The Dissenter #137 Derek Elliott: Beyond Enlightenment, Reason, Free Will, Self-deception, and Modularity
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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:
00:51 What the Enlightenment got wrong
07:23 A new approach to reason
13:30 Most of what happens in our minds is unconscious
19:18 Reason, decision-making, and free will
28:11 Descartes’ approach to the human mind
33:41 What is “rational” behavior?
41:38 Consciousness from an evolutionary perspective
52:11 Consciousness, free will and agency
58:50 On self-deception
1:07:39 Is overconfidence maladaptive?
1:13:12 The social value of wrong knowledge
1:16:48 About modularity of mind
1:20:33 Does natural selection promote selfishness?
1:22:49 A Darwinian meaning of life?
1:32:06 Follow Dr. Elliott’s work!
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Link to Dr. Elliott’s dissertation: https://dsc.duq.edu/etd/1737/?fbclid=IwAR0Gqc9s_ApbwqzlG7o9y2XWq5ZlehaU7PAznsSuWEaTnyVwEv0yB6x80iw
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