The work presents life and work of Vladimir Jan Amos Novak, it shows his main thoughts unified by the principle of sociogenesis and points at its inspiration in older traditions of german and russian biology. It also concerns his anthropology as related to the principle of sociogenesis and shows some peculiar Novak's contributions, mainly his opinions on progessive neotenization of man and evolutionary tedency for association. It grasps the principle of sociogenesis as a biological and also a political concept and therefore shows its very political consequences presented mainly on his social thoughts. The work also deals with the relations between eastern and western science on Novák's efforts to unify all sciences under one universal evolutionary framework regardless its geographical belonging. Throughout the work is Novak shown in the context of man-animal relations and the principle of sociogenesis as arising from myrmecological studies. There are therefore presented anthropological works of three important myrmecologists A. Forel, W.M. Wheeler and E.O. Wilson as inspired in the study of ants.

Ce mémoire se veut un examen épistémologique de la thèse psychoévolutionniste de Leda Cosmides et John Tooby, principalement en ce qui concerne la modularité massive. Nous avons tâché de voir si la modularité massive permet de rendre compte des processus mentaux complexes en nous penchant plus particulièrement sur le cas des émotions. Nous explorons d'abord la thèse de Cosmides et Tooby en la distinguant d'avec d'autres conceptions comme l'écologie béhaviorale et en expliquant le rôle particulier que jouent les émotions au sein de la théorie. Nous analysons ensuite la thèse de la modularité massive et les différents arguments théoriques ou empiriques qui l'appuient, et évaluons finalement des critiques de la modularité émises par certains philosophes, dont David Buller. / In this thesis, we enquired about the philosophical and empirical foundations of the psycho-evolutionary model of Cosmides and Tooby, especially with regards their Massive Modularity Thesis (MMT). We wanted to determine whether the MMT can account for complex mental processes such as emotions. The thesis first gives a general explanation of evolutionary psychology (as opposed to behavioral ecology or sociobiology) then evaluates different lines of argument for MMT. We then turn to the philosophical criticism of MMT by David Buller.

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