Conclusion

Abstract

A Darwinian approach to empirical knowledge puts some severe restrictions on our ability to penetrate beyond our sensory experience and describe reality as it is in itself. The upshot of the discussion in the preceding chapters is that our cognitive faculties are adapted through human evolution to be engaged with what we can perceive and bodily interact. One of the outcomes of the human cognitive adaptation is a disposition of abstractions carried out by the reflective mind. The evolutionary naturalist regards such abstractions to be biological useful as conceptual means for organizing our experience in a coherent and consistent matter. But he or she cannot accept them as something that represents how reality really is.