For the Mexican Otomi of the Sierra Norte de Puebla, Santa Rosa is a sacred plant used by the shaman to heal people and sing in rituals called costumbres. It is also an Antigua, a sacred deity who maintains a constant dialogue with ritual specialists. In the Otomi discourse and its worldview of Santa Rosa, as well as in its ritual process, it is eaten, not smoked. Although it is cannabis, they mention that: "the Santa Rosa is eaten, it is (...) sacred; marijuana, the one they smoke in Mexico, is another one that looks like it.". (shrink)

In the present text there are exposed some central aspects of the critique realized by the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze to the historicism. From Friedrich Nietzsche's work, specially of his Theory of the last man exposed in Thus Spoke Zarathustra and of his text “On the Use and Abuse of History for Life”, it is possible to accuse the character mystified of the ideas of progress, evolutionism and of the thought of the Illustration in which Hegel's philosophy is inserted. Also (...) some relations are established between the circular and linear conception of the history and his political and ethical connotations.And simultaneously the relation is underlined between history and myth from allusions to Plato, Kant and the Great Statement of the Modernity. (shrink)

Este artículo tiene como objetivo esclarecer la relación entre juicio y deseo en el pensamiento de Gilles Deleuze y destacar la importancia de Spinoza para la resolución de este problema. La concepción negativa del deseo es la base de la cultura y el pensamiento de Occidente; sin embargo, Spinoza nos propone una concepción afirmativa e inmanente. Estos elementos son fundamentales para esclarecer el sentido teórico y práctico de la propuesta de Gilles Deleuze en su obra, donde una concepción afirmativa del (...) deseo le permite proponer la existencia de dos imágenes del pensamiento: una imagen moral, la cual crítica; y, una imagen ética, que restituye, a partir de la teoría de los afectos y la naturaleza de Spinoza, el valor afirmativo del cuerpo y los afectos. Deleuze y Spinoza, así, nos proponen una imagen del pensamiento que sostiene el valor de lo afirmativo sobre lo negativo, es decir, que relieva la producción de lo diferente y lo múltiple sobre la jerarquía de lo idéntico o lo hegemónico. (shrink)

1. La experiencia de lo cotidiano [se] nos brinda siempre con anomalías, incongruencias, contradicciones. Y, cuando intentamos explicarlas, explicaciones a primera vista razonables acaban por revelarse insatisfactorias después de un examen más cuidadoso. La naturaleza de las cosas y de los acontecimientos no nos parece fácilmente inteligible. Las opiniones y los puntos de vista de los hombres son difícilmente conciliables o, incluso, unos con otros inconsistentes. Consensos quizá emergentes se muestran provisionales y precarios. Quien siente la necesidad de pensar con (...) un espíritu más crítico e intenta comprender mejor, esa diversidad toda lo desconcierta. (shrink)

Pritchard sostiene que la condición de habilidad y la condición de seguridad le imponen demandas independientes al conocimiento, i.e., que la satisfacción de una no implica la satisfacción de la otra y que, por lo tanto, ninguna de ellas es suficiente por sí misma para ofrecer una caracterización adecuada de esta noción. Argumento, por el contrario, que no hay buenas razones para pensar que la condición de seguridad es insuficiente. Empleando algunos conceptos de Greco y Pritchard y Kallestrup para caracterizar (...) a las habilidades cognitivas y el caso del mentiroso consistente de Lackey, argumento que TEMP, el caso clave de Pritchard para mostrar que puede haber seguridad sin habilidad, no funciona porque el proceso cognitivo relevante constituye una realización legítima, aunque anómala, de una habilidad. Pritchard maintains that the ability and the safety conditions impose independent demands on knowledge, i.e., that satisfying only one of them is not sufficient to acquire knowledge. I argue that there are no good reasons to suppose that the safety condition is not sufficient. I claim that TEMP, the key case proposed by Pritchard to show that there can be safety without ability, fails because therelevant cognitive process constitutes a legitimate, although anomalous, realization of a cognitive ability. (shrink)

En la conferencia “Las lógicas y las cosas”, Alberto Moretti sostiene que los enfoques que se centran en el fenómeno de la interpretación para dar cuenta del problema del significado adolecen de un problema, a saber, no admiten las condiciones trascendentales que posibilitan la significatividad. Así, en el contexto de la interpretación, el hecho de distinguir a otros como hablantes es la posibilidad de distinguir a otros como objetos relacionados en el mundo. Esta distinción es posible porque los principios lógicos (...) específicos exponen la estructura básica para el discurso y el pensamiento pero también, la estructura elemental del mundo o realidad. En otras palabras, los principios lógicos que estructuran nuestro lenguaje son también principios de las cosas. Este argumento puede ser considerado un argumento trascendental por establecer, a través del señalamiento de ciertas condiciones necesarias, la íntima conexión lenguaje-mundo que da cuenta de la significatividad, y por insinuarse como una respuesta al problema del mundo externo. Me propongo discutir el alcance de este argumento a partir de la idea de la autonomía del lenguaje que Wittgenstein desarrolla en Sobre la Certeza, la cual conlleva una estrategia disolutoria alternativa frente al desafío escéptico. Para dar cuenta de dicha estrategia, me centraré en la distinción entre proposiciones lógicas y empíricas. También analizaré la distinción mostrar-decir que, en su relación con la noción de “formas de vida”, permite iluminar aspectos de su enfoque praxiológico sobre el lenguaje. Así, defenderé un enfoque que no omite, sino que rechaza, la posibilidad de un punto de vista externo, tanto para dar cuenta del lenguaje como para responder al escéptico. (shrink)

La preocupación por los modos de producción del discurso filosófico como inseparable de la práctica filosófica ha sido un rasgo distintivo del período helenístico, y desde nuestra perspectiva, adopta un rasgo novedoso en el escepticismo antiguo. El pirronismo incluye en su propuesta el tratamiento crítico sobre la tendencia aseverativa propia del lenguaje como fuente productora de dogmatismos. De esta manera, la terapéutica escéptica debe operar también sobre las propias expresiones y los tipos de escritura que adopta el pirrónico. Wittgenstein parece (...) cercano a algunas de estas preocupaciones en la medida en que las formas de expresar y escribir deben reflejar el enfoque no-teórico en el que se practica la filosofía - asociado a una reflexión filosófica sobre el lenguaje. Atendiendo a ciertos aspectos de la orientación pirrónica como clave de lectura, estudiaremos las reflexiones de Wittgenstein sobre sus propios escritos como quedan exhibidas en sus prólogos. Concern about modes of production of philosophical discourse as inseparable from philosophical practice has been a distinctive feature of the Hellenistic period and, from our perspective, it adopts a new feature in ancient skepticism. Pyrrhonism includes, in its proposal, the critical treatment on assertive trend inherent to language as a source of dogmatism. Thus, the skeptical therapeutic must also operate on the expressions and types of writing pyrrhonics use. Wittgenstein seems close to some of these concerns in the sense that the ways of expressing and writing should reflect the non-theoretical approach in which philosophy is practised -associated to a philosophical reflection on language. Regarding certain aspects of the Pyrrhonian orientation as a reading key, we will study Wittgenstein's reflections on his own writings as are exhibited in his prologues. (shrink)

This article examines Wittgenstein’s philosophical reflection on philosophy: its method, its scope, and its relationship with other knowledge as central elements of the philosophical proposal the author developed in Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Therefore, my proposal is to rehearse a metaphilosophical reading of Wittgenstein’s remarks about philosophy in TLP focusing, on the one hand, on his reflections on philosophy as an activity and not as a theory; on the other hand, on his categorical differentiation established between philosophical elucidations and scientific explanations. This (...) proposal differs from the readings that interpret it is through the construction of a theory of meaning -or logical doctrine- that one can distinguish philosophical nonsense and see the world correctly. It also differs from Tractatus’s non-theoretical or quietist readings which understand philosophical elucidations as exclusively negative or critical nonsense. My aim is to highlight a positive aspect of philosophical elucidations that I will call performative. From my metaphilosophical reading, not only does the activity of clarification work as a critical sieve that separates what makes sense from what does not –with no theory; but it also makes a modification -a transformation- in the one who establishes it. These performative aspects imply emphasizing that there is a change in the way we see the world but also in the way we ‘see’ language, meaning, logic, science, philosophy, life, etc. Thus, the refusal to elaborate a theory or to offer scientific explanations does not turn the philosophical elucidations in TLP into a mode of self-destructive attack on all kinds of philosophy. On the contrary, these elucidations are part of the defense of a particular way of practicing it. (shrink)

La calidad en la educación superior tecnológica se ha caracterizado mejor por la formación de las capacidades del estudiantado que por los niveles alcanzados en la rendición de cuentas o en la gestión institucional. En virtud de la literatura especializada han existido dos grandes enfoques que caracterizaron la temática de la calidad en la Educación Superior en las últimas décadas. Desde una perspectiva administrativa, la apuesta fue por la gestión de calidad, y desde los estudios sociales fue la promoción de (...) la cultura institucional. En este marco, el estudio buscó caracterizar los referentes de la calidad subyacentes en los modelos de evaluación de los institutos superiores tecnológicos en el Ecuador desde el 2010 al 2020, para visibilizar la necesidad de replantear las políticas públicas desde el Estado y fortalecer la agencia de los institutos. Para alcanzar este objetivo se utilizó el instrumental teórico del análisis de las políticas a través de una revisión de información documental que permitió reinterpretar el concepto de la calidad. Finalmente, a modo de conclusión, el estudio determinó que el concepto de calidad preponderante en los modelos de evaluación de los IST se ajustó a la adquisición de altos niveles de excelencia y no incluyó la discusión de la naturaleza de la formación técnica y tecnológica relativa con la transformación de las capacidades de los y las estudiantes. (shrink)

Niche construction is the process whereby organisms, through their activities and choices, modify their own and each other’s niches. By transforming natural-selection pressures, niche construction generates feedback in evolution at various different levels. Niche-constructing species play important ecological roles by creating habitats and resources used by other species and thereby affecting the flow of energy and matter through ecosystems—a process often referred to as “ecosystem engineering.” An important emphasis of niche construction theory (NCT) is that acquired (...) characters play an evolutionary role through transforming selective environments. This is particularly relevant to human evolution, where our species has engaged in extensive environmental modification through cultural practices. Humans can construct developmental environments that feed back to affect how individuals learn and develop and the diseases to which they are exposed. Here we provide an introduction to NCT and illustrate some of its more important implications for the human sciences. (shrink)

How does language (spoken or written) impact thought? One useful way to approach this important but elusive question may be to consider language itself as a cognition-enhancing animal-built structure. To take this perspective is to view language as a kind of self-constructed cognitive niche. These self-constructed cognitive niches play, I suggest, three distinct but deeply interlocking roles in human thought and reason. Working together, these three interlocking routines radically transform the human mind, and mark a genuine discontinuity in the (...) space of anitnal minds. (shrink)

Memories of our personal past are the building blocks of our narrative identity. So, when we depend on objects and other people to remember and construct our personal past, our narrative identity is distributed across our embodied brains and an ecology of environmental resources. This paper uses a cognitive niche construction approach to conceptualise how we engineer our memory ecology and construct our distributed narrative identities. It does so by identifying three types of niche construction processes that govern (...) how we interact with our memory ecology, namely creating, editing, and using resources in our memory ecology. It also conceptualises how identity-relevant information in objects and (family) stories is transmitted vertically, i.e., across different generations of people. Identifying these processes allows us to better understand the cultural information trajectories that constitute our memory ecologies. Thus, what I’ll argue is that our memory ecology distributes our narrative identity and that engineering our memory ecology is a form of narrative niche construction. (shrink)

How does language impact thought? One useful way to approach this important but elusive question may be to consider language itself as a cognition-enhancing animal-built structure. To take this perspective is to view language as a kind of self-constructed cognitive niche.

We propose a conceptual model that maps the causal pathways relating biological evolution to cultural change. It builds on conventional evolutionary theory by placing emphasis on the capacity of organisms to modify sources of natural selection in their environment (niche construction) and by broadening the evolutionary dynamic to incorporate ontogenetic and cultural processes. In this model, phenotypes have a much more active role in evolution than generally conceived. This sheds light on hominid evolution, on the evolution of culture, and (...) on altruism and cooperation. Culture amplifies the capacity of human beings to modify sources of natural selection in their environments to the point where that capacity raises some new questions about the processes of human adaptation. Key Words: adaptation; altruism; cooperation; evolutionary psychology; gene-culture coevolution; human evolution; human genetics; niche construction; sociobiology. (shrink)

Niche construction refers to the activities of organisms that bring about changes in their environments, many of which are evolutionarily and ecologically consequential. Advocates of niche construction theory (NCT) believe that standard evolutionary theory fails to recognize the full importance of niche construction, and consequently propose a novel view of evolution, in which niche construction and its legacy over time (ecological inheritance) are described as evolutionary processes, equivalent in importance to natural selection. Here, we subject NCT (...) to critical evaluation, in the form of a collaboration between one prominent advocate of NCT, and a team of skeptics. We discuss whether niche construction is an evolutionary process, whether NCT obscures or clarifies how natural selection leads to organismal adaptation, and whether niche construction and natural selection are of equivalent explanatory importance. We also consider whether the literature that promotes NCT overstates the significance of niche construction, whether it is internally coherent, and whether it accurately portrays standard evolutionary theory. Our disagreements reflect a wider dispute within evolutionary theory over whether the neo-Darwinian synthesis is in need of reformulation, as well as different usages of some key terms (e.g., evolutionary process). (shrink)

Niche Construction Theory has been gaining acceptance as an explanatory framework for processes in biological and human evolution. Human cultural niche construction, in particular, is suggested as a basis for understanding many phenomena that involve human genetic and cultural evolution. Herein I assess the ability of the cultural niche construction framework to meet this explanatory role by looking into several NCT-inspired accounts that have been offered for two important episodes of human evolution, and by examining the contribution (...) of NCT to the elucidation of two “primary examples” mentioned often in the NCT literature. The result, I claim, is rather disappointing: While NCT may serve as a descriptive framework for these phenomena, it cannot be said to explain them in any substantive sense. Especially disturbing is NCT’s failure to account for differing developments in very similar situations, and to facilitate evaluation and discrimination between divergent and contradictory causal accounts of particular phenomena. I argue that these problems are inherent, and they render NCT unsuitable to serve as an explanatory framework for human phenomena. NCT’s value, at least as related to human phenomena, is therefore descriptive and heuristic rather than explanatory. In conclusion, I discuss and reject comparisons made between NCT and the theory of natural selection, and examine several potential sources of NCT’s explanatory weakness. (shrink)

Recent scientific approaches to aesthetics include evolutionary theories about the origin of art behavior, psychological investigations into human aesthetic experience and preferences, and neurophysiological explorations of the mechanisms underlying art experience. Critics of these approaches argue that they are ultimately irrelevant to a philosophical aesthetics because they cannot help us understand the distinctive conceptual basis and normativity of our art experience. This criticism may seem plausible given the piecemeal nature of these scientific approaches, but a more comprehensive naturalistic framework can (...) help us understand the conceptual basis and normativity of art. In particular, the ecology of art, an understanding of how individuals interact within particular environments, can help us understand the engineered art niches in which we create and experience art. Each niche is associated with a particular deme, or set of individuals that interact within that niche, and a set of cognitive, epistemic, and pedagogical technologies that form the conceptual basis of a niche-dependent normativity. This is to be contrasted with the niche-independent normativity revealed by many of the scientific approaches. This framework, and the conflicting streams of normativity it reveals, allows us to better understand conflicts in normativity and the implausibility of unequivocal and universal normative principles. (shrink)

Niche construction is a concept that captures a wide array of biological phenomena, from the environmental effects of metabolism to the creation of complex structures such as termite mounds and beaver dams. A central point in niche construction theory is that organisms do not just passively undergo developmental, ecological, or evolutionary processes, but are also active participants in them Evolution: From molecules to men, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1983; Laland KN, Odling-Smee J, Feldman MW, In: KN Laland and (...) T Uller Evolutionary causation: Biological and philosophical reflections, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2019). In this paper, we distinguish between two fundamentally different ways in which organisms are active participants: as agents and as contributors. Roughly, organisms act as agents when niche constructing effects are a result of a goal-directed behavior over which the organisms have some degree of control. Organisms act as contributors when the niche constructing effects do not arise from a goal to perform the constructive activity. As illustrative examples we discuss plants altering leaf-morphology to optimize light exposure as reported by Sultan and bacteria creating novel niches through excreting energy-rich metabolites. The difference between agential and contributional niche construction is important for understanding the different ways organisms can actively participate in development, ecology, and evolution. Additionally, this distinction can increase our understanding of how the capacity of agency is distributed across the tree of life and how agency influences developmental and evolutionary processes. (shrink)

Niche construction theory highlights the active role of organisms in modifying their environment. A subset of these modifications is the developmental niche, which concerns ecological, epistemic, social and symbolic legacies inherited by organisms as resources that scaffold their developmental processes. Since in this theory development is a situated process that takes place in a culturally structured environment, we may reasonably ask if implicit cultural biases may, in some cases, be responsible for maladaptive developmental niches. In this paper we (...) wish to argue for an affirmative answer. In order to do so, we first propose to conceptualize implicit bias as embodied perceptual habits, and then proceed to show that these habits are at least partially responsible for maladaptive developmental niches of children with Down syndrome and autism. With this framework we thus hope to bring together two fields of research that haven’t been explicitly connected: implicit bias and niche construction theory. Linking these two theories may bring benefits both to implicit bias researchers, who can extend this concept to characterize other sets of processes as biased, as well as to niche construction theorists, who will have a useful theoretical tool to diagnose maladaptive features of niches brought about by sociocultural biases. (shrink)

In the study reported here we examined the impact of population size and two proxies of risk of resource failure on the diversity and complexity of the food-getting toolkits of hunter–gatherers and small-scale food producers. We tested three hypotheses: the risk hypothesis, the population-size hypothesis, and a hypothesis derived from niche construction theory. Our analyses indicated that the toolkits of hunter–gatherers are more affected by risk than are the toolkits of food producers. They also showed that the toolkits of (...) food producers are more affected by population size than are the toolkits of hunter–gatherers. This pattern is inconsistent with the predictions of both the risk hypothesis and the population-size hypothesis. In contrast, it is consistent with the predictions of the niche construction hypothesis. Our results indicate that niche construction has affected the evolution of technology in small-scale societies and imply that niche construction must be taken into account when seeking to understand technological variation among food producers and the technological changes that occurred in association with the various transitions to farming that have occurred over the last 10,000 years. (shrink)

Abu Hamid Muhammad al-Ghazali's philosophical explorations covered nearly the entire spectrum of twelfth-century beliefs. Beginning his career as a skeptic, he ended it as a scholar of mysticism and orthodoxy. _The Niche of Lights_, written near the end of his illustrious career, advances the philosophically important idea that reason can serve as a connection between the devout and God. Al-Ghazali argues that abstracting God from the world, as he believed theologians did, was not sufficient for understanding. Exploring the boundary (...) between philosophy and theology, _The Niche of Lights_ seeks to understand the role of reality in the perception of the spiritual. (shrink)

Social evolution theory conventionally takes an externalist explanatory stance, treating observed cooperation as explanandum and the positive assortment of cooperative behaviour as explanans. We ask how the circumstances bringing about this positive assortment arose in the first place. Rather than merely push the explanatory problem back a step, we move from an externalist to an interactionist explanatory stance, in the spirit of Lewontin and the Niche Construction theorists. We develop a theory of ‘social niche construction’ in which we (...) consider biological entities to be both the subject and object of their own social evolution. Some important cases of the evolution of cooperation have the side-effect of causing changes in the hierarchical level at which the evolutionary process acts. This is because the traits that act to align the fitness interests of particles in a collective can also act to diminish the extent to which those particles are bearers of heritable fitness variance, while augmenting the extent to which collectives of such particles are bearers of heritable fitness variance. In this way, we can explain upward transitions in the hierarchical level at which the Darwinian machine operates in terms of particle-level selection, even though the outcome of the process is a collective-level selection regime. Our theory avoids the logical and metaphysical paradoxes faced by other attempts to explain evolutionary transitions. (shrink)

In evolutionary biology, niche construction is sometimes described as a genuine evolutionary process whereby organisms, through their activities and regulatory mechanisms, modify their environment such as to steer their own evolutionary trajectory, and that of other species. There is ongoing debate, however, on the extent to which niche construction ought to be considered a bona fide evolutionary force, on a par with natural selection. Recent formulations of the variational free-energy principle as applied to the life sciences describe the (...) properties of living systems, and their selection in evolution, in terms of variational inference. We argue that niche construction can be described using a variational approach. We propose new arguments to support the niche construction perspective, and to extend the variational approach to niche construction to current perspectives in various scientific fields. (shrink)

The meaning of niche and competitive ability have long been surrounded by controversy. The reason for this stems from the obscure relationship that exists between these terms. This extends from the views of Darwin through Eltonian tradition to current views in which the meaning of competitive ability is implicitly infused into the paradigm of niche. Distinct operational definitions for niche and competitive ability are therefore established with special reference to plants. It is proposed that potential niche (...) refer explicitly to a theoretical hyperspace of places where a species would leave descendents if all biotic interactions were precluded, and that competitive ability refer to the relative capacity to leave descendents in a particular place in the face of restrictions imposed by competitive interaction. This leads to a qualitative comprehensive theory for coexistence which may be extended to any type of biotic interaction. Niche and competitive ability are both determined by the biological attributes of a species and may be independently adjusted in a population by natural selection in contexts of competition. Species coexistence in nature may therefore be a consequence of alternative evolutionary mechanisms which may operate to various degrees in concert: (1) natural selection leading to niche differentiation; (2) an ongoing process of reciprocal selection (coevolution) which maintains an approximate balance in relative competitive abilities for contested resources. (shrink)

The theoretical status of ‘niche construction’ in evolution is intensely debated. Here we substantiate the reasons for different interpretations. We consider two concepts of niche construction brought to bear on evolutionary theory; one that emphasizes how niche construction contributes to selection and another that emphasizes how it contributes to development and inheritance. We explain the rationale for claims that selective and developmental niche construction motivate conceptual change in evolutionary biology and the logic of those who reject (...) these claims. Our analysis shows how the contention arises from alternative assumptions regarding the causal independence of the processes that generate variation, differential fitness and inheritance. (shrink)

Niche construction theory (NCT) can be applied to examine the influence of culturally constructed learning environments on the acquisition and retention of beliefs, values, role expectations, and skills. Thus, NCT provides a quantitative framework to account for cultural-historical contingency affecting development and cultural evolution. Learning in a culturally constructed environment is of central concern to many sociologists, cognitive scientists, and sociocultural anthropologists, albeit often from different perspectives. This article summarizes four pertinent theories from these fields—situated learning, activity theory, practice (...) theory, and distributed cognition. As a basis for interdisciplinary investigation, the article considers how these theories may be addressed using a cultural niche-construction framework, including the utility of an embedded model that explicitly accounts for effects of the constructed learning environment on within-individual learning dynamics in an evolutionary framework. (shrink)

The concept of niche (setting, context, habitat, environment) has been little studied by ontologists, in spite of its wide application in a variety of disciplines from evolutionary biology to economics. What follows is a first formal theory of this concept, a theory of the relations between objects and their niches. The theory builds upon existing work on mereology, topology, and the theory of spatial location as tools of formal ontology. It will be illustrated above all by means of simple (...) biological examples, but the concept of niche should be understood as being, like concepts such as part, boundary, and location, a structural concept that is applicable in principle to a wide range of different domains. (shrink)

The niche is allegedly the conceptual bedrock underpinning the most prominent, and some would say most important, theorizing in ecology. We argue this point of view is more aspirational than veridical. Rather than critically dissect existing definitions of the concept, the supposedly significant work it is thought to have done in ecology is our evaluative target. There is no denying the impressive mathematical sophistication and theoretical ingenuity of the ecological modeling that invokes ‘niche’ terminology. But despite the pervasive (...) labeling, we demonstrate that niche talk is nothing more than a gloss on theory developed without it, that doesn’t need it, and that doesn’t benefit from it. (shrink)

In modern evolutionary theory, selection acts on particular genes and assemblages of genes that operate through phenotypes expressed in environments. This view, however, overlooks the fact that organisms often alter their environments in pursuit of fitness needs and thus modify some environmental selection pressures. Niche construction theory introduces a reciprocal causal process that modifies natural selection relative to three general kinds of environmental components: abiota, biota (other organisms), and artifacts. The ways in which niche-constructing organisms can construct or (...) modify the components differ. Modification of abiota, for example, may have different consequences from the construction of artifacts. Some changes in abiota may simply be caused by the by-products of metabolisms and activities of organisms. Alternatively, artifacts may be “extended phenotypes” that demonstrate obvious prior “design” and “construction” by organisms in the service of fitness needs. Nevertheless, adaptation should always account for the reciprocity between constructed niches and the living agents that construct them. Looking to well-adapted nature for inspiration for human-built artifacts must account for this reciprocity between phenotype and constructed environment as well as the novel features of human architecture, including frank intentionality of design and novel culturally acquired knowledge. (shrink)

In their considered reviews both Thomas Pradeu and Lindell Bromham introduce important topics not sufficiently covered in our book. Pradeu asks us to enlarge on the epigenetic and ecological context of genes, particularly in the form of symbioses. We use the relationship between eukaryotes and their symbiotic organisms as a welcome opportunity to clarify our concept of the developmental niche, and its relationship to the developmental system. Bromham’s comments reveal that she is primarily interested in identifying macroevolutionary patterns. From (...) her vantage point eco-evo-devo, the study of phenotypic plasticity, epigenetic and exogenetic inheritance, have not yet demonstrated the need for any revolutionary change in evolutionary thought. For us they highlight the extent to which proximate developmental mechanisms can inform ultimate biology. (shrink)

The niche has been central to ecology for most of the discipline’s history, yet there have been few attempts by philosophers to work out the ontology of the niche. A challenge is that there is a plurality of seemingly inconsistent definitions of the niche in ecology. This paper characterizes the population-level ecological niche by distinguishing among niche concepts, niche models, and the niche as a phenomenon. I argue that 'niche concepts' should be (...) interpreted as theoretical frameworks or modelling strategies. I also argue that there is a unified niche phenomenon underlying the seemingly heterogeneous models and definitions. The plurality of niche concepts in ecology should be seen as an expected consequence of the nature of modelling complex systems. (shrink)

Consistent with the “niche construction” hypothesis, human beings tailor their behavior to local circumstances in ways beneficial to their inclusive fitness. However, the fact that any human being seems equally capable of adopting any of these context-dependent fitness-enhancing behaviors makes niche construction theory implausible in practice. The human capacity for exhibiting context-specific behavior remains in need of an explanation.

Analyzing the concept of ḥikmah in early Islamic texts, this book brings earliest scholarly materials to the service of modern readers and thus offers a comprehensive contextualization of this subtle and elusive notion in the collective usage of early Muslim authors, especially in the works of lexicographers, exegetes, philosophers, and Sufis.

A number of scholars have recently defended the claim that there is a close connection between the evolutionary biological notion of fitness and the economic notion of utility: both are said to refer to an organism’s success in dealing with its environment, and both are said to play the same theoretical roles in their respective sciences. However, an analysis of two seemingly disparate but in fact structurally related phenomena—‘niche construction’ (the case where organisms change their environment to make it (...) fit to their needs) and ‘adaptive preferences’ (the case where agents change their wants to make them fit to what the world has given them)—shows that one needs to be very careful about the postulation of this sort of fitness–utility connection. Specifically, I here use the analysis of these two phenomena to establish when connecting fitness and utility is and is not possible. (shrink)

The theory of niche construction adds a second general inheritance system, ecological inheritance, to evolution . Ecological inheritance is the inheritance, via an external environment, of one or more natural selection pressures previously modified by niche-constructing organisms. This addition means descendant organisms inherit genes, and biotically transformed selection pressures in their environments, from their ancestors. The combined inheritance is called niche inheritance. Niche inheritance is used as a basis for classifying the multiple genetic and non-genetic, inheritance (...) systems currently being proposed as possibly significant in evolution . Implications of niche inheritance for the relationship between evolution and development are discussed. (shrink)

In the last 60,000 years humans have expanded across the globe and now occupy a wider range than any other terrestrial species. Our ability to successfully adapt to such a diverse range of habitats is often explained in terms of our cognitive ability. Humans have relatively bigger brains and more computing power than other animals and this allows us to figure out how to live in a wide range of environments. Here we argue that humans may be smarter than other (...) creatures, but none of us is nearly smart enough to acquire all of the information necessary to survive in any single habitat. In even the simplest foraging societies, people depend on a vast array of tools, detailed bodies of local knowledge, and complex social arrangements, and often do not understand why these tools, beliefs, and behaviors are adaptive. We owe our success to our uniquely-developed ability to learn from others. This capacity enables humans to gradually accumulate information across generations, and develop well-adapted tools, beliefs, and practices that are too complex for any single individual to invent during their lifetime. (shrink)

Niche construction theory concerns how organisms can change selection pressures by altering the feature–factor relationship between themselves and their environment. These alterations are standardly understood to be brought about through two kinds of organism–environment interaction: perturbative and relocational niche construction. We argue that a reconceptualization is needed on the grounds that if a niche is understood as the feature–factor relationship, then there are three fundamental ways in which organisms can engage in niche construction: constitutive, relational, and (...) external niche construction. We further motivate our reconceptualization by showing some examples of organismic activities that fall outside of the current categorization of niche construction, but nonetheless should be included. We end by discussing two objections to niche construction and show how our reconceptualization helps to undercut these objections. 1Introduction2Niche Construction Theory 2.1The standard account of niche construction2.2Two problems with the standard account of niche construction3Three Kinds of Niche Construction 3.1Constitutive niche construction3.2Relational niche construction3.3External niche construction4Conceptual Improvement on Niche Construction Theory 4.1Constitutive niche construction4.2Relational niche construction4.3External niche construction5The Status of Niche Construction Theory within Evolutionary Theory 5.1Is niche construction a helpful addition to evolutionary theory?5.2Is niche construction an evolutionary process?6Conclusion. (shrink)