Thinking the Unthinkable

Abstract

Given that we are, as Richard Dawkins described, 'middle-sized creatures moving at middle speed', how have we evolved brains that seem to be able to comprehend ideas and concepts way beyond these limits? Not only that, but by what processes have we evolved the capacity to imaginively and practically engage with entirely abstract concepts such as politics, ethics, religion, art, and the law, when these make no contact with our evolutionarily contingent sense-making mechanisms whatsoever?