Kim Sterelny's Books

Sex and Death

An Introduction to Philosophy of Biology

By: Kim Sterelny,Paul E. Griffiths

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Sex and Death

An Introduction to Philosophy of Biology

By: Kim Sterelny,Paul E. Griffiths

Is the history of life a series of accidents or a drama scripted by selfish genes? Is there an "essential" human nature, determined at birth or in a distant evolutionary past? What should we conserve—species, ecosystems, or something else? Informed answers to questions like these, critical to our understanding of ourselves and the world around us, require both a knowledge of biology and a philosophical framework within which to make sense of its findings. In this accessible introduction to philosophy of biology, Kim Sterelny and Paul E. Griffiths present both the science and the philosophical context necessary for a critical understanding of the most exciting debates shaping biology today. The authors, both of whom have published extensively in this field, describe the range of competing views—including their own—on these fascinating topics. With its clear explanations of both biological and philosophical concepts, Sex and Death will appeal not only to undergraduates, but also to the many general readers eager to think critically about the science of life.

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458

Publisher

University of Chicago Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

022617865X

ISBN 13

9780226178653

The Pleistocene Social Contract

Culture and Cooperation in Human Evolution

By: Kim Sterelny

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The Pleistocene Social Contract

Culture and Cooperation in Human Evolution

By: Kim Sterelny

Kim Sterelny here builds on his original account of the evolutionary development and interaction of human culture and cooperation, which he first presented in The Evolved Apprentice (2012). Sterelny sees human evolution not as hinging on a single key innovation, but as emerging from a positive feedback loop caused by smaller divergences from other great apes, including bipedal locomotion, better causal and social reasoning, reproductive cooperation, and changes in diet and foraging style. He advances this argument in The Pleistocene Social Contract with four key claims about cooperation, culture, and their interaction in human evolution. First, he proposes a new model of the evolution of human cooperation. He suggests human cooperation began from a baseline that was probably similar to that of great apes, advancing about 1.8 million years ago to an initial phase of cooperative forging, in small mobile bands. Second, he then presents a novel account of the change in evolutionary dynamics of cooperation: from cooperation profits based on collective action and mutualism, to profits based on direct and indirect reciprocation over the course of the Pleistocene. Third, he addresses the question of normative regulation, or moral norms, for band-scale cooperation, and connects it to the stabilization of indirect reciprocation as a central aspect of forager cooperation. Fourth, he develops an account of the emergence of inequality that links inequality to intermediate levels of conflict and cooperation: a final phase of cooperation in largescale, hierarchical societies in the Holocene, beginning about 12,000 years ago. The Pleistocene Social Contract combines philosophy of biology with a reading of the archaeological and ethnographic record to present a new model of the evolution of human cooperation, cultural learning, and inequality.

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203

Publisher

Oxford University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0197531407

ISBN 13

9780197531402

The Evolved Apprentice

How Evolution Made Humans Unique

By: Kim Sterelny

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The Evolved Apprentice

How Evolution Made Humans Unique

By: Kim Sterelny

A new theory of the evolution of human cognition and human social life that emphasizes the role of information sharing across generations. Over the last three million years or so, our lineage has diverged sharply from those of our great ape relatives. Change has been rapid (in evolutionary terms) and pervasive. Morphology, life history, social life, sexual behavior, and foraging patterns have all shifted sharply away from those of the other great apes. In The Evolved Apprentice, Kim Sterelny argues that the divergence stems from the fact that humans gradually came to enrich the learning environment of the next generation. Humans came to cooperate in sharing information, and to cooperate ecologically and reproductively as well, and these changes initiated positive feedback loops that drove us further from other great apes. Sterelny develops a new theory of the evolution of human cognition and human social life that emphasizes the gradual evolution of information-sharing practices across generations and how these practices transformed human minds and social lives. Sterelny proposes that humans developed a new form of ecological interaction with their environment, cooperative foraging. The ability to cope with the immense variety of human ancestral environments and social forms, he argues, depended not just on adapted minds but also on adapted developmental environments.

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259

Publisher

MIT Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0262526662

ISBN 13

9780262526661

Thought in a Hostile World

The Evolution of Human Cognition

By: Kim Sterelny

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Thought in a Hostile World

The Evolution of Human Cognition

By: Kim Sterelny

WINNER OF THE 2004 LAKATOS AWARD! Thought in a Hostile World is an exploration of the evolution of cognition, especially human cognition, by one of today's foremost philosophers of biology and of mind. Featuresan exploration of the evolution of human cognition. Written by one of today’s foremost philosophers of mind and language. Presents a set of analytic tools for thinking about cognition and its evolution. Offers a critique of nativist, modular versions of evolutionary psychology, rejecting the example of language as a model for thinking about human cognitive capacities. Applies to the areas of cognitive science, philosophy of mind, and evolutionary psychology.

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280

Publisher

Wiley-Blackwell

Published Date

ISBN 10

063118886X

ISBN 13

9780631188865

From Signal to Symbol

The Evolution of Language

By: Ronald Planer,Kim Sterelny

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From Signal to Symbol

The Evolution of Language

By: Ronald Planer,Kim Sterelny

A novel account of the evolution of language and the cognitive capacities on which language depends. In From Signal to Symbol, Ronald Planer and Kim Sterelny propose a novel theory of language: that modern language is the product of a long series of increasingly rich protolanguages evolving over the last two million years. Arguing that language and cognition coevolved, they give a central role to archaeological evidence and attempt to infer cognitive capacities on the basis of that evidence, which they link in turn to communicative capacities. Countering other accounts, which move directly from archaeological traces to language, Planer and Sterelny show that rudimentary forms of many of the elements on which language depends can be found in the great apes and were part of the equipment of the earliest species in our lineage. After outlining the constraints a theory of the evolution of language should satisfy and filling in the details of their model, they take up the evolution of words, composite utterances, and hierarchical structure. They consider the transition from a predominantly gestural to a predominantly vocal form of language and discuss the economic and social factors that led to language. Finally, they evaluate their theory in terms of the constraints previously laid out.

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293

Publisher

MIT Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0262045974

ISBN 13

9780262045971

What Is Biodiversity?

By: James Maclaurin,Kim Sterelny

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What Is Biodiversity?

By: James Maclaurin,Kim Sterelny

In the life sciences, there is wide-ranging debate about biodiversity. While nearly everyone is in favor of biodiversity and its conservation, methods for its assessment vary enormously. So what exactly is biodiversity? Most theoretical work on the subject assumes it has something to do with species richness—with the number of species in a particular region—but in reality, it is much more than that. Arguing that we cannot make rational decisions about what it is to be protected without knowing what biodiversity is, James Maclaurin and Kim Sterelny offer in What Is Biodiversity? a theoretical and conceptual exploration of the biological world and how diversity is valued. Here, Maclaurin and Sterelny explore not only the origins of the concept of biodiversity, but also how that concept has been shaped by ecology and more recently by conservation biology. They explain the different types of biodiversity important in evolutionary theory, developmental biology, ecology, morphology and taxonomy and conclude that biological heritage is rich in not just one biodiversity but many. Maclaurin and Sterelny also explore the case for the conservation of these biodiversities using option value theory, a tool borrowed from economics. An erudite, provocative, timely, and creative attempt to answer a fundamental question, What Is Biodiversity? will become a foundational text in the life sciences and studies thereof.

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231

Publisher

University of Chicago Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0226500829

ISBN 13

9780226500829

Language and Reality

An Introduction to the Philosophy of Language

By: Michael Devitt,Kim Sterelny

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Language and Reality

An Introduction to the Philosophy of Language

By: Michael Devitt,Kim Sterelny

What is language? How does it relate to the world? How does it relate to the mind? Should our view of language influence our view of the world? These are among the central issues covered in this spirited and unusually clear introduction to the philosophy of language. Making no pretense of neutrality, Michael Devitt and Kim Sterelny take a definite theoretical stance. Central to that stance is naturalism--that is, they treat a philosophical theory of language as an empirical theory like any other and see people as nothing but complex parts of the physical world. This leads them, controversially, to a deflationary view of the significance of the study of language: they dismiss the idea that the philosophy of language should be preeminent in philosophy. This highly successful textbook has been extensively rewritten for the second edition to reflect recent developments in the field.

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Page Count

366

Publisher

MIT Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0262540991

ISBN 13

9780262540995

Sex and Death

An Introduction to Philosophy of Biology

By: Kim Sterelny,Paul E. Griffiths,Paul Griffiths

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Sex and Death

An Introduction to Philosophy of Biology

By: Kim Sterelny,Paul E. Griffiths,Paul Griffiths

In this introduction to philosophy of biology, Kim Sterelny and Paul E. Griffiths present both the science and the philosophical context necessary for a critical understanding of the debates shaping biology at the end of the 20th century.

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462

Publisher

University of Chicago Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0226773043

ISBN 13

9780226773049

The Representational Theory of Mind

An Introduction

By: Kim Sterelny

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The Representational Theory of Mind

An Introduction

By: Kim Sterelny

This book is not a conventional introduction to the philosophy of mind, nor is it a contribution to the physicalist/ dualist debate. Instead The Representational Theory of Mind demonstrates that we can construct physicalist theories of important aspects of our mental life. Its aim is to explain and defend a physicalist theory of intelligence in two parts: the first six chapters consist of an exposition, elaboration and defence of human sentience (the functionalist theory of mind), and the second part considers rivals and objections to this theory. Kim Sterelny aims to introduce people to this area of philosophy be exemplifying it, to show that philosophical and empirical investigations can be synthesized to the benefit of both. It is both introduction and argument, explanation and manifesto and succeeds in bridging the widening gap between student primer and contemporary research. Technical vocabulary is explained (and defined in a glossary) while the leading edge of current debates is confronted and assessed. This book has been written for people working in philosophy, psychology and the cognitive sciences.

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268

Publisher

Wiley-Blackwell

Published Date

ISBN 10

0631164987

ISBN 13

9780631164982

The Evolution of Memory Systems

Ancestors, Anatomy, and Adaptations

By: Elisabeth A. Murray,Steven P. Wise,Kim S. Graham

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The Evolution of Memory Systems

Ancestors, Anatomy, and Adaptations

By: Elisabeth A. Murray,Steven P. Wise,Kim S. Graham

The Evolution of Memory Systems sets out a bold and exciting new theory about memory. It proposes that several memory systems arose during evolution and that they did so for the same general reason: to transcend problems and exploit opportunities encountered by specific ancestors at particular times and places in the distant past.

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529

Publisher

Oxford University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0199686432

ISBN 13

9780199686438

The Evolution of Agency and Other Essays

By: Kim Sterelny

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The Evolution of Agency and Other Essays

By: Kim Sterelny

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328

Publisher

Cambridge University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0521642310

ISBN 13

9780521642316

The Evolutionary Road to Human Memory

By: Elisabeth A. Murray,Steven P. Wise,Mary Kelly Lorene Baldwin,Kim S. Graham

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The Evolutionary Road to Human Memory

By: Elisabeth A. Murray,Steven P. Wise,Mary Kelly Lorene Baldwin,Kim S. Graham

We tend to think about memory in terms of the human experience, neglecting the fact that we can trace a direct line of descent from the earliest vertebrates to modern humans. This book tells an intriguing story about how evolution shaped human memory.

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Page Count

225

Published Date

ISBN 10

0198828055

ISBN 13

9780198828051

From Signal to Symbol

The Evolution of Language

By: Ronald Planer,Kim Sterelny

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From Signal to Symbol

The Evolution of Language

By: Ronald Planer,Kim Sterelny

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293

Publisher

MIT Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0262366029

ISBN 13

9780262366021

What Is Biodiversity?

By: James Maclaurin,Kim Sterelny

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What Is Biodiversity?

By: James Maclaurin,Kim Sterelny

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231

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University of Chicago Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0226500829

ISBN 13

9780226500829

Language and Reality

An Introduction to the Philosophy of Language

By: Michael Devitt,Kim Sterelny

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Language and Reality

An Introduction to the Philosophy of Language

By: Michael Devitt,Kim Sterelny

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366

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MIT Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0262540991

ISBN 13

9780262540995

The Evolution of Agency and Other Essays

By: Kim Sterelny

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The Evolution of Agency and Other Essays

By: Kim Sterelny

This book presents a collection of linked essays written by one of the leading philosophers of biology, Kim Sterelny, on the topic of biological evolution. The first half of the book explores most of the main theoretical controversies about evolution and selection. Sterelny argues that genes are not the only replicators: non-genetic inheritance is also extremely important, and is no mere epiphenomenon of gene selection. The second half of the book applies some of these ideas in considering cognitive evolution. Concentrating on the mental capacities of simpler animals rather than those of humans, Sterelny argues for a general distinction between detection and representation, and that the evolution of belief, like that of representation, can be decoupled from the evolution of preference. These essays, some never before published, form a coherent whole that defends not just an overall conception of evolution, but also a distinctive take on cognitive evolution.

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332

Publisher

Cambridge University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0521645379

ISBN 13

9780521645379

Richard Dawkins contra Stephen Jay Gould

By: Kim Sterelny

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Richard Dawkins contra Stephen Jay Gould

By: Kim Sterelny

Dawkins y Gould. Oxford y Harvard. Un zoólogo y un paleontólogo. Un liberal y un socialista. Un inglés y un estadounidense. Una gran batalla intelectual. Dos visiones contrapuestas acerca de la verdadera naturaleza de la evolución. La historia de la ciencia está repleta de rivalidades y conflictos: Newton discutió con Leibniz sobre la naturaleza del espacio, Edison y Tesla fueron protagonistas de la famosa "guerra de las corrientes", Einstein rebatió públicamente la teoría cuántica de Bohr..., y en el campo de la biología, la disputa entre Dawkins y Gould es célebre debido a su intensidad, su duración (más de dos décadas) y su relevancia científica. Richard Dawkins, autor de El gen egoísta y El relojero ciego, concibe la evolución como una lucha entre linajes genéticos. Stephen Jay Gould, que escribió La vida maravillosa y La falsa medida del hombre, la ve como una lucha entre organismos. Para Dawkins, los principios de la biología evolutiva se aplican igual a los humanos que a los demás seres vivos; para Gould, la sociobiología es incorrecta y peligrosa. Dawkins ha sido descrito muchas veces como un reduccionista enloquecido, capaz de reducir la variedad y complejidad de la vida a la lucha por la existencia entre genes ciegos y egoístas. En cambio, Gould ha sido utilizado —erróneamente— por los creacionistas para rechazar los principios fundamentales del darwinismo. En este libro, Kim Sterelny nos guía a través de las principales diferencias entre las concepciones de la evolución y la ciencia de Dawkins y Gould y nos ofrece una nueva oportunidad de redescubrir el universo de la biología evolutiva.

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Page Count

179

Publisher

Arpa

Published Date

ISBN 10

8417623787

ISBN 13

9788417623784

Book's by Kim Sterelny

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