Kim Sterelny is an Australian philosopher and professor of philosophy in the Research School of Social Sciences at Australian National University

Australian National University

The Australian National University is a teaching and research university located in the Australian capital, Canberra.As of 2009, the ANU employs 3,945 administrative staff who teach approximately 10,000 undergraduates, and 7,500 postgraduate students...

 and Victoria University of Wellington

Victoria University of Wellington

Victoria University of Wellington was established in 1897 by Act of Parliament, and was a former constituent college of the University of New Zealand. It is particularly well known for its programmes in law, the humanities, and some scientific disciplines, but offers a broad range of other courses...

. He is the winner of several international prizes in the philosophy of science, and editor of Biology and Philosophy. He is also a member of the Australian Academy of the Humanities

Australian Academy of the Humanities

The Australian Academy of the Humanities was established by Royal Charter in 1969 to advance scholarship and public interest in the humanities in Australia...

.

Sterelny's principal area of research is in 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...

. He states "the development of evolutionary biology since 1858 is one of the great intellectual achievements of science. Sterelny has also written extensively about the philosophy of psychology

Philosophy of psychology

Philosophy of psychology refers to issues at the theoretical foundations of modern psychology. Some of these issues are epistemological concerns about the methodology of psychological investigation...

. He is the author

Author

An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...

 of many important papers in these areas, including widely anthologized papers on group selection, meme

Meme

A meme is "an idea, behaviour or style that spreads from person to person within a culture."A meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural ideas, symbols or practices, which can be transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech, gestures, rituals or other imitable phenomena...

 theory and cultural evolution such as "Return of the Gene" (with Philip Kitcher), "Memes Revisted" and "The Evolution and Evolvability of Culture."

Together with his former student Paul Griffiths

Paul Griffiths

Paul Griffiths may refer to:* Paul J. Griffiths , professor of Catholic Thought* Paul Griffiths , Welsh writer, theatre critic and director* Paul Griffiths , British music critic, novelist and librettist...

, in 1999, Sterelny published Sex and Death, a comprehensive treatment of problems and alternative positions in the philosophy of biology. This book incorporated a number of the positions developed in previous articles on the range of topics in the philosophy of biology. At certain points Sterelny and his coauthor differed (for example, on the Darwinian treatment of emotions and on the prospects for developmental systems theory

Developmental systems theory

In developmental psychology, developmental systems theory is an overarching theoretical perspective on biological development, heredity, and evolution . It emphasizes the equal contributions of genes, environment, and epigenetic factors on developmental processes...

).

In 2004 Sterelny's book Thought in a Hostile World: The Evolution of Human Cognition received the Lakatos Award

Lakatos Award

The Lakatos Award is given annually for a contribution to the philosophy of science which is widely interpreted as outstanding. The contribution must be in the form of a book published in English during the previous six years....

 for a distinguished contribution to the philosophy of science. This book provides a Darwinian account of the nature and evolution of human cognitive capacities, and is an important alternative to nativist accounts familiar from evolutionary psychology

Evolutionary psychology

Evolutionary psychology is an approach in the social and natural sciences that examines psychological traits such as memory, perception, and language from a modern evolutionary perspective. It seeks to identify which human psychological traits are evolved adaptations, that is, the functional...

. By combining an account of neural plasticity, group selection, and niche construction, Sterelny shows how much of the data on which nativist accounts rely can be accounted for without attributing a large number of genetically hardwire modules to the mind/brain. In 2008 Sterelny was awarded the Jean-Nicod Prize

Jean Nicod Prize

The Jean Nicod Prize is awarded annually in Paris to a leading philosopher of mind or philosophically-oriented cognitive scientist. The lectures are organized by the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique as part of its effort to promote interdisciplinary research in cognitive science in...

. His lectures are to be published under the title, The Fate of the Third Chimpanzee. These lectures build on the non-Nativist Darwinian approach of Thought in a Hostile World, while providing a discussion of a great deal of recent work by other philosophers, biological anthropologists and ecologists, gene-culture co-evolution theorists, and evolutionary game theorists.

Books

• Language and Reality (1999 - with Michael Devitt). MIT Press: ISBN 0262540991; ISBN 9780262540995; ISBN 0262041731; Blackwell ISBN 0631196897; ISBN 9780631196891;
• The Representational Theory of Mind (1999) ISBN 0631164987; ISBN 9780631164982; ISBN 978-0631164982
• Sex and Death (1999 - with Paul Griffiths
  Paul Griffiths
  Paul Griffiths may refer to:* Paul J. Griffiths , professor of Catholic Thought* Paul Griffiths , Welsh writer, theatre critic and director* Paul Griffiths , British music critic, novelist and librettist...
  
  ). ISBN 9780226773032
• The Evolution of Agency and Other Essays (2001). ISBN 9780521642316
• Dawkins vs. Gould
  Dawkins vs. Gould
  Dawkins vs. Gould: Survival of the Fittest is a book by philosopher of biology Kim Sterelny about the differing views of biologists Richard Dawkins and Stephen Jay Gould. When first published in 2001 it became an international bestseller...
  
  (2001). New, revised edition 2007.
• Thought in a Hostile World: The evolution of human cognition (2003) ISBN 0631188878; ISBN 9780631188872; ISBN 978-0631188872
• What is Biodiversity (2008 - with James Maclaurin). ISBN 9780226500812