#137 Derek Elliott: Beyond Enlightenment, Reason, Free Will, Self-deception, and Modularity
Dr. Derek Elliott is a newly minted doctor of philosophy from Duquesne University. He specializes in philosophy of psychology as well as action theory with a special interest in irrationality and evolutionary psychology.
In this episode, we go through some of the main topics of Dr. Elliott’s dissertation, “Beyond Enlightenment: The Evolution of Agency and the Modularity of the Mind in a Post-Darwinian World”. We talk about some of the values and beliefs of the Enlightenment that recent science, particularly the evolutionary behavioral sciences, has been undermining, namely reason, free will, and the notion of agency. We talk about the argumentative theory of reason. We also discuss how most of what happens in our minds occurs at a subconscious level, and how we have very little control over our behavior, and how very little we understand about our motivations and the causes of our actions. We also talk a little but about consciousness, the relationship between consciousness, free will and agency, self-deception, the modular approach to the human mind, and the meaning of life from a Darwinian perspective.
Time Links:
What the Enlightenment got wrong
A new approach to reason
Most of what happens in our minds is unconscious
Reason, decision-making, and free will
Descartes’ approach to the human mind
What is “rational” behavior?
Consciousness from an evolutionary perspective
Consciousness, free will and agency
On self-deception
Is overconfidence maladaptive?
The social value of wrong knowledge
About modularity of mind
Does natural selection promote selfishness?
A Darwinian meaning of life?
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Link to Dr. Elliott’s dissertation: https://dsc.duq.edu/etd/1737/?fbclid=IwAR0Gqc9s_ApbwqzlG7o9y2XWq5ZlehaU7PAznsSuWEaTnyVwEv0yB6x80iw