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Kenneth T. Gallagher

Bio: Kenneth T. Gallagher is an academic researcher. The author has contributed to research in topics: Contemporary philosophy & Existentialism. The author has an hindex of 3, co-authored 7 publications receiving 659 citations.

Papers
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In a book that is both groundbreaking and accessible, Daniel C. Dennett as discussed by the authors focuses his unerringly logical mind on the theory of natural selection, showing how Darwin's great idea transforms and illuminates our traditional view of humanity's place in the universe.
Abstract: In a book that is both groundbreaking and accessible, Daniel C. Dennett, whom Chet Raymo of The Boston Globe calls \"one of the most provocative thinkers on the planet,\" focuses his unerringly logical mind on the theory of natural selection, showing how Darwin's great idea transforms and illuminates our traditional view of humanity's place in the universe. Dennett vividly describes the theory itself and then extends Darwin's vision with impeccable arguments to their often surprising conclusions, challenging the views of some of the most famous scientists of our day.

684 citations


Cited by
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Book
01 Dec 1996
TL;DR: Clark as mentioned in this paper argues that the mental has been treated as a realm that is distinct from the body and the world, and argues that a key to understanding brains is to see them as controllers of embodied activity.
Abstract: From the Publisher: The old opposition of matter versus mind stubbornly persists in the way we study mind and brain. In treating cognition as problem solving, Andy Clark suggests, we may often abstract too far from the very body and world in which our brains evolved to guide us. Whereas the mental has been treated as a realm that is distinct from the body and the world, Clark forcefully attests that a key to understanding brains is to see them as controllers of embodied activity. From this paradigm shift he advances the construction of a cognitive science of the embodied mind.

3,745 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors find East Asians to be holistic, attending to the entire field and assigning causality to it, making relatively little use of categories and formal logic, and relying on "dialectical" reasoning, whereas Westerners are more analytic.
Abstract: The authors find East Asians to be holistic, attending to the entire field and assigning causality to it, making relatively little use of categories and formal logic, and relying on "dialectical" reasoning, whereas Westerners are more analytic, paying attention primarily to the object and the categories to which it belongs and using rules, including formal logic, to understand its behavior. The 2 types of cognitive processes are embedded in different naive metaphysical systems and tacit epistemologies. The authors speculate that the origin of these differences is traceable to markedly different social systems. The theory and the evidence presented call into question long-held assumptions about basic cognitive processes and even about the appropriateness of the process-content distinction.

3,472 citations

Book
01 Jan 1994
TL;DR: Part 1 Foundations: introduction the era of decentralization, Constructions: constructionism LEGO/logo StarLogo objects and parallelism and Reflections: the centralized mindset beyond the decentralized mindset.
Abstract: Part 1 Foundations: introduction the era of decentralization. Part 2 Constructions: constructionism LEGO/logo StarLogo objects and parallelism. Part 3 Explorations: simulations and stimulations slime mould artificial ants traffic jams termites turtles and frogs turtle ecology new turtle geometry forest fire recursive trees. Part 4 Reflections: the centralized mindset beyond the centralized mindset. Part 5 Projections: growing up. Appendices: student participants StarLogo overview.

1,023 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this model, phenotypes have a much more active role in evolution than generally conceived and sheds light on hominid evolution, on the evolution of culture, and on altruism and cooperation.
Abstract: We propose a conceptual model that maps the causal pathways relating biological evolution to cultural change. It builds on conventional evolutionary theory by placing emphasis on the capacity of organisms to modify sources of natural selection in their environment (niche construction) and by broadening the evolutionary dynamic to incorporate ontogenetic and cultural processes. In this model, phenotypes have a much more active role in evolution than generally conceived. This sheds light on hominid evolution, on the evolution of culture, and on altruism and cooperation. Culture amplifies the capacity of human beings to modify sources of natural selection in their environments to the point where that capacity raises some new questions about the processes of human adaptation.

860 citations