Evolutionary Epistemology in the Face of Interdisciplinary Challenges of the Modern Science

Abstract

Evolutionary epistemology in its modern state and trends of development is under consideration in the article. It is shown how it meets the interdisciplin­ary challenges of the modern science. The cognitive complexity (complexity of cognition, of cognitive functions of consciousness, of the bound of mind and body in the process of cognition, of coupling of cognitive agent and of a medium of its life, action and cognition) is studied. It is demonstrated that idea of evolution which has been always considered as a key idea in evolution­ary epistemology obtains nowadays a wider disciplinary basis. Evolution of living nature in the sense of evolutionary doctrine of Charles Darwin which received in the XXcentury a supplement with genetics is only a part of global or universal evolutionary process, of the so-called Big History. The evolution­ary foundation for evolutionary epistemology becomes a broader one, and a deeper understanding of mechanisms of evolution of nature, general patternsof evolution is achieved. According to this understanding, life emerges, then a human being as a reasonable creature emerges, his cognitive activity raises to the highest manifestation of spirit, the human history runs. Some modern re­sults of study of consciousness, of neurophysiologic processes which underlie the cognitive activity of a living being, of appearance of consciousness and its higher cognitive and creative abilities are analyzed as well.