<div>On 5/29/06, Ted Winslow <<a href="mailto:egwinslow@rogers.com">egwinslow@rogers.com</a>> wrote:<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> Jerry Monaco wrote: > > Please tell me the relevance to the case in point? > "Evolutionary psychology" and "sociobiology" entail a form of determinism that excludes self-determination in the sense indicated by the ideas of a "will proper" and a "universal will".  </blockquote></div> You are mixing apples and oranges.  It is a little like saying that notions of "God" or a belief in atheism is incompatible with quantum chemistry.  Please give me some definition of "self-determination", "will proper", and "universal will" ... that has anything to do at all with any attempt at a (narrow) scientific project.  (All scientific theories are very narrow, no matter what scientists and philosophers try to make of them) Such terms as "self determination" and "universal will" are only quasi-theological substitutes.  They may have a place in our way of thinking but they simply cannot be included, as understood by philosophers in a scientific project.  Further, to call sociobiology or evolutionary psychology a form of determinism, in your sense of determinism, is a kind of category mistake. This has been apparent at least since Newton defeated Descartes, but few philosophers have heard the news. Neither sociobiology nor evolutionary psychology assume either determinism or "self-determination."  They are irrelevant as they are irrelevant to the actual theory of quantum-mechanics or the workings of genetics.  (As opposed to any unwarranted philosophical spin-offs that philosophers and scientists try to warrant with science.)  You can believe anything you want about such issues as "will" and "determinism" and it will not effect QM or evolutionary biology one wit.  This is mainly because there is a sense and meaning to ideas of will and determinism and self-determination but they are not narrow concepts with coherent definitions that can be used to test or build theories.  The sense and meaning to these words have not theoretical consequences in sociobiology that I can find.  Your use of determinism or self-determination, does not say anything about how and why bees or ants or bonobos or homo erectus or homo sapiens sapiens organize their societies.  Believe in anything you want in this area and it will not help either way in your investigations and attempts to make a theory.  Note: I believe that sociobiology and evolutionary psychology are good hypotheses that have not produced many good explanations.  They are not yet working theories.  People such as Pinker and E.O. Wilson would disagree with me on this count.  But these are arguments that are much too dense for an email list. Jerry