Replies to My Critics
Year: 2014
Type: article
Abstract: I want to thank the editors of the British Journal of Aesthetics and Nicolas Bullot for organizing this symposium, and Richard Menary, Mohan Matthen, Alva Noë, and Tim Lewens and Adrian Boutel for their careful consideration of my work. I am delighted that philosophers of science, not only aestheticians, are prepared to engage with these debates. Richard Menary notes that humans are niche constructors. We engineer the environment, both cultural and physical, that we occupy. Not only can we buffer ourselves from the vicissitudes of the wider world in this manner, we are also a behaviourally flexible species, able to cope with change and variability. The knowledge, skills, tools, and practices that enable the propagation of this mode of existence are passed on to each new generation, as are techniques for the further enhancement of such knowledge and for refining and adjusting such skills and technologies. In other words, biology and culture interact and support each other.
Author: S. Davies
Institution: University of Auckland
Language: English
Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience
Field: Neuroscience
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2047398840