After Thomas Nagel publicised Mind and Cosmos in 2012, the response was overwhelmingly negative. Nagel criticises the Neo-Darwinian conception of nature and its apparent materialist naturalist...Show moreAfter Thomas Nagel publicised Mind and Cosmos in 2012, the response was overwhelmingly negative. Nagel criticises the Neo-Darwinian conception of nature and its apparent materialist naturalist orthodoxy in this book. I respond to James DiFrisco’s criticism of Nagel’s Mind and Cosmos in this thesis. I defend Mind and Cosmos against the two core criticisms put forward by DiFrisco. In the first chapter, I will explain Nagel’s criticism of physicalism in the philosophy of mind, the physical sciences and NeoDarwinist evolutionary theory in particular. In chapter two, I will elaborate on DiFrisco’s two core criticisms. These are Nagel's alleged confusion of Neo-Darwinist evolutionary theory as a theory of everything and an accusation that Nagel paints a false opponent in biology. I will refute DiFrisco’s two core criticisms in the third and final chapter.Show less
An introduction to the main concepts of evolution and cultural evolution, followed by a normative argument that provides a naturalistic justification to the democratic system in an open society....Show moreAn introduction to the main concepts of evolution and cultural evolution, followed by a normative argument that provides a naturalistic justification to the democratic system in an open society. The main line of argument can be summarized as follows: democracy as a system has internalized the main dynamics of the evolutionary process (being variation and selection) but then transposed to the context of cultural evolution through memes (instead of genes). Politics can be understood as the arena in which memes compete for the attention of brains, and copy themselves in the process and in which they are subsequently selected against the memetic background. The democratic system provides a stable system in which this can happen, which is most conducive to the original function of ethics (which is the avoidance/resolution of altruism failures), which in turn provides a justification for its adoption from a naturalistic point of view.Show less
This thesis tracks the sixteenth-century evolution of the fourteenth-century Lollard tract A Praier and Complaynte of the Ploweman vnto Christe and explains differences and similarities between...Show moreThis thesis tracks the sixteenth-century evolution of the fourteenth-century Lollard tract A Praier and Complaynte of the Ploweman vnto Christe and explains differences and similarities between different versions in light of the socio-religious circumstances of the context of production of each version of the tract.Show less
In dit onderzoek wordt met behulp van begrippen als political culture, national identity en via een sociaal-psychologische invalshoek verklaard waarom de discussie over evolutie en creationisme in...Show moreIn dit onderzoek wordt met behulp van begrippen als political culture, national identity en via een sociaal-psychologische invalshoek verklaard waarom de discussie over evolutie en creationisme in het Amerikaanse onderwijs verregaande vormen aannam tussen 1960 en 1980. Het onderzoek is opgedeeld in drie verschillende lagen. In het eerste deel wordt de wetenschappelijke discussie uitgewerkt. De vraag is hoe en of (national) identity zich op wetenschappelijk niveau manifesteert, zoals dat duidelijk bij religieuze of nationalistische identities gebeurt.In het tweede deel wordt de vraag beantwoord welke rol political culture speelt in de controverse omtrent evolutie in het onderwijs. De zwaartepunten in deze analyse liggen in de jaren zestig en de jaren tachtig van de twintigste eeuw. Tot slot wordt in het derde en laatste deel de vraag beantwoord wie er nu eigenlijk beslist wat er op Amerikaanse scholen onderwezen wordt en hoe de controverse er in de praktijk uit ziet.Show less
