Research

What do seekers of understanding and virtues, i.e., philosophers, add to the study of technê, over and above the historical and socio-political accounts? If, as Aristotle suggests, understanding, virtue, and technê are mutually exclusive categories, then philosophy of technology seems unmotivated. I propose assimilating understanding and virtue to special kinds of technê. Philosophy of technology, then, should primarily account for such types of technê.

* Gaining expertise in three dimensions (under review): I distinguish between three axes of excellence in technê—improvisational, virtuosic, and physical excellence—based on the difference in how the excellence is acquired. Improvisational excellence is mostly demonstrated in medical diagnosis, competitive sports, engineering, hunting, and scientific understanding; virtuosic excellence in virtuosic piano and violin playing; and physical excellence in strength and endurance in cycling and swimming. Contrary to the prominent idea that deliberate practice is essential for expertise acquisition across many fields, I show that it is essential for improving only virtuosity, not physical and improvisational excellence.

* Two planned papers: Many virtue theorists appeal to technê to account for virtues. The kind of technê they are looking for is specific types of improvisation, such as communicative and emotional improvisation. I am drafting a paper with Anya Plutynski on how expertise in psychotherapy is scaffolded by other affective capacities. Utilizing my computer science background, I am also outlining a paper that distinguishes the communicative expertise between human writers/speakers and ChatGPT.

Can natural sciences and social sciences share the same method? Philosophers of biology are interested in understanding whether and how evolutionary models can be applied to account for the culture of human foragers, including their hunting and crafting expertise. There are three stances. Radical supporters of biologizing culture, such as evolutionary psychologists, explain culture by biological traits such as intelligence. Moderate supporters, such as cultural evolutionists, argue that culture forms its autonomous lineages, but still insist on using evolutionary models to account for cultural change. Many philosophers of biology criticize the radical approach but welcome the moderate approach. By criticizing the moderate approach, I side with most practicing social scientists in denying the prospect of biologizing culture.

* Which culture can be invented alone? (under review): Cultural evolutionists intend to use evolutionary models to explain “complex” skills, but it is unclear how we judge a skill to be “complex.” I argue that existing definitions of technical “complexity” fall short at both motivating evolutionary explanation and covering a wide range of the ostensible examples. Instead, I argue that a long developmental duration is a more suitable criterion for cultural evolutionary explanations. By doing so, I clarify the intended explanatory targets of cultural evolutionary models as expertise.

* Nominal inheritance relation in evolution by natural selection (draft): It is commonly believed that evolution by natural selection requires inheritance relations among individuals, exemplified by a typical family tree. What counts as an inheritance relation remains unclear. I argue against a reproduction-based conception of the inheritance relation, and instead argue for a more nominal conception of inheritance relation that subsumes reproductive relations as a special case. I distinguish the issue of identifying lineages for selection from another issue that is often conflated with it—the identification of the units that constitute memory of evolution.

* The misuse of cultural evolutionary models (draft): I argue that cultural evolutionary models are unsuitable for explaining change in hunting and crafting expertise. As improvisational expertise, the learning of hunting and crafting depends on multiple social sources, thus precluding clear inheritance relations even under the nomical conception. This paper finalizes my case against the biologizing of social sciences.

Biologically and archeologically informed philosophers of mind believe expertise is a key part in explaining the origin of the human mind. Complex hunting and crafting skills create selection pressures for better mental capacities to socialize, to imitate, and to conform to social norms.

* Can we test if culture evolves faster than biology? (under review): Cultural evolutionists say social learning is more advantageous because it speeds up skill evolution in comparison to biological evolution in a fast-changing environment. I argue that this claim of relative speed advantage of cultural evolution is untestable because it relies on claims regarding imaginary populations that biologically inherited complex skills. This untestability indicates a new shortcoming of the adaptationist strategy of looking for “fit” in accounting for human psychological capacities.

* Skill and the origin of normative psychology (draft): Some believe that normative cognition functions to motivate the improvement of crafting expertise. However, excellence in crafting is improvisational rather than virtuosic. I argue that during the development of improvisational expertise, norms operate as scaffolds or Wittgensteinian ladders, structures that enable learners to construct the basic form of skilled behaviour, but which can be discarded for more flexible cognitive control once expertise is achieved.

* Two planned papers: Expertise acquisition requires not only capacities for social learning and norms, but also the capacities to read others’ mind and to use words. I will investigate the origin of these capacities from the perspective of expertise acquisition. This strand of research will help construct a better story on the origin of our mind and help provide practical heuristics for developing epistemic and moral skills.