Philosophical Considerations on the Validity of the Scope of Adaptationist Reductionism of Literary Darwinism in its Strongest Version
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14393/LL63-v35n1a2019-3Keywords:
Literary Darwinism, Adaptationist, Philosophy of Mind, Narrative, Philosophy of Science and AestheticsAbstract
In this article, we put forward some philosophical considerations about the legitimacy of the reductively adaptationist proposal of the Literary Darwinism in its strongest version. We gravitate around the texts of Joseph Carroll exactly for being the most radical version of Literary Darwinism in terms of its reductive and adaptationist pretensions. Our intention is, by means of a constructive critique, to re-delineate the scope of validity of such a naturalistic proposal and to show in which directions such a proposal have to proceed in order to both argue for its validity and to assume its limitations. After a short introduction that situates the general context for the understanding of such theme, our first section is a methodological digression on the “adaptationist program of social sciences” and a debate on its foundations, showing our partial adherence to the program and highlighting the contrasts to Carroll’s standpoint. The next section explains why a philosopher of the mind with naturalistic inclinations could have (at least, partially) a common agenda with the Literary Darwinist but also emphasizes our criticism to what we consider a certain level of naivety or Panglossian attitude towards the alleged achievements of Literary Darwinism as a branch of the “adaptationist program of social sciences”. The take home message is that we believe Literary Darwinism should resort to a more consilient theoretical pool and have its pretensions of scope diminished to be a more accurate and powerful explanatory tool.
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