Learn and survive. Behind this simple equation lies a revolution in the study of knowledge, which has left the halls of philosophy for the labs of science. This book offers a cogent account of what such a move does to our understanding of the nature of learning, rationality, and intelligence. Bringing together evolutionary biology, psychology, and philosophy, Henry Plotkin presents a new science of knowledge, one that traces an unbreakable link between instinct and our ability to know. Contrary to the modern liberal idea that knowledge is something derived from experience, this science shows us that what we know is what our nature allows us to know, what our instincts tell us we must know. Since our ability to know our world depends primarily on what we call intelligence, intelligence must be understood as an extension of instinct. Drawing on contemporary evolutionary theory, especially notions of hierarchical structure and universal Darwinism, Plotkin tells us that the capacity for knowledge, which is what makes us human, is deeply rooted in our biology and, in a special sense, is shared by all living things. This leads to a discussion of animal and human intelligence as well as an appraisal of what an instinct-based capacity for knowledge might mean to our understanding of language, reasoning, emotion, and culture. The result is nothing less than a three-dimensional theory of our nature, in which all knowledge is adaptation and all adaptation is a specific form of knowledge.

Bringing together evolutionary biology, psychology, and philosophy, Henry Plotkin presents a new science of knowledge, one that traces an unbreakable link between instinct and our ability to know.

Philosophers have traditionally used conceptual analysis to investigate knowledge. Hilary Kornblith argues that this is misguided: it is not the concept of knowledge that we should be investigating, but knowledge itself, a robust natural phenomenon, suitable for scientific study. Cognitive ethologists not only attribute intentional states to non-human animals, they also speak of such animals as having knowledge; and this talk of knowledge does causal and explanatory work withintheir theories. The account of knowledge which emerges from this literature is a version of reliabilism: knowledge is reliably produced true belief.This account of knowledge is not meant merely to provide an elucidation of an important scientific category. Rather, Kornblith argues that knowledge, in this very sense, is what philosophers have been talking about all along. Rival accounts are examined in detail and it is argued that they are inadequate to the phenomenon of knowledge (even of human knowledge).One traditional objection to this sort of naturalistic approach to epistemology is that, in providing a descriptive account of the nature of important epistemic categories, it must inevitably deprive these categories of their normative force. But Kornblith argues that a proper account of epistemic normativity flows directly from the account of knowledge which is found in cognitive ethology. Knowledge may be properly understood as a real feature of the world which makes normative demands uponus.This controversial and refreshingly original book offers philosophers a new way to do epistemology.

Geisler argues that the over-reliance on co-variation techniques and statistical methods, instead of process approach and in-depth analysis, produces meaningless knowledge in the managerial and organizational sciences, and indeed throughout all the social sciences. He offers instead a new and different approach, based on the notion of what he calls dynamic morphologies—an architecture of slicing complex phenomena. This way it is possible to explain many inconsistencies in research findings, and to find a cohesive, systematic outlook on research, research design, and knowledge creation. Intellectually challenging and following in the footsteps of Kuhn, Argyris, and Popper, Geisler's approach is frankly revolutionary in research design and contains its own notions, terms, and nomenclature. A provocative discussion for academics and others well trained in the organizational, managerial, and social sciences. Geisler's dynamic morphologies provide a means to research complex phenomena and gain knowledge about them. They are composed of a chain of events, combined logically and temporally, and a method by which this process is studied. Geisler also contends that knowledge in the organizational and managerial sciences is only viable when it describes and explains the complex, higher-order phenomena. Therefore, theory building and research in these fields must be linked to higher-order constructs and the phenomena that they attempt to explain. This is the central notion of amplitude that Geisler introduces and describes. His book also criticizes the evolutionary epistemology view of knowledge creation and contends that knowledge in all of these fields of study in general is not evolutionary, but instead, cumulative and expansive.

A theoretical study dealing chiefly with matters of definition and clarification of terms and concepts involved in using Darwinian notions to model social phenomena.

'Full of historical anecdotes . . . but this is much more than a history book. [George Dyson] weaves his threads together for a purpose. Using voices of the past and present, he describes a fresh and sometimes startling viewpoint of the emerging relationship between nature and machines. From vignettes about Olaf Stapledon, George Boole, John von Neumann, and Samuel Butler, a larger story develops in which the twin processes of intelligence and evolution are inseparably intertwined' Danny Hillis, Wired