DARWIN AND THE FUNCTIONALIST APPROACH TO MODERN PSYCHOLOGY Talk at the Darwin Day Collegium Budapest, 9 February 2009

1. DARWIN AND THE FUNCTIONALIST APPROACH TO MODERN PSYCHOLOGYTalk at the Darwin Day Collegium Budapest, 9 February 2009 CSABA PLÉH Dept of Cognitive Science, Budapest U. of Technology and Economics pleh@cogsci.bme.hu

2. Outline • Psychology as a science of role hybridization • Darwinism and street level hibrids: three aspects of early psychological Darwinism • Bühler/Popper/Campbell/Dennett and the multiple selection fields • Debates on interpreting pan-adaptationism • Natural seelction and sexual selection • Present day evolutionary theories ad the biology-culture interface

3. Three hybridization models of the birth of modern psychology Kurt Danziger

4. The three domains • Wundt:experiments • Galton: mass data gathering • Charcot: hypnotizing

5. The adaptive message and functionalist psychology • Mental has to have a biological function • All mental should be looked in its process • Eveything to be looked at from two developmental perspectives: animals and children • Varieties and variations are key features of mental life

6. The structure of Darwinian theory (after Lewontin and others)

7. Three types of behavioral Darwinism • Comparative: from Romanes through Thorndike and ethology to Premack et al • Individual differences: from Galton to Cloninger • Epistemological - armchair and experiments: Mach to Dennett - babies as knowers: Baldwin to Tomasello and Gergely

8. The importance of James Baldwin (1861-1934) • evolution is too slow as a process • traditional view of inherited behavior is too passive. • Mechanisms are needed that speed up behavioral change and involve variation and activity on the part of the organism, without challening the separation of generation and selection 1. Organic selection. Change of niche today. 2. Learning based on reinforcement. 3. Imitation: a short cut for behavioral variations. 4. Social heritage.

9. since it is the one principle of Organic Selection working by the same functions to set the direction of both phylogenesis, the physical and the mental, the two developments are not two, but one. Evolution is therefore, not more biological than psychological (Baldwin, 1894)

10. The individual organisms accomodations ... • while not physically inherited , • still act to supplement or screen • the congenital endowment during its incomplete stages (1930) • Three ways to implement the • „New Factor”: • Epigenetic modulatory effects. Since the genetic makeup presupposes environmental effects and organistic „trials”, certain solutions here will have more survival value. • The habit system itself also shows a selection cycle. • 3. Habits develop cranes of developmentin the sense of Dennett (1994): man made cultural adaptations shape our epigenesis.

11. Dennett the essence of the Baldwin-effect is that creatures capable of reinforcement learning not only do better individually than creatures that are entirely hard-wired; their species will evolve faster because of its greater capacity to discover design improvements in the neighborhood.

12. Jacques Loeb 1900 avoid all teleology life biochemistry Darwinian functionalism dangerous blind mechanisms teacher to Watson the „pill” H. S. Jennings 1906 purposeful behavior survival functions Darwininian considerations in behavior studies Goals in behavior teacher to many evolutionists Two early animal behavior models.

13. we usually attribute consciousness to the dog, because this is useful; it enables us practically to appreciate, foresee, and control its actions [...] If an amoeba [...] were as large as a whale, it is quite conceivable that occasions might arise when the attribution to it of elemental states of consciousness might save the unsophisticated human being. The central nervous system participates in these functions as a conductor. The true problem with which the physiology of the reflexes is concerned is the mechanics of protoplasmic conductivity. This problem is no longer a biological problem but a problem of physical chemistry Jennings:intentionality Loeb mechnical model

14. E. B. Holt: level based description of behavior. Jennings and Loeb do not exclude each other • We tend to believe that behavior somehow is composed of reflex actions. This is entirely true on the level of process. But in this way, in the final analysis coral reefs consist of positive and negative ions, but the biologist, the geographer and the ship captain would not understand the essence of the matter by interpreting it this way. (Holt, 1915)

15. Karl Bühler and the proposal for a multifactored evolutionary account of mind For me, in Darwinism the concept of play field seems to be productive. Darwin has basically known only one such play field, while I point to three of them […] These three play fields are: instinct, habit and intellect (Bühler 1922, VIII.).

16. Bühler’s reconstructed view of multiple selections

17. Students/ followers of Bühler

18. Karl Popper on variation, selection, and change

19. Campbell's framework for evolutionary epistemology • Blind variation - selective retention 2. Vicarious selection: memorized knowledge fosters internal selection 3. „Nested hierarchy": a retained selector itself can undergo variation and selection by another selector

20. Selection levels according to Campbell

21. Where Bühler would be happy: Dennett’s conception of multiple selections • Different challenges and time constraints in differrent selections • Darwinian • Skinnerian • Popperian creatures

22. Gregory creatures as a subsample of Popperians Instruments selected as well Sky hooks and Cranes Thoughts and instruments as cranes

23. Two contemporary approches to evolution and psychology

24. Rebirth of intentionality in cognitvism • Intentionality in machines: is it primary or derived? • Do we have primary intentionality? • Folk psychology and the instrumentalism issue • What is really new? 1. combination of levels of explanation 2. Brentano and naturalization combined. ‘Hairy intentionality’ 3. „true genetic method”: evolution and babies 4. clarification of many ideas about action level 5. the idea of stances: in what sense are they real in the mind of everyone and tools of the scientist

25. Are folk psychology notions real like the bridge or phantoms like the kobold?

26. Is there progress in evolution? • A progressivist vision • and a varieties vision after Popper • We always fall back upon the tree of life progression idea • Can this equality be held regarding the domains of selection?

27. The ideological message of universal Darwinism 1. Our life is governed by blind forces rather than consciousness rational evaluation. ? Where is consciousness? 2. Whatever survives has a function. ? What if conditions change and it still survives? 3. All „human” matters obtain an explanation in competition and selection ? Exaptation, constraints and cultural evolution?

28. The issue of circularity. Panglossian functionalism • Three notions of function (Bekoff and Allen, 1995) Today: there since it works today Historical: e.g. ritualization in behavior Ability: time neutral, heart: pumps. • Panglossian problems: time neutral, does not allow change ‘just so stories’: Kipling, the nose of elephants e.g. talking in the dark and breeding,hunting as tales about the origin of language

29. Tinbergen „there is a certain tendency to answer the causal question by merely pointing to the goal, and or purpose of behavior” There are ways to avoid this: - combining distal and proximal explanation - allowing for and studying evolutionary dead ends

30. Apparent teleology in organisms (Ruse, 2000) • Classical design and providence arguments (Cuvier): derived from God • Darwin gives explanation for function via selection. Taken up by Fisher. Gould, Lewontin, Chomsky: not entirely blind, exaptation and structural constraints • Can we really forget teleological language? It is always art of the context of discovery: „as if” way of talking

31. Traditional oposition between biology and culture and its questioning by Hull (1982)

32. Possible relations between evolution and cultural rules • Law only expresses anevolutinary principle: Thou shall not kill ! • Law is a prefence between competing porinciples: Honor your father and your mother • Law is counterbalacing evolutionary tendencies, thereby its regulatiry functions: You shall not covet your neighbour’s wife…

33. Architectural issues. Modularity in the new EP theories Three visions of modularity (Cole, 1998)

34. A version by Steven Mithen Specialization followed by cross talk

35. Some new trends in EvoPsychol • Postulating mental as real • Natural selection and sexual selection together • Language and fitness • Combination of EvoDevo with Neuro • Allowing for programs of epigenesis

36. Canalization following Conrad WaddingtonMultiple canalizations

37. Real controversial issues • Exaptation versus adaptation • How to reconstruct the past • Appealing „Just so stories” • Cultural sampling and social networks • How to shape social policies e.g. based on Darwinian medicine?

38. Four fallacies of EvoPsychology:David Buller, 2009 • Fallacy 1: Analysis of Pleistocene Adaptive Problems Yields Clues to the Mind’s Design • Fallacy 2: We Know, or Can Discover, Why Distinctively Human Traits Evolved • Fallacy 3: “Our Modern Skulls House a Stone Age Mind”Fallacy 4: The Psychological Data Provide Clear Evidence for Pop EP • Fallacy 5: Total modularity

39. Some philosophical issues of EP (Ketljaar, Frankenhuis) • Develop testable predictions • Allow for co-development and environmental optimalization • Postulate rigid and flexible, early and late.g.face recognition,word learning • Do not expect engineering perfection • Cludges are important: tinkering (Lévi-Strauss, Jacob, Marcus)

40. Where is the future of EP and functionalism? • Combine theoretical functionalism with individual variation reserach • Serious interpretation of EvoDevo-Brain-genes interface • Put determinism into a proper frame • Clarify mutiple mappings between evolutionary tolls and social roles