b. 1965
Peter Godfrey-Smith is an Australian philosopher of science and biology, currently Professor at the University of Sydney. He is known for his work on the philosophy of mind, evolution, and the nature of cognition, with particular interest in how Darwinian theory bears on questions about mind and representation. His empirical and field-based approach to animal cognition, especially cephalopods, has informed his philosophical work on the evolution of mind.
Developed influential accounts of the relationship between natural selection and cognitive/representational systems
Authored 'Darwinian Populations and Natural Selection' (2009), a rigorous formal analysis of evolutionary theory
Authored 'Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness' (2016), bridging philosophy and marine biology
Advanced the 'simple mapping account' and related theories of mental representation grounded in evolutionary function
Contributed to debates on levels of selection, the units of evolution, and the structure of biological explanation