Evolutionary Epistemology
Updated 2026-09-10
INTRODUCTION
English translation pending.
CORE DEFINITION
Evolutionary epistemology is a naturalized approach to epistemology that stresses the importance of natural selection in two roles: producing and maintaining the reliability of our sensory and cognitive mechanisms and their fit with the world, and treating trial-and-error learning and the evolution of scientific theories themselves as selection processes. The view is associated with Donald Campbell and Karl Popper.
SCAFFOLDING EFFECT
Reduce cognitive load
- Audit cognitive origins: treat senses and intuitions as adaptations shaped by elimination and ask in which environments they can be trusted. - Model theory competition: read hypothesis change as variation, selection, and retention, and use that to understand how science filters claims. - Separate description from norm: ask whether a descriptive evolutionary story can support any normative requirement.
Anchor fast decisions
If cognitive mechanisms are products of long-run selection pressure, their reliability comes from elimination rather than from a priori guarantee: variants that failed to fit the environment were filtered out, leaving mechanisms that fit. Modeling theory competition on variation, selection, and retention lets scientific progress be read as a selection process over hypotheses.
MINIMUM ACTION
In progress 0/1Practice this model in one real situation:
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Source support: Explicit
- plato.stanford.eduhttps://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemology-evolutionary/verified
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