Externalist evolutionary cognitive science

Abstract

The chapter aims to defend an externalist conception of evolutionary psychology by integrating the two forms of externalism found, respectively, in cognitive science and evolutionary biology, which were until now been pursued independently. We call this conception of evolutionary psychology “externalist evolutionary cognitive science”. However, adopting an externalist position is easier said than done, especially on the empirical and experimental front. To this day, externalism (both in cognitive science and evolutionary biology) is mostly limited to conceptual arguments, methodological prescriptions and speculative interpretations of scientifi c work. To integrate the two forms of externalism, we propose to trade internalist idealizations in cognitive science and evolutionary biology with another set of idealizations, inspired by work in mobile robotics as well as in developmental cognitive neuroscience. We start however by explaining in more detail what exactly internalism and externalism in those disciplines are.