Lewontin argues. Even
if we reject these hypotheses as scientifically untenable, it is not logically impossible for
evolutionary processes to have generated faculties operating in non-adaptive domains.
Not only does the evolution of practiced naturalness seem logically coherent, but, unless
we have some undercutting defeater, we should accept its plausibility. I want to conclude
this section by considering Elliot Sober’s evolution of rationality thesis and then bring the
Scope Objection into focus.
iv. Sober’s Evolution of Rationality Thesis
Sober argues that natural selection is sufficient for supporting the non-adaptive
belief responsible for the scientific method.184 Sober defends this claim by responding to
the charge that “an evolutionary account of the origins of rationality is impossible
because natural selection is too coarse-grained a process to single out the scientific
method from innumerable other, less rational, procedures for constructing beliefs out of
other beliefs.”185 This view requires two assumptions: (i) the rationality responsible for
the scientific method does not incur reproductive benefit to its practitioners; and (ii) even
if (i) is false, the rationality responsible for the scientific method holds equal value with

184

Elliot Sober, “The Evolution of Rationality,” Synthese 46: 95-120.

185

Sober, “The Evolution,” 98.

60

irrational faculties, such that either faculty would have been selected. Thus, according to
the truth of (i) and (ii), it is unlikely that evolution forged cognition responsible for nonadaptive belief including the scientific method.
Sober thinks that (i) requires two distinct types of cognition: practical cognition
responsible for survival and non-adaptive cognition responsible for the scientific
method.186 If this assumption is right, then evolution did not select the rationality
responsible for the scientific method. Sober rejects the assumption, and argues that even
if (i) is true, it doesn’t follow that cognition responsible for science does not emerge over
evolutionary history.
In response to assumption (ii), Sober considers different inductive scenarios
where each scenario holds equal potential for being selected. Consider the predicates “is
green’ and “is grue,” where “grue” refers to “all emeralds are green before a time t and
blue after t…” famously described by Nelson Goodman.187 Goodman supports the truth
of both predicates given our observation. But according to Sober, the former satisfies the
principle of parsimony, and, thus, cognition yielding to simplicity would have been
selected for.188 Commenting on Sober’s estimation of Goodman, Ruse states:
The Proto-human who sat around worrying about grue may have been the better
philosopher but it is doubtful that he or she was fitter in the Darwinian sense than the
simple minded proto who was satisfied with thinking green.189
Cognition that delivers basic induction would be selected for depending on both its
success and its simplicity. And because of this basic process, it would not be unusual for
186

Sober, “The Evolution,” 99.

187

Nelson Goodman, Fact, Fiction, and Forecast (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press,

188

Sober, “The Evolution,” 109.

189

Ruse, The Philosophy, 142.

1955).

61

an enhanced faculty of induction responsible for science to emerge over the course of
evolutionary history.190
The same argument for the evolution of induction applies to non-adaptive
beliefs.191 Non-adaptive beliefs are the product of cognitive capacities selected because of
their success and their simplicity well before those non-adaptive beliefs are realized.
According to Sober, then, practical cognition operating over time generates the nonadaptive rationality responsible for the scientific method.192 If Sober is right, then the
evolution of practiced naturalness is not logically impossible. Moreover, unless we
possess some defeater for thinking otherwise, we should accept its plausibility.
Therefore, we can support the second contention by appealing to both recent scientific

190

See also Hilary Kornblith, Inductive Inference and Its Natural Ground: An Essay in
Naturalistic Epistemology (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1993), 91.This isn’t describing an evolutionary
argument for induction, but rather and evolutionary explanation for the origin of induction. W.V.O Quine
already explains the problem with evolutionary arguments for induction, he says: “One part of the problem
of induction, that part that asks why there should be regularities in nature at all, can, I think, be dismissed.
That there are or have been regularities, for whatever reason, is an established fact of science; and we
cannot ask better than that. Why there have been regularities is an obscure question, for it is hard to see
what would count as an answer. What does make clear sense is this other part of the problem of induction:
why does our innate subjective spacing of qualities accord so well with the functionally relevant groupings
in nature as to make our inductions come out right? Why should our subjective spacing of qualities have a
special purchase on nature and a lien on the future? There is some encouragement in Darwin. If people’s
innate spacing of qualities is a gene-linked trait, then the spacing that has made for the most successful
inductions will have tended to predominate through natural selection. Creatures inveterately wrong in their
inductions have a pathetic but praiseworthy tendency to die out before reproducing more of their kind.”
W.V.O Quine, Ontological Relativity and Other Essays (New York: Columbia University Press, 1969),
126-7. But Quine doesn’t think this is an evolutionary argument to justify induction. In a later piece Quine
clarifies his view: “I am not appealing to Darwinian biology to justify induction. This would be circular,
since biological knowledge depends on induction. Rather, I am granting the efficacy of induction, and then
observing that Darwinian biology, if true, helps explain why induction is as efficacious as it is.” W.V.O.
Quine, “The nature of natural knowledge,” in Mind and Language: Wolfson College Lectures (Clarendon
Press: Oxford, 1975),70.
191

For the same application for abduction, see P. Carruthers, Human Knowledge and Human
Nature: A New Introduction to an Ancient Debate (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992).
192

Daniel Dennett makes a similar point, see Darwin’s Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the
Meanings of Life (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995), 491. See also Steven Pinker’s point, and one
closely resembling this thesis, that overcoming our biological constraints in mathematics simply requires
“hard work.” Steven Pinker, “How the Mind Works,” in Philosophy after Darwin: Classic and
Contemporary Readings, ed. Michael Ruse (New Jersey: Princeton, 2009), 281.

62

theorizing as well as affirming its logical consistency in conjunction with a no-defeater
clause.
C. The Scope Objection Revisited
With these details in place, consider again the Scope Objection to DE.
1. DE is plausible only if evolution supplied us with the natural cognitive capacities
for achieving non-adaptive true beliefs.
2. Evolution did not supply us with the natural cognitive capacities for achieving
non-adaptive true beliefs.
3. So, DE is implausible.
Why should we think that premise two is true? We possess a number of evolutionary
explanations necessary for supplying the natural cognition for achieving non-adaptive
true beliefs. In the very least premise true remains controversial. Indeed, suppose we
grant Lewontin’s skepticism that theories of cognitive evolution are beyond the scope of
science, there are still viable philosophical reasons for rejecting premise two. It is not
logically impossible and we possess no immediate defeater undermining the evolution of
practiced naturalness. Thus, we have good reasons for rejecting the Scope Objection to
DE.
Summary:
The evolution of practiced naturalness is not scientifically inexplicable and not
logically impossible. Moreover, at present we possess no defeater for thinking otherwise.
Conversely, all things considered, such an evolutionary story seems perfectly suitable for
scientific conjecture and falsification. If this is right, then evolution may have provided
the cognitive capacities for actualizing Aristotle’s claim, since human cognition is the
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product of a flexible and open behaviour program. Furthermore, the cognitive niche with
which primates have evolved and the human dependency on advanced tools and
technology provides a foundation for outsourcing theoretical beliefs. Our hominid
ancestors were not bound by maturational limitations and perhaps overtime this provided
the cognitive bedrock for overcoming common-sense biases and outsources non-adaptive
beliefs.
III. Conclusion
In this chapter I examined two types of natural cognition, whereby one type is
capable of overcoming the common-sense limitations of the other. I argued that we
possess a wide range of scientific hypotheses supporting the evolution of practiced
naturalness that may account for the rise of science and that such accounts are not
logically incoherent. Moreover, it is difficult to find any substantial defeater claim
undermining such evolutionary supporting strategies. Thus, the second premise of the
Scope Objection is false and DE remains plausible.

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Chapter 4
Objections, Responses and Conclusions
In this chapter I evaluate two objections to my solution to the Scope Objection.
First, I revisit Plantinga’s EAAN, focusing on the distinction between cognitive
indicators and true belief. If Plantinga is right, then some theories of cognitive evolution
amount to cognitive indication but not true belief. Second, I consider Lewontin’s
skepticism towards the theories of cognitive evolution. I argue that even if Lewontin is
right, this does not undermine DE in the restricted sense. That is to say, if DE only seeks
to substantiate cognitive reliability for producing truth, then Lewontin’s skepticism is
irrelevant to its plausibility.
I. Evolution, Cognitive Indication, and True Belief
I have been arguing that evolutionary processes would have been sufficient for
explaining the reliability of human cognitive faculties. The most popular objection to this
view is Plantinga’s recent version of EAAN.193 On the assumption that naturalism is true,
Plantinga argues that evolutionary processes cannot account for the production of true
belief. This is because the adaptability of human cognitive faculties is not contingent on
forming true belief.
Critics undermine Plantinga’s argument by describing cases where organisms
display belief formation incurring adaptive behaviour. But Plantinga rejects this move
because such accounts do not reflect propositional belief but cognitive indication;
Plantinga states:

193

This isn’t quite right and has been stated a number of times already, but deserves a reminder.
Plantinga’s EAAN is not focused on the descriptive story of evolution and cognitive reliability, but rather
on the implications for metaphysical naturalism. According to Plantinga, if one is a theist, then the
descriptive story being told throughout this project is perfectly consistent with theism.

65

Objection: consider a frog on a lily pad. A fly buzzes by; the frog’s tongue flicks
out and captures the fly. If this frog is to behave successfully, adaptively, there
must be mechanisms in it that register the distance to the fly at each moment, its
size, speed, direction, and so on. Aren’t these mechanisms part of the frog’s
cognitive faculties? And don’t they have to be accurate in order for the frog to
behave adaptively? And isn’t it therefore the case that the frog’s cognitive
mechanisms must be accurate, reliable, if the frog is to survive and
reproduce?...Reply: that frog clearly does have “indicators”, neural structures that
receive input from the frog’s sense organs, are correlated with the path of the
insect as it flies past, and are connected with the frog’s muscles in such a way that
flicks out its tongue and captures that unfortunate fly…Now if we like, we can
include these indicators under the rubric “cognitive faculties.” The important
point to see here, however, is that indication of this sort does not require belief. In
particular, it does not require belief having to do with the state of affairs
indicated; indeed it is entirely compatible with belief inconsistent with that state
of affairs.194
Plantinga understands cognitive indicators to include processes allowing organisms to
flee from predators, locate food, and find mates for reproduction. Indicators must
function properly in mapping the environment for producing adaptive behaviour.
Theories of cognitive evolution depict organisms that respond to their
environment in a similar way to Plantinga’s frog and then relate this belief-forming
process with the evolution of Homo sapiens. But if Plantinga is right, then this approach
remains unsupported because it confuses two types of cognitive outputs: indication and
belief content. In the least, proponents of DE must demonstrate a link between those
processes responsible for cognitive indication with the formation of true beliefs.
Consider Griffiths’ and Wilkins’ argument in light of Plantinga’s objection. GW
argue that evolution would have selected cognitive faculties responsible for commonsense beliefs that track true states of affairs:
Any plausible account of the evolution of these sorts of [common-sense] beliefs in
humans and other animals will be of the kind described in this section. At the
heart of that explanation will be the fact that animals can increase their fitness by
194

Plantinga, Where the Conflict, 328.

66

detecting states of affairs in the world and matching their actions to those states of
affairs.195
If GW’s argument assumes a type of cognitive indication, then their account fails to
incorporate belief content. And by extension, their attempt to link common sense with
non-adaptive belief becomes problematic. The implication is that the evolutionary
process described by GW is not one illustrating a belief-forming mechanism but mere
cognitive indication.196
Although GW’s argument may succumb to Plantinga’s objection, the theories of
cognitive evolution outlined in chapter 3 avoid this conundrum. That is because they do
not rely on a general conception of cognitive indication but rather postulate the evolution
of reflective mechanisms with the potential for realizing non-adaptive beliefs. For
example, Pinker’s thesis includes the concept of cognitive indication, but also establishes
a distinct thesis for analyzing non-adaptive belief: niche construction and metaphorical
abstraction. Similarly, Sterelny’s grades of “belief” include cognitive indication at the
rudimentary level, but it is precisely the nature of decoupled representation that reveals
something beyond mere indication. Finally, Popper’s emergence of mind provides a
complete break from cognitive indication. If Popper is right, then evolution may have
supplied the emergence of a distinct set of faculties responsible for more reflective
practice. Indeed, says Popper, these distinct faculties generate reflective awareness of
counter-factual intuition. This account remains distinct from Plantinga’s conception of
cognitive indication.
195

Griffiths and Wilkins, “When do Evolutionary.”

196

Myron A. Penner raises an important distinction here between reflective and non-reflective
outputs. Perhaps the necessary link situates within a type of dual process theory, whereby “cognitive
indicators” are analogous to our non-reflective mechanisms. These mechanisms function as the bedrock for
our non-reflective beliefs and their propositional content. If Penner is right, then this would salvage
Griffiths’ and Wilkins’ argument from Plantinga’s objection.

67

Although Plantinga’s distinction between cognitive indication and belief content
affects many types of supporting strategies – especially those theses focusing on common
sense – the theories outlined in the previous chapter seem immune to this charge.
II. Lewontin’s Skepticism
Lewontin has long been skeptical about the theories of cognitive evolution and
considers the project untenable. If Lewontin is right, then we must remain agnostic about
whether evolution supplied the cognitive capacities for achieving non-adaptive belief.
A. The Problem with Evolutionary Theories of Cognition
Lewontin’s skepticism situates within a larger debate between evolutionary
psychology and the non-adaptationist views of the late S.J Gould. Lewontin and Gould’s
article “The Spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian Paradigm” rejects a strict
adaptationist paradigm concerning evolutionary theory.197 They argue that many evolved
traits are spandrels (by-products) existing as necessities of other adaptive features. It is in
this context that Lewontin takes aim at evolutionary psychology and theories of cognitive
evolution, suggesting that such accounts fail to satisfy the demands of “real” science.198
Lewontin claims that we are missing essential clues within the fossil record for
hypothesizing about cognitive evolution. Furthermore, even if scientists possessed the
197

Also see the sociobiology of E.O Wilson. For a response to Gould and Lewontin, see Steven
Pinker and P. Bloom, “Natural Language and Natural Selection,” 707-784; Pinker, How the mind, chapter
3; Steven Pinker, “Evolutionary Psychology: An Exchange,” The New York Review, October 9, (1997): 556. See also Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker (Norton: 1986); and D. Queller, “The Spandrels of
St. Marx and the Panglossian Paradox: A Critique of a Rhetorical Programme,” Quarterly Review of
Biology, Vol. 70 (1995): 485-48. See Gould’s response to Pinker’s criticisms, S.J Gould, “Evolutionary
Psychology: An Exchange,” The New York Review, October 9, (1997).
198

See also Williams, G. C., 1966, Adaptation and Natural Selection (Princeton: Princeton
University Press); Michael Balter, “How Human Intelligence Evolved – Is it Science or ‘Paleofantasy’?”
Science 319 [5866]: 1028, accessed October 27 2013,
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/319/5866/1028a.; see also James Randerson’s review of
Lewontin’s speech, “We Know Nothing About Brain Evolution,” Guardian, accessed October 27, 2013,
http://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2008/feb/19/thedistinguishedbiologistpr.

68

necessary fossils for reconstructing the relevant traits for inferring about the evolution of
human faculties, the fossils remain difficult (perhaps impossible) to interpret in the right
way. Thus, Lewontin considers the task of reconstructing cognitive evolution near
impossible, and avoids “hypothesizing” in this way since these claims are beyond
verification.199 Even if these theories reflect reality, Lewontin argues that at best they
remain “Just so” stories beyond evidential support.
If Lewontin is right, then knowledge about whether evolution supplied the
cognitive capacities for achieving non-adaptive beliefs remains inscrutable. That is, we
can neither affirm nor deny the second premise of the Scope Objection. What follows
from this skepticism, if anything? Provided that we have overcome Plantinga’s objection,
DE remains immune to this charge. As Lewontin admits, it is trivial that evolution had
some bearing on human cognition, only that we lack knowledge about the process.200 But
if we have good reasons for thinking that humans evolved by evolutionary processes,
then presumably human faculties were included in the process. Indeed, perhaps nonadaptive beliefs are epistemic flukes, piggybacking off some other adaptive faculties. A
non-adaptive process of this sort would still generate reliable faculties. Exactly what type
of argument – save Plantinga’s – supports the second premise or even undermines
objections to it? Nagel just concedes the possibility of evolved practiced naturalness and
then proceeds to consider another objection. In other words, it seems prima facie that we

199

Lewontin, “The Evolution,” 129; Michael Bradie raises a similar concern, see his introduction
to evolutionary epistemology and the EEM program; see Michael Bradie and William Harms,
“Evolutionary Epistemology,” in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, accessed December 12, 2013.
http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2012/entries/epistemology-evolutionary/.
200

Lewontin, “The Evolution.”

69

should reject premise two until some undercutting defeater presents itself. Skepticism
towards premise two does not imply that the premise is true.
Summary:
Plantinga distinguishes between cognitive indication and belief content.
Assuming that Plantinga is right about this distinction, proponents of DE must postulate
the evolution of cognitive devices responsible for belief-formation in a more reflective
sense and not indicator outputs akin to common sense.
Lewontin remains skeptical about theories of cognitive evolution, considering
these hypotheses to be “Just so” stories beyond evidential scope. Thus, if Lewontin is
right, knowledge of premise two of the Scope Objection remains inscrutable. This
problem can be resolved provided we restrict DE to include only cognitive reliability for
producing true belief and not justification.
III. Conclusions and Problems for Further Thought
DE is controversial, creating divergence between proponents of ESAs and EDAs.
Some biologists and philosophers argue that evolutionary processes would have included
the formation of reliable faculties, while others contend that evolution precludes
reliability. Moreover, it is unclear how DE and epistemic justification coincide. For the
present purpose, the only priority has been to focus on the implications of evolution for
cognitive reliability and not justification. By restricting DE as such, I’m confident that it
overcomes the Scope Objection.
Overcoming the Scope Objection first requires nuancing the term “natural” to
distinguish between two types of natural cognition. Humans possess maturational natural
capacities responsible for common-sense beliefs. These capacities operate well within

70

their respective domain, but generate false beliefs beyond the scope of their design. We
also possess practiced natural capacities. These capacities enable us to generate nonadaptive beliefs, provided we apply the right tools and training.
The second requirement for overcoming the Scope Objection must ground
practiced naturalness within evolutionary theory. One must demonstrate how
evolutionary processes supplied practiced natural cognition and skills. Here we possess a
wide range of scientific and philosophical theses that demonstrate the evolution of
practiced naturalness responsible for the rise of science. From this premise it seems
plausible that evolution supplied cognitive capacities for non-adaptive beliefs more
generally, including systematic theories of epistemology.
The obvious problem with the current project is that a restriction on DE such that
one precludes justification undermines the main focus of epistemology. The history of
inquiring into knowledge and rational belief centers on epistemic justification. If DE
includes the concept of justification, then overcoming the Scope Objection may be more
difficult. In any event, proponents of DE must begin postulating ways to overcome Scope
Objections pertaining to evolutionary justification and not just speculating into
evolutionary accounts supporting cognitive reliability.

71

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