The Naturalization of the Humanities

Abstract

The starting point for a philosophical reconstruction of the humanities should be both pragmatic and naturalistic. A human being is a part of nature and emerged from nature, and his or her creations are also nature’s creations. Human thinking originally arose in response to the challenges that our human ancestors had to face in their development. Sensory experience is a presentation of a person’s surroundings, and thinking is primarily a representation of possible actions available given the environment.¹ Mental capacities exist already in other animals, but our ability for self-reflection has given our human ancestors a higher chance of survival compared to those animals. In order to further optimize such opportunities, individuals must not only be able to represent the world. They must also be able to find out if their sensorial presentations are actually correct. They must be able to form valid assumptions about the future. Our ancestors had to develop a cognitive practice that helped them to troubleshoot conjectures that did not fit with reality. It did not help much after the child was burned by fire, if she did not learn to flee from it afterwards. Humans had to be able to separate true beliefs from false beliefs in order to have cognitive success.