Darwin’s “Horrid” Doubt Revisited: A Critical Reassessment of Evolutionary Arguments against Truth

To what extent can human and non-human perceptual systems accurately reflect external reality? This paper examines the implications of the Evolutionary Argument Against Truth (EAAT), which asserts that, given the mechanisms of evolution, there is no compelling reason to expect a true correspondence between perception and reality. In other words, evolutionary processes do not inherently favor perceptual systems that deliver veridical representations. By examining different iterations of this argument, it is argued that EAATs are either self-defeating or partly oblivious to empirical evidence. However, despite its shortcomings, the EAAT cannot be easily dismissed unless one assumes a necessary link between fitness and truth—what I term “veridical” perceptual congruence in perceptual systems. This paper demonstrates that, within the framework of modern evolutionary bi- ology, establishing such a correlation is profoundly problematic. As a result, we face a troubling paradox: the EAAT can neither be fully accepted nor definitively rejected.