Gerhard Vollmer
Encyclopedia
Gerhard Vollmer is a German physicist
and philosopher. He tries to build bridges between the natural science and the more social or humanistic disciplines. He is perhaps best known for his development of an evolutionary theory of knowledge
.
, Berlin
, Hamburg
and Freiburg
. After finishing his degree in physics in 1968 he studied philosophy
and linguistics
in Freiburg. He worked as a trainee in Deutschen Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY) in Hamburg. In Freiburg he attained a doctorate (1971) in theoretical physics
. He stayed here after completing a year's stint as a research assistant in Montreal in 1975. In 1974, Vollmer attained an additional doctorate in philosophy.
From 1975 Vollmer taught at the University of Hanover. From 1981 he lectured on the Philosophy of Biology
at the University of Giessen
. From 1991 he has taught philosophy at the TU Braunschweig. He holds lectures and classes in logic
, epistemology and philosophy of science
, natural philosophy
, and artificial intelligence
.
, now named after him. He was a determined postitivist
, on whose gravestone in the old cemetery is inscribed "Wahrheit über alles" - Truth above all else!)
Vollmer became a member in 1998 of the Leopoldina Academy of Sciences Halle. He is a member of Giordano Bruno Foundation (a society dedicated to a sort of evolutionary humanism, weblink below) and (in 2001) was elected to the learned society, Braunschweig Sciences Society (Braunschweigischen Wissenschaftlichen Gesellschaft). On his 60th birthday in 2003 a Festschrift
was produced in his honour called "Cold-blooded:Philosophy from a rational standpoint" ("Kaltblütig. Philosophie von einem rationalen Standpunkt" edited by Wolfgang Buschlinger and Christoph Lütge, published by Hirzel Verlag, Stuttgart).
In 2004 he received the Eduard Rhein Foundation Cultural Prize
for having laid down the “foundation of an evolutionary theory of knowledge and for his outstanding achievement in bridging natural sciences and the social and humanistic disciplines”.
He is one of the editors of the periodical Aufklärung und Kritik. He is a member of the Science Advisory Committee of the GWUP (Gesellschaft zur wissenschaftlichen Untersuchung von Parawissenschaften - a German union supporting scientific skepticism
). Vollmer is also a member of the Brights movement
(to which philosopher Daniel Dennett
and biologist Richard Dawkins
are also affiliated. “Bright” is an umbrella term for persons with a naturalistic
worldview.)
, Vollmer’s work has more in common with the Anglo-American tradition of Analytic Philosophy
, in particular the Pragmatism
associated with Willard Van Orman Quine
. In the English-speaking world, his thought is most associated with Evolutionary Epistemology
, which tries to answer age-old questions of what we can know and how, together with justifications, by referring to our evolutionary history. Darwin
in his notebooks speculated that the pre-existing innate ideas with which Plato
thought we were born derived from our primate ancestors. “read monkeys for pre-existence!” he wrote to himself. This idea was picked up by Konrad Lorenz
in the middle of the 20th century and made popular by Donald T. Campbell
in the 1970s.
Vollmer claims, uncontroversially, that cognition
- including our thinking - takes place in our heads. Using a range of stimuli
, our brain builds up a picture of the world in which we operate. We draw conclusions from our experience - some of which prove helpful in future action, some of which do not. The principles underlying these cognitive processes were developed during our evolutionary history, and it is these that form the subject of study of Evolutionary Epistemology
. Our cognitive functioning fits the world we live in because they have evolved over millions of years in adaptation to this world. Our ideas are not infallible, but our basic intuitions are fairly reliable in dealing with the normal world - what Vollmer calls the Mesocosm
, a world of medium-sized objects in a space reaching to the middle distance, and in relatively recent time. This is the world our ancestors negotiated - and survived long enough to pass on their cognitive apparatus. Our intuitions fail in larger perspectives - of size, space and time - but our inherited apparatus can construct cognitive tools to transcend these. Language, algorithms, calculi, mathematics, computers, etc. can help us even form an understanding of the very large, relativity theory; and the very small, such as quantum theory
.
All of this is based on our organic evolution, and the evolution of our cognitive faculties plays an important role in epistemology. Vollmer thinks this approach can solve old problems of epistemology, pose and solve new ones, or shed new light on a range of issues. He claims that Evolutionary Epistemology
is naturalistic
, meaning that “there are no secrets” anywhere in the Universe, and that this naturalism covers all human activities "language, knowledge, scientific investigation, moral action, aesthetic judgement, even religious faith" . He calls for a naturalistic anthropology
, epistemology, scientific methodology
, ethics
and esthetics. He acknowledges that Quine
had set out this programme, had developed a naturalistic epistemology to carry it out, and had even hinted that natural selection
could explain why “Creatures inveterately wrong in their induction
s have a pathetic but praiseworthy tendency to die before reproducing their kind”.
Vollmer also claimed that Evolutionary Epistemology
was realistically
oriented. It had a realistic ontology
, meaning that the world is generally “independent (for its existence) of our consciousness, is lawfully structured and is quasi-continuous”. It has a realistic epistemology, in that it is “partially knowable by perception, thinking and inter-subjective science”. Lastly, the fact that our hypotheses of the world are often proved wrong, proves that the world is real, but means that any hypothesis, scientific or otherwise, is provisional and preliminary (and subject to processes not unlike natural selection).
This naturalistic, realistic world is subject to the correspondence theory of truth
- meaning that a statement is true if, and only if, it truly reflects the state of affairs it purports to describe. This is often described as a circular argument, but Vollmer suggests it only such if we think it is a sufficient criterion (i.e. a sure-fire marker) for truth. We have no such thing, only necessary criteria (i.e. without which, no truth) including consistency, corroboration and coherence. It is in fact only a definition, and not a criterion, of truth. The clincher, he thinks, is that only this can explain falsity.
It follows from this that there is a strong genetic
component to our cognitive processes. Not only was Plato
right, about our innate ideas but so was Noam Chomsky
and Steven Pinker
, who claim that we all have an inborn template for language learning. Vollmer thinks language is a sort of probe, by which we can investigate the organisation of mental processes, and relate them to our evolutionary history. It is this that he sets out to explore, mentioning that it is connected to realism
, materialism
, evolutionary theory , the development of science
and an evolutionary philosophy of science.
aspect, or why certain assumptions about reality are in fact knowledge. He ignores issues about intentionality
and agency
or even meaning
. Vollmer could plausibly answer these questions, especially as he is wary of metaphysics
- “Just as much metaphysics as is necessary” - but in this he is vulnerable to the charge of being concerned only with the easier parts of epistemology - a sort of meso-philosophy, to adapt his term, dealing with issues in the middle distance, and under-estimating the power of the elaborate cognitive tool known as metaphysics
to address a bigger picture. (see Marjorie Grene
). His use of terms such as "quasi-continuous" and "partially knowable" might suggest that, as a good pragmatist, he is happy with this limited objective.
There is a chapter by Vollmer in English in
Physicist
A physicist is a scientist who studies or practices physics. Physicists study a wide range of physical phenomena in many branches of physics spanning all length scales: from sub-atomic particles of which all ordinary matter is made to the behavior of the material Universe as a whole...
and philosopher. He tries to build bridges between the natural science and the more social or humanistic disciplines. He is perhaps best known for his development of an evolutionary theory of knowledge
Evolutionary epistemology
Evolutionary epistemology refers to two distinct topics - on the one hand, the biological evolution of cognitive mechanisms in animals and humans, and on the other hand, a theory in that knowledge itself evolves by natural selection....
.
Life
Vollmer studied in MunichMunich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
, Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
, Hamburg
Hamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
and Freiburg
Freiburg
Freiburg im Breisgau is a city in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. In the extreme south-west of the country, it straddles the Dreisam river, at the foot of the Schlossberg. Historically, the city has acted as the hub of the Breisgau region on the western edge of the Black Forest in the Upper Rhine Plain...
. After finishing his degree in physics in 1968 he studied philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
and linguistics
Linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....
in Freiburg. He worked as a trainee in Deutschen Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY) in Hamburg. In Freiburg he attained a doctorate (1971) in theoretical physics
Theoretical physics
Theoretical physics is a branch of physics which employs mathematical models and abstractions of physics to rationalize, explain and predict natural phenomena...
. He stayed here after completing a year's stint as a research assistant in Montreal in 1975. In 1974, Vollmer attained an additional doctorate in philosophy.
From 1975 Vollmer taught at the University of Hanover. From 1981 he lectured on the Philosophy of Biology
Philosophy of biology
The philosophy of biology is a subfield of philosophy of science, which deals with epistemological, metaphysical, and ethical issues in the biological and biomedical sciences...
at the University of Giessen
University of Giessen
The University of Giessen is officially called the Justus Liebig University Giessen after its most famous faculty member, Justus von Liebig, the founder of modern agricultural chemistry and inventor of artificial fertiliser.-History:The University of Gießen is among the oldest institutions of...
. From 1991 he has taught philosophy at the TU Braunschweig. He holds lectures and classes in logic
Logic
In philosophy, Logic is the formal systematic study of the principles of valid inference and correct reasoning. Logic is used in most intellectual activities, but is studied primarily in the disciplines of philosophy, mathematics, semantics, and computer science...
, epistemology and philosophy of science
Philosophy of science
The philosophy of science is concerned with the assumptions, foundations, methods and implications of science. It is also concerned with the use and merit of science and sometimes overlaps metaphysics and epistemology by exploring whether scientific results are actually a study of truth...
, natural philosophy
Natural philosophy
Natural philosophy or the philosophy of nature , is a term applied to the study of nature and the physical universe that was dominant before the development of modern science...
, and artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...
.
Honours and associations
In 1963 he was awarded the Magnus Schwerd Prize for outstanding achievements in mathematics at school. (Friedrich Magnus Schwerd (1792 - 1871) was perhaps the longest serving teacher of Mathematics in the one post in the world. From 1817 until his death he taught Maths at Speyer GymnasiumGymnasium (school)
A gymnasium is a type of school providing secondary education in some parts of Europe, comparable to English grammar schools or sixth form colleges and U.S. college preparatory high schools. The word γυμνάσιον was used in Ancient Greece, meaning a locality for both physical and intellectual...
, now named after him. He was a determined postitivist
Positivism
Positivism is a a view of scientific methods and a philosophical approach, theory, or system based on the view that, in the social as well as natural sciences, sensory experiences and their logical and mathematical treatment are together the exclusive source of all worthwhile information....
, on whose gravestone in the old cemetery is inscribed "Wahrheit über alles" - Truth above all else!)
Vollmer became a member in 1998 of the Leopoldina Academy of Sciences Halle. He is a member of Giordano Bruno Foundation (a society dedicated to a sort of evolutionary humanism, weblink below) and (in 2001) was elected to the learned society, Braunschweig Sciences Society (Braunschweigischen Wissenschaftlichen Gesellschaft). On his 60th birthday in 2003 a Festschrift
Festschrift
In academia, a Festschrift , is a book honoring a respected person, especially an academic, and presented during his or her lifetime. The term, borrowed from German, could be translated as celebration publication or celebratory writing...
was produced in his honour called "Cold-blooded:Philosophy from a rational standpoint" ("Kaltblütig. Philosophie von einem rationalen Standpunkt" edited by Wolfgang Buschlinger and Christoph Lütge, published by Hirzel Verlag, Stuttgart).
In 2004 he received the Eduard Rhein Foundation Cultural Prize
Eduard Rhein
Prof. Eduard Rudolph Rhein was an inventor, publisher, and author.He was the founder of the German magazine "Hörzu", which he directed as its editor-in-chief until 1964...
for having laid down the “foundation of an evolutionary theory of knowledge and for his outstanding achievement in bridging natural sciences and the social and humanistic disciplines”.
He is one of the editors of the periodical Aufklärung und Kritik. He is a member of the Science Advisory Committee of the GWUP (Gesellschaft zur wissenschaftlichen Untersuchung von Parawissenschaften - a German union supporting scientific skepticism
Scientific skepticism
Scientific skepticism is the practice of questioning the veracity of claims lacking empirical evidence or reproducibility, as part of a methodological norm pursuing "the extension of certified knowledge". For example, Robert K...
). Vollmer is also a member of the Brights movement
Brights movement
The Brights movement is a social movement that aims to promote public understanding and acknowledgment of the naturalistic worldview, including equal civil rights and acceptance for people who hold a naturalistic worldview. It was co-founded by Paul Geisert and Mynga Futrell in 2003...
(to which philosopher Daniel Dennett
Daniel Dennett
Daniel Clement Dennett is an American philosopher, writer and cognitive scientist whose research centers on the philosophy of mind, philosophy of science and philosophy of biology, particularly as those fields relate to evolutionary biology and cognitive science. He is currently the Co-director of...
and biologist Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins
Clinton Richard Dawkins, FRS, FRSL , known as Richard Dawkins, is a British ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author...
are also affiliated. “Bright” is an umbrella term for persons with a naturalistic
Metaphysical naturalism
Metaphysical naturalism, also called ontological naturalism and philosophical naturalism, or just naturalism, is a philosophical worldview and belief system that holds that there is nothing but natural elements, principles, and relations of the kind studied by the natural sciences, i.e., those...
worldview.)
Thought
Although educated in the German tradition of Continental PhilosophyContinental philosophy
Continental philosophy, in contemporary usage, refers to a set of traditions of 19th and 20th century philosophy from mainland Europe. This sense of the term originated among English-speaking philosophers in the second half of the 20th century, who used it to refer to a range of thinkers and...
, Vollmer’s work has more in common with the Anglo-American tradition of Analytic Philosophy
Analytic philosophy
Analytic philosophy is a generic term for a style of philosophy that came to dominate English-speaking countries in the 20th century...
, in particular the Pragmatism
Pragmatism
Pragmatism is a philosophical tradition centered on the linking of practice and theory. It describes a process where theory is extracted from practice, and applied back to practice to form what is called intelligent practice...
associated with Willard Van Orman Quine
Willard Van Orman Quine
Willard Van Orman Quine was an American philosopher and logician in the analytic tradition...
. In the English-speaking world, his thought is most associated with Evolutionary Epistemology
Evolutionary epistemology
Evolutionary epistemology refers to two distinct topics - on the one hand, the biological evolution of cognitive mechanisms in animals and humans, and on the other hand, a theory in that knowledge itself evolves by natural selection....
, which tries to answer age-old questions of what we can know and how, together with justifications, by referring to our evolutionary history. Darwin
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...
in his notebooks speculated that the pre-existing innate ideas with which Plato
Plato
Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...
thought we were born derived from our primate ancestors. “read monkeys for pre-existence!” he wrote to himself. This idea was picked up by Konrad Lorenz
Konrad Lorenz
Konrad Zacharias Lorenz was an Austrian zoologist, ethologist, and ornithologist. He shared the 1973 Nobel Prize with Nikolaas Tinbergen and Karl von Frisch...
in the middle of the 20th century and made popular by Donald T. Campbell
Donald T. Campbell
Donald Thomas Campbell was an American social scientist. He is noted for his work in methodology. He coined the term "evolutionary epistemology" and developed a selectionist theory of human creativity.- Biography :...
in the 1970s.
Vollmer claims, uncontroversially, that cognition
Cognition
In science, cognition refers to mental processes. These processes include attention, remembering, producing and understanding language, solving problems, and making decisions. Cognition is studied in various disciplines such as psychology, philosophy, linguistics, and computer science...
- including our thinking - takes place in our heads. Using a range of stimuli
Stimulus (physiology)
In physiology, a stimulus is a detectable change in the internal or external environment. The ability of an organism or organ to respond to external stimuli is called sensitivity....
, our brain builds up a picture of the world in which we operate. We draw conclusions from our experience - some of which prove helpful in future action, some of which do not. The principles underlying these cognitive processes were developed during our evolutionary history, and it is these that form the subject of study of Evolutionary Epistemology
Evolutionary epistemology
Evolutionary epistemology refers to two distinct topics - on the one hand, the biological evolution of cognitive mechanisms in animals and humans, and on the other hand, a theory in that knowledge itself evolves by natural selection....
. Our cognitive functioning fits the world we live in because they have evolved over millions of years in adaptation to this world. Our ideas are not infallible, but our basic intuitions are fairly reliable in dealing with the normal world - what Vollmer calls the Mesocosm
Mesocosm
A mesocosm is an experimental tool that brings a small part of the natural environment under controlled conditions. In this way mesocosms provide a link between observational field studies that take place in natural environments, but without replication, and controlled laboratory experiments that...
, a world of medium-sized objects in a space reaching to the middle distance, and in relatively recent time. This is the world our ancestors negotiated - and survived long enough to pass on their cognitive apparatus. Our intuitions fail in larger perspectives - of size, space and time - but our inherited apparatus can construct cognitive tools to transcend these. Language, algorithms, calculi, mathematics, computers, etc. can help us even form an understanding of the very large, relativity theory; and the very small, such as quantum theory
Quantum mechanics
Quantum mechanics, also known as quantum physics or quantum theory, is a branch of physics providing a mathematical description of much of the dual particle-like and wave-like behavior and interactions of energy and matter. It departs from classical mechanics primarily at the atomic and subatomic...
.
All of this is based on our organic evolution, and the evolution of our cognitive faculties plays an important role in epistemology. Vollmer thinks this approach can solve old problems of epistemology, pose and solve new ones, or shed new light on a range of issues. He claims that Evolutionary Epistemology
Evolutionary epistemology
Evolutionary epistemology refers to two distinct topics - on the one hand, the biological evolution of cognitive mechanisms in animals and humans, and on the other hand, a theory in that knowledge itself evolves by natural selection....
is naturalistic
Naturalism (philosophy)
Naturalism commonly refers to the philosophical viewpoint that the natural universe and its natural laws and forces operate in the universe, and that nothing exists beyond the natural universe or, if it does, it does not affect the natural universe that we know...
, meaning that “there are no secrets” anywhere in the Universe, and that this naturalism covers all human activities "language, knowledge, scientific investigation, moral action, aesthetic judgement, even religious faith" . He calls for a naturalistic anthropology
Anthropology
Anthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...
, epistemology, scientific methodology
Methodology
Methodology is generally a guideline for solving a problem, with specificcomponents such as phases, tasks, methods, techniques and tools . It can be defined also as follows:...
, ethics
Ethics
Ethics, also known as moral philosophy, is a branch of philosophy that addresses questions about morality—that is, concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime, etc.Major branches of ethics include:...
and esthetics. He acknowledges that Quine
Willard Van Orman Quine
Willard Van Orman Quine was an American philosopher and logician in the analytic tradition...
had set out this programme, had developed a naturalistic epistemology to carry it out, and had even hinted that natural selection
Natural selection
Natural selection is the nonrandom process by which biologic traits become either more or less common in a population as a function of differential reproduction of their bearers. It is a key mechanism of evolution....
could explain why “Creatures inveterately wrong in their induction
Induction
-General use:* Induction , induction of childbirth* Rite of passage** Introduction of an individual into a body such as the armed forces** Formal introduction of a priest into possession of the position to which she or he has been presented and instituted...
s have a pathetic but praiseworthy tendency to die before reproducing their kind”.
Vollmer also claimed that Evolutionary Epistemology
Evolutionary epistemology
Evolutionary epistemology refers to two distinct topics - on the one hand, the biological evolution of cognitive mechanisms in animals and humans, and on the other hand, a theory in that knowledge itself evolves by natural selection....
was realistically
Philosophical realism
Contemporary philosophical realism is the belief that our reality, or some aspect of it, is ontologically independent of our conceptual schemes, linguistic practices, beliefs, etc....
oriented. It had a realistic ontology
Ontology
Ontology is the philosophical study of the nature of being, existence or reality as such, as well as the basic categories of being and their relations...
, meaning that the world is generally “independent (for its existence) of our consciousness, is lawfully structured and is quasi-continuous”. It has a realistic epistemology, in that it is “partially knowable by perception, thinking and inter-subjective science”. Lastly, the fact that our hypotheses of the world are often proved wrong, proves that the world is real, but means that any hypothesis, scientific or otherwise, is provisional and preliminary (and subject to processes not unlike natural selection).
This naturalistic, realistic world is subject to the correspondence theory of truth
Correspondence theory of truth
The correspondence theory of truth states that the truth or falsity of a statement is determined only by how it relates to the world, and whether it accurately describes that world...
- meaning that a statement is true if, and only if, it truly reflects the state of affairs it purports to describe. This is often described as a circular argument, but Vollmer suggests it only such if we think it is a sufficient criterion (i.e. a sure-fire marker) for truth. We have no such thing, only necessary criteria (i.e. without which, no truth) including consistency, corroboration and coherence. It is in fact only a definition, and not a criterion, of truth. The clincher, he thinks, is that only this can explain falsity.
It follows from this that there is a strong genetic
Genetics
Genetics , a discipline of biology, is the science of genes, heredity, and variation in living organisms....
component to our cognitive processes. Not only was Plato
Plato
Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...
right, about our innate ideas but so was Noam Chomsky
Noam Chomsky
Avram Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, and activist. He is an Institute Professor and Professor in the Department of Linguistics & Philosophy at MIT, where he has worked for over 50 years. Chomsky has been described as the "father of modern linguistics" and...
and Steven Pinker
Steven Pinker
Steven Arthur Pinker is a Canadian-American experimental psychologist, cognitive scientist, linguist and popular science author...
, who claim that we all have an inborn template for language learning. Vollmer thinks language is a sort of probe, by which we can investigate the organisation of mental processes, and relate them to our evolutionary history. It is this that he sets out to explore, mentioning that it is connected to realism
Philosophical realism
Contemporary philosophical realism is the belief that our reality, or some aspect of it, is ontologically independent of our conceptual schemes, linguistic practices, beliefs, etc....
, materialism
Materialism
In philosophy, the theory of materialism holds that the only thing that exists is matter; that all things are composed of material and all phenomena are the result of material interactions. In other words, matter is the only substance...
, evolutionary theory , the development of science
History of science
The history of science is the study of the historical development of human understandings of the natural world and the domains of the social sciences....
and an evolutionary philosophy of science.
Criticism
The main criticism is that this is not a systematically argued philosophical position, but merely a programme for research for (possible) evolutionary explanations for our cognitive functioning. At best, it is merely descriptive - describing what we do when we come to know something - and leaves out the normativeNorm (philosophy)
Norms are concepts of practical import, oriented to effecting an action, rather than conceptual abstractions that describe, explain, and express. Normative sentences imply “ought-to” types of statements and assertions, in distinction to sentences that provide “is” types of statements and assertions...
aspect, or why certain assumptions about reality are in fact knowledge. He ignores issues about intentionality
Intentionality
The term intentionality was introduced by Jeremy Bentham as a principle of utility in his doctrine of consciousness for the purpose of distinguishing acts that are intentional and acts that are not...
and agency
Human agency
In philosophy and sociology, agency is the capacity of an agent to act in a world. In philosophy, the agency is considered as belonging to that agent even if that agent represents a fictitious character, or some other non-existent entity...
or even meaning
Meaning (non-linguistic)
A non-linguistic meaning is an actual or possible derivation from sentience, which is not associated with signs that have any original or primary intent of communication...
. Vollmer could plausibly answer these questions, especially as he is wary of metaphysics
Metaphysics
Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world, although the term is not easily defined. Traditionally, metaphysics attempts to answer two basic questions in the broadest possible terms:...
- “Just as much metaphysics as is necessary” - but in this he is vulnerable to the charge of being concerned only with the easier parts of epistemology - a sort of meso-philosophy, to adapt his term, dealing with issues in the middle distance, and under-estimating the power of the elaborate cognitive tool known as metaphysics
Metaphysics
Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world, although the term is not easily defined. Traditionally, metaphysics attempts to answer two basic questions in the broadest possible terms:...
to address a bigger picture. (see Marjorie Grene
Marjorie Grene
Marjorie Glicksman Grene was an American philosopher.She wrote both on existentialism and the philosophy of science, especially the philosophy of biology. She taught at the University of California at Davis from 1965 to 1978. From 1988 until her death she was Honorary University Distinguished...
). His use of terms such as "quasi-continuous" and "partially knowable" might suggest that, as a good pragmatist, he is happy with this limited objective.
Publications
- Evolutionäre Erkenntnistheorie (Evolutionary epistemology) (1975, 8. Aufl. 2002)
- Was können wir wissen? (What can we know?) (2 Bde. 2. Aufl. 1988)
- Wissenschaftstheorie im Einsatz (Philosophy of Science in practice) (1993)
- Auf der Suche nach der Ordnung (In search of order) (1995)
- Biophilosophie (Philosophy of Biology) (1995)
- Wieso können wir die Welt erkennen? (How can we grasp the nature of the world?) (2002)
There is a chapter by Vollmer in English in
- Bartley, W W. and Radnitzky, Gerard (eds) Evolutionary epistemology, rationality and the sociology of knowledge. La Salle, IL : Open Court, 1987. ISBN 0-8126-9038-9 ; ISBN 0-8126-9039-7 (pbk)
- Hösle, Vittorio and Illies, Christian (eds) Darwinism and philosophy University of Notre Dame Press, 2005. ISBN 0-268-03072-3 (hbk) ; ISBN 0-268-03073-1 (pbk) (Chapter 13. How Is It That We Can Know This World? New Arguments in Evolutionary Epistemology, by G Vollmer)