Evolutionary epistemology

Growth of knowledge

Evolutionary epistemology can also refer to a theory that applies the concepts of biological evolution to the growth of human knowledge, and argues that units of knowledge themselves, particularly scientific theories, evolve according to selection. In this case, a theory—like the germ theory of disease—becomes more or less credible according to changes in the body of knowledge surrounding it.

One of the hallmarks of evolutionary epistemology is the notion that empirical testing alone does not justify the pragmatic value of scientific theories, but rather that social and methodological processes select those theories with the closest "fit" to a given problem. The mere fact that a theory has survived the most rigorous empirical tests available does not, in the calculus of probability, predict its ability to survive future testing. Karl Popper used Newtonian physics as an example of a body of theories so thoroughly confirmed by testing as to be considered unassailable, but which were nevertheless overturned by Einstein's insights into the nature of space-time. For the evolutionary epistemologist, all theories are true only provisionally, regardless of the degree of empirical testing they have survived.

Process of discovering new abstract entities

Evolutionary epistemology can also refer to the opposite of (onto)genetic epistemology, namely phylogenetic epistemology as the historical discovery and reification of abstractions that necessarily precedes the learning of such abstractions by individuals. Jean Piaget dismissed this possibility, stating

The fundamental hypothesis of genetic epistemology is that there is a parallelism between the progress made in the logical and rational organization of knowledge and the corresponding formative psychological processes. Well, now, if that is our hypothesis, what will be our field of study? Of course the most fruitful, most obvious field of study would be reconstituting human history: the history of human thinking in prehistoric man. Unfortunately, we are not very well informed about the psychology of Neanderthal man or about the psychology of Homo siniensis of Teilhard de Chardin. Since this field of biogenesis is not available to us, we shall do as biologists do and turn to ontogenesis. Nothing could be more accessible to study than the ontogenesis of these notions. There are children all around us."

Piaget was mistaken in so quickly dismissing the study of phylogenetic epistemology, as there is much historical data available about the origins and evolution of the various notational systems that reify different kinds of abstract entity.

Karl Popper gave its first comprehensive treatment in his 1970 article "Sketch of an Evolutionary Epistemology", after Donald T. Campbell had coined the phrase in a letter to Popper in 1963. Campbell wrote on evolutionary epistemology in 1974; Piaget alluded to it in 1968 and described the concept as one of five possible theories in The Origins of Intelligence in Children (1936).

Criticism

In the scheme of K. Popper, the problem with which the process begins is not defined, making it impossible to predict the outcome to which the cycle of knowledge will lead.

P₁ → TT → EE → P₂

A problem (P₁) gives rise to attempts to solve it by tentative theories (TT). These are submitted to a critical process of error elimination (EE). The errors which we detect give rise to new problems (P₂).

Additionally, the "specifically human language" is not included in the operation of the scheme. If "All organisms are problem solvers: problems arise with the emergence of life", then death is the absolute problem that creates various derivatives (P_1,2,...,n), which are overcome by the evolution of life and knowledge.

If language is included in the operation of the scheme, then the issue of qualitative transitions in knowledge is addressed, where new levels of problems become accessible only with the presence of a new language. Just as the world of Planck units is described only with the language of Quantum mechanics, and not by correcting errors in Classical mechanics, which is not reflected in Popper's scheme. The proposed scheme involving language:

L₁ → P₁ → TT → EE → L₂ → P₂

Where L₁ is the language that allows one to see the problem; L₂ is the new language that allows one to see new spaces of problems.