Philosophical examination of `the social turn' in the evolutionary study of the origin of human rationality

2015 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 25370016
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Philosophy/Ethics
• Research Institution: Tokyo University of Agriculture
• Principal Investigator: Amitani Yuichi 東京農業大学, 生物産業学部, 准教授 (00643222)
• Project Period (FY): 2013-04-01 – 2016-03-31
• Keywords: 進化論 / 二重過程説 / 理性 / 社会的転回

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Since the advent of the evolutionary theory, many philosophers and scientists have discussed where the human rationality came from. In this research project, we addressed this question within the framework of the dual process theory of the human mind. We showed that the theory has a philosophically rigorous foundation if we take the two kinds of mind as products of evolution. We also found that the hypothesis that social intelligence has been readily transferred to general intelligence during the course of evolution does not fit with the relatively weak correlation between the scores of the general intelligence test and the test of the so-called emotional intelligence. Lastly, our analysis of the reflective mind suggests that hypothetical thinking is the key to find out the evolutionary origin of it.

Free Research Field

科学哲学（生物学の哲学）