Realism and the Evolutionary Epistemology of Cognitive Mechanisms

Abstract

In spite of their initial plausibility, the arguments in favor of epistemic realism which evolutionary epistemology have offered are not powerful enough. Although we can assume that our cognitive abilities exist because they increase our fitness, it is by no means obvious that they increase our fitness because they provide true beliefs about the world. The realist's abductive estrategy of inference used in relation to scientific predictive success does not display the same strength when applied to ordinary knowledge.