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BBC R4 Book of the Week 'Brilliant' Guardian 'Fascinating and often
delightful' The Times What if intelligent life on Earth evolved not
once, but twice? The octopus is the closest we will come to meeting
an intelligent alien. What can we learn from the encounter? In
Other Minds, Peter Godfrey-Smith, a distinguished philosopher of
science and a skilled scuba diver, tells a bold new story of how
nature became aware of itself - a story that largely occurs in the
ocean, where animals first appeared. Tracking the mind's fitful
development from unruly clumps of seaborne cells to the first
evolved nervous systems in ancient relatives of jellyfish, he
explores the incredible evolutionary journey of the cephalopods,
which began as inconspicuous molluscs who would later abandon their
shells to rise above the ocean floor, searching for prey and
acquiring the greater intelligence needed to do so - a journey
completely independent from the route that mammals and birds would
later take. But what kind of intelligence do cephalopods possess?
How did the octopus, a solitary creature with little social life,
become so smart? What is it like to have eight tentacles that are
so packed with neurons that they virtually 'think for themselves'?
By tracing the question of inner life back to its roots and
comparing human beings with our most remarkable animal relatives,
Godfrey-Smith casts crucial new light on the octopus mind - and on
our own.
The follow-up to the BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week Other Minds A
Times and Sunday Times Book of the Year A Waterstones Best Book of
2020 The scuba-diving philosopher explores the origins of animal
consciousness. Dip below the ocean's surface and you are soon
confronted by forms of life that could not seem more foreign to our
own: sea sponges, soft corals and flower-like worms, whose rooted
bodies and intricate geometry are more reminiscent of plant life
than anything recognisably animal. Yet these creatures are our
cousins. As fellow members of the animal kingdom - the Metazoa -
they can teach us about the evolutionary origins of not only our
bodies, but also our minds. In his acclaimed book, Other Minds,
Peter Godfrey-Smith explored the mind of the octopus - the closest
thing to an intelligent alien on Earth. In Metazoa, he expands his
inquiry to animals at large, investigating the evolution of
experience with the assistance of far-flung species. Godfrey-Smith
shows that the appearance of the first animal body form well over
half a billion years ago was a profound innovation that set life
upon a new path. He charts the ways that subsequent evolutionary
developments - eyes that track, for example, and bodies that move
through and manipulate the environment - shaped the lives of
animals. Following the evolutionary paths of a glass sponge, soft
coral, banded shrimp, octopus and fish, then moving onto land and
the world of insects, birds and primates like ourselves, Metazoa
gathers these stories together to bridge the gap between matter and
mind and address one of the most important philosophical questions:
what is the origin of consciousness? Combining vivid animal
encounters with philosophy and biology, Metazoa reveals the
impossibility of separating the evolution of our minds from the
evolution of animals themselves.
Introducing the Collins Modern Classics, a series featuring some of
the most significant books of recent times, books that shed light
on the human experience - classics which will endure for
generations to come. What if intelligent life on earth not only
evolved on land, but also in the sea? Other Minds is a bold new
story of how nature became aware of itself - a story that largely
occurs in the ocean, where animals first appeared. Tracking the
mind's fitful development over millennia, Other Minds explores the
incredible evolutionary journey of the cephalopods. What kind of
intelligence do they possess? And how did the octopus, a solitary
creature with little social life, become so smart? Heralded as the
'scuba-diving philosopher' when Other Minds first published, Peter
Godfrey-Smith explores the underwater world and the concept of
sentience to trace the question of inner life back to its roots. By
comparing human beings with our most remarkable animal relatives,
Other Minds casts crucial new light on the octopus mind - and on
our own.
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Peter Godfrey
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How does science work? Does it tell us what the world is "really"
like? What makes it different from other ways of understanding the
universe? In Theory and Reality, Peter Godfrey-Smith addresses
these questions by taking the reader on a grand tour of more than a
hundred years of debate about science. The result is a completely
accessible introduction to the main themes of the philosophy of
science. Examples and asides engage the beginning student, a
glossary of terms explains key concepts, and suggestions for
further reading are included at the end of each chapter. Like no
other text in this field, Theory and Reality combines a survey of
recent history of the philosophy of science with current key
debates that any beginning scholar or critical reader can follow.
The second edition is thoroughly updated and expanded by the author
with a new chapter on truth, simplicity, and models in science.
This is a concise, comprehensive, and accessible introduction to
the philosophy of biology written by a leading authority on the
subject. Geared to philosophers, biologists, and students of both,
the book provides sophisticated and innovative coverage of the
central topics and many of the latest developments in the field.
Emphasizing connections between biological theories and other areas
of philosophy, and carefully explaining both philosophical and
biological terms, Peter Godfrey-Smith discusses the relation
between philosophy and science; examines the role of laws,
mechanistic explanation, and idealized models in biological
theories; describes evolution by natural selection; and assesses
attempts to extend Darwin's mechanism to explain changes in ideas,
culture, and other phenomena. Further topics include functions and
teleology, individuality and organisms, species, the tree of life,
and human nature. The book closes with detailed, cutting-edge
treatments of the evolution of cooperation, of information in
biology, and of the role of communication in living systems at all
scales. Authoritative and up-to-date, this is an essential guide
for anyone interested in the important philosophical issues raised
by the biological sciences.
This is a concise, comprehensive, and accessible introduction to
the philosophy of biology written by a leading authority on the
subject. Geared to philosophers, biologists, and students of both,
the book provides sophisticated and innovative coverage of the
central topics and many of the latest developments in the field.
Emphasizing connections between biological theories and other areas
of philosophy, and carefully explaining both philosophical and
biological terms, Peter Godfrey-Smith discusses the relation
between philosophy and science; examines the role of laws,
mechanistic explanation, and idealized models in biological
theories; describes evolution by natural selection; and assesses
attempts to extend Darwin's mechanism to explain changes in ideas,
culture, and other phenomena. Further topics include functions and
teleology, individuality and organisms, species, the tree of life,
and human nature. The book closes with detailed, cutting-edge
treatments of the evolution of cooperation, of information in
biology, and of the role of communication in living systems at all
scales.
Authoritative and up-to-date, this is an essential guide for
anyone interested in the important philosophical issues raised by
the biological sciences.
The imagination, our capacity to entertain thoughts and ideas "in
the mind's eye," is indispensable in science as elsewhere in human
life. Indeed, common scientific practices such as modeling and
idealization rely on the imagination to construct simplified,
stylized scenarios essential for scientific understanding. Yet the
philosophy of science has traditionally shied away from according
an important role to the imagination, wary of psychologizing
fundamental scientific concepts like explanation and justification.
In recent years, however, advances in thinking about creativity and
fiction, and their relation to theorizing and understanding, have
prompted a move away from older philosophical perspectives and
toward a greater acknowledgement of the place of the imagination in
scientific practice. Meanwhile, psychologists have engaged in
significant experimental work on the role of the imagination in
causal thinking and probabilistic reasoning. The Scientific
Imagination delves into this burgeoning area of debate at the
intersection of the philosophy and practice of science, bringing
together the work of leading researchers in philosophy and
psychology. Philosophers discuss such topics as modeling,
idealization, metaphor and explanation, examining their role within
science as well as how they affect questions in metaphysics,
epistemology and philosophy of language. Psychologists discuss how
our imaginative capacities develop and how they work, their
relationships with processes of reasoning, and how they compare to
related capacities, such as categorization and counterfactual
thinking. Together, these contributions combine to provide a
comprehensive and exciting picture of the scientific imagination.
The biological and philosophical implications of the emergence of
new collective individuals from associations of living beings. Our
intuitive assumption that only organisms are the real individuals
in the natural world is at odds with developments in cell biology,
ecology, genetics, evolutionary biology, and other fields. Although
organisms have served for centuries as nature's paradigmatic
individuals, science suggests that organisms are only one of the
many ways in which the natural world could be organized. When
living beings work together-as in ant colonies, beehives, and
bacteria-metazoan symbiosis-new collective individuals can emerge.
In this book, leading scholars consider the biological and
philosophical implications of the emergence of these new collective
individuals from associations of living beings. The topics they
consider range from metaphysical issues to biological research on
natural selection, sociobiology, and symbiosis. The contributors
investigate individuality and its relationship to evolution and the
specific concept of organism; the tension between group evolution
and individual adaptation; and the structure of collective
individuals and the extent to which they can be defined by the same
concept of individuality. These new perspectives on evolved
individuality should trigger important revisions to both
philosophical and biological conceptions of the individual.
Contributors Frederic Bouchard, Ellen Clarke, Jennifer Fewell,
Andrew Gardner, Peter Godfrey-Smith, Charles J. Goodnight, Matt
Haber, Andrew Hamilton, Philippe Huneman, Samir Okasha, Thomas
Pradeu, Scott Turner, Minus van Baalen
In 1859 Darwin described a deceptively simple mechanism that he
called "natural selection," a combination of variation,
inheritance, and reproductive success. He argued that this
mechanism was the key to explaining the most puzzling features of
the natural world, and science and philosophy were changed forever
as a result. The exact nature of the Darwinian process has been
controversial ever since, however. Godfrey-Smith draws on new
developments in biology, philosophy of science, and other fields to
give a new analysis and extension of Darwin's idea. The central
concept used is that of a "Darwinian population," a collection of
things with the capacity to undergo change by natural selection.
From this starting point, new analyses of the role of genes in
evolution, the application of Darwinian ideas to cultural change,
and "evolutionary transitions" that produce complex organisms and
societies are developed. Darwinian Populations and Natural
Selection will be essential reading for anyone interested in
evolutionary theory.
In 1859 Darwin described a deceptively simple mechanism that he
called "natural selection," a combination of variation,
inheritance, and reproductive success. He argued that this
mechanism was the key to explaining the most puzzling features of
the natural world, and science and philosophy were changed forever
as a result. The exact nature of the Darwinian process has been
controversial ever since, however. Godfrey-Smith draws on new
developments in biology, philosophy of science, and other fields to
give a new analysis and extension of Darwin's idea. The central
concept used is that of a "Darwinian population," a collection of
things with the capacity to undergo change by natural selection.
From this starting point, new analyses of the role of genes in
evolution, the application of Darwinian ideas to cultural change,
and "evolutionary transitions" that produce complex organisms and
societies are developed. Darwinian Populations and Natural
Selection will be essential reading for anyone interested in
evolutionary theory.
This book is a further contribution to the series Cambridge Studies in Philosophy and Biology. It is an ambitious attempt to explain the relationship between intelligence and environmental complexity, and in so doing to link philosophy of mind to more general issues about the relations between organisms and environments, and to the general pattern of "externalist" explanations. This is a highly original philosophical project that will appeal to a broad swath of philosophers, especially those working in the philosophy of biology, philosophy of mind, and epistemology.
This book is a further contribution to the series Cambridge Studies
in Philosophy and Biology. It is an ambitious attempt to explain
the relationship between intelligence and environmental complexity,
and in so doing to link philosophy of mind to more general issues
about the relations between organisms and environments, and to the
general pattern of "externalist" explanations. Two sets of
questions drive the argument. First, is it possible to develop an
informative philosophical theory about the mind by linking it to
properties of environmental complexity? Second, what is the nature
of externalist patterns of explanation? What is at stake in
attempting to understand the internal in terms of the external? The
author provides a biological approach to the investigation of mind
and cognition in nature. In particular he explores the idea that
the function of cognition is to enable agents to deal with
environmental complexity. The history of the idea in the work of
Dewey and Spencer is considered, as is the impact of recent
evolutionary theory on our understanding of the place of mind in
nature. This is a highly original philosophical project that will
appeal to a broad range of philosophers, especially those working
in the philosophy of biology, philosophy of mind, and epistemology.
It will also interest evolutionary biologists, psychologists, and
historians of science.
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