Specter of Reason

In the London Review of Books , Peter Godfrey-Smith presents a very well-written and lucid criticism of Jerry Fodor and Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini's attack on evolutionary theory, What Darwin Got Wrong (2010). (For obvious reasons, I am going to refer to Fodor & Piattelli-Palmarini as F&P-P.) Their book has drawn lots of criticism from philosophers and scientists alike (e.g., here and here and here and here ), so much so that yet another criticism might look like overkill; however, Godfrey-Smith's analysis is quite accessible and a pleasure to read. I am not going to review his whole review. I just want to point out one weakness I have found in it, and then I want to address F&P-P's response . I have to question Godfrey-Smith on a point about counterfactuals. He notes that many philosophers discuss causality using counterfactuals, though he thinks this is optional. He says that, when we use counterfactuals to describe the causal relationships involved i...

Introduction In his introduction to Creativity, Cognition, and Knowledge: An Interaction ( 2002 ), the late Terry Dartnall challenges his fellow cognitive scientists to pay attention to Wittgenstein in order to understand the central role of creativity in human intelligence. I want to explain why I think he is right, and why I think just as much attention should be paid to Gilbert Ryle. The main issue is the relationship between rules and behavior, an issue which may seem simple, but which implicates our very conception of what it means to be a person. It is sometimes said that, whereas people are creative, computers can only do what they are programmed to do. The idea is that creativity cannot be wholly rule-based. Our intelligence cannot simply be a matter of following rules. However, the truth may be more complicated.  Contemporary wisdom has it that the right kinds of programs can lead to creative behavior. Take genetic algorithms. They involve controlled processes of r...