The Evolution of Reason: Logic as a Branch of Biology

by William S. Cooper

Book Overview

The formal systems of logic have ordinarily been regarded as independent of biology, but recent developments in evolutionary theory suggest that biology and logic may be intimately interrelated. In this book, William Cooper outlines a theory of rationality in which logical law emerges as an intrinsic aspect of evolutionary biology. This biological perspective on logic, though at present unorthodox, could change traditional ideas about the reasoning...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0521791960
• ISBN13: 9780521791960
• Release Date: January 2001
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Length: 238 Pages
• Weight: 1.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.1" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

heresy

Dares to challenge conventional logicocentric theories of reason. There is good information to be gathered here. Very useful information. The author takes aim at the entrenched conventional wisdom which comforts many philosophically-inclined individuals that there is such a thing as a universal logic. That logic somehow gets impressed on physical and biological processes from the outside. This presupposition can be traced back to Plato and Pythagoras. Cooper likens the presupposition that logic comes first to the Ptolemaic view that the Earth comes first. I have seen no egotistical comparison between the author and Copernicus. The basis of this work is that biological processes occur prior to the invention of formal logical systems. THAT doesn't strike me as outrageous. In fact, I don't see any other way for events to have been sequenced. There are other authors whose work supports this presupposition. They can be found amongst the books I have previously reviewed.