Disputas fronterizas en torno a la posibilidad del conocimiento: argumentos evolucionistas socavantes y realismo científico

Marc Jiménez-Rolland

doi:10.29105/aitias6.12-134

Authors

Marc Jiménez-Rolland Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0775-1301

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.29105/aitias6.12-134

Keywords:

Darwinian dilemma, evolutionism, intellectual capacities, naturalized epistemology, philosophical skepticism

Abstract

Attempts to offer a scientific explanation of human knowledge have raised a peculiar set of concerns. Outstandingly, it has been suggested that the evolutionary account of human intellectual capacities is incompatible with assuming that these capacities produce scientific theories that are true. In this essay, I evaluate two recent versions of this concern that take the form of ‘debunking arguments’ and challenge the compatibility of scientific realism with the evolutionary account of our cognitive faculties. I argue that these challenges do not support such an incompatibility. I begin by clarifying what scientific realism holds and outlining the evolutionary picture of our capacities to do science. I then reconstruct two influential evolutionary debunking arguments. I conclude by assessing the contentious assumptions about science and the evolution of human capacities on which they rest and by pointing to how philosophy might facilitate a convergence of these doctrines.

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