The Western Illusion of Human Nature PDF Download
Are you looking for read ebook online? Search for your book and save it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Download The Western Illusion of Human Nature PDF full book. Access full book title The Western Illusion of Human Nature by Marshall Sahlins. Download full books in PDF and EPUB format.
Author: Marshall Sahlins
Publisher: Paradigm
ISBN:
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 124
Get Book Here
Book Description
Reflecting the decline in college courses on Western Civilization, Marshall Sahlins aims to accelerate the trend by reducing "Western Civ" to about two hours. He cites Nietzsche to the effect that deep issues are like cold baths; one should get into and out of them as quickly as possible. The deep issue here is the ancient Western specter of a presocial and antisocial human nature: a supposedly innate self-interest that is represented in our native folklore as the basis or nemesis of cultural order. Yet these Western notions of nature and culture ignore the one truly universal character of human sociality: namely, symbolically constructed kinship relations. Kinsmen are members of one another: they live each other's lives and die each other's deaths. But where the existence of the other is thus incorporated in the being of the self, neither interest, nor agency or even experience is an individual fact, let alone an egoistic disposition. "Sorry, beg your pardon," Sahlins concludes, Western society has been built on a perverse and mistaken idea of human nature.
Author: Marshall Sahlins
Publisher: Paradigm
ISBN:
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 124
Get Book Here
Book Description
Reflecting the decline in college courses on Western Civilization, Marshall Sahlins aims to accelerate the trend by reducing "Western Civ" to about two hours. He cites Nietzsche to the effect that deep issues are like cold baths; one should get into and out of them as quickly as possible. The deep issue here is the ancient Western specter of a presocial and antisocial human nature: a supposedly innate self-interest that is represented in our native folklore as the basis or nemesis of cultural order. Yet these Western notions of nature and culture ignore the one truly universal character of human sociality: namely, symbolically constructed kinship relations. Kinsmen are members of one another: they live each other's lives and die each other's deaths. But where the existence of the other is thus incorporated in the being of the self, neither interest, nor agency or even experience is an individual fact, let alone an egoistic disposition. "Sorry, beg your pardon," Sahlins concludes, Western society has been built on a perverse and mistaken idea of human nature.
Author: Malcolm Jeeves
Publisher: Templeton Foundation Press
ISBN: 1599473550
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 173
Get Book Here
Book Description
Neuroscience, Psychology, and Religion is the second title published in the new Templeton Science and Religion Series. In this volume, Malcolm Jeeves and Warren S. Brown provide an overview of the relationship between neuroscience, psychology, and religion that is academically sophisticated, yet accessible to the general reader. The authors introduce key terms; thoroughly chart the histories of both neuroscience and psychology, with a particular focus on how these disciplines have interfaced religion through the ages; and explore contemporary approaches to both fields, reviewing how current science/religion controversies are playing out today. Throughout, they cover issues like consciousness, morality, concepts of the soul, and theories of mind. Their examination of topics like brain imaging research, evolutionary psychology, and primate studies show how recent advances in these areas can blend harmoniously with religious belief, since they offer much to our understanding of humanity's place in the world. Jeeves and Brown conclude their comprehensive and inclusive survey by providing an interdisciplinary model for shaping the ongoing dialogue. Sure to be of interest to both academics and curious intellectuals, Neuroscience, Psychology, and Religion addresses important age-old questions and demonstrates how modern scientific techniques can provide a much more nuanced range of potential answers to those questions.
Author: Daniel N. Robinson
Publisher: CUA Press
ISBN: 9780813214405
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 356
Get Book Here
Book Description
The doctrinal teaching of the Roman Catholic Church extends over two millennia and seeks to inform and direct lives at many levels: personal, familial, civic, and institutional. The reach of this teaching extends to law, moral and ethical issues, politics, education, science, and art. No single volume can serve even as a sketch of this teaching, but in the present volume ten internationally renowned scholars address the various dimensions of the Roman Catholic understanding of the human person, especially St. Thomas Aquinas's affirmation of the rational and social nature of man. The authors present a truly multidisciplinary approach to the topic--the contributors include philosophers, psychologists, political scientists, a theologian, and an architect. Special attention is given to the theology and anthropology of Pope John Paul II whose writings vividly condense the searching examination and robust conception of human nature developed over the centuries. Readers are reminded of just how central the Church's teaching has been to Western Civilization in all of its projections and are thus alerted to the conditions likely to preserve or threaten it. The contributors are Hadley Arkes, Jude P. Dougherty, Kevin Flannery, S.J., Robert P. George, Richard Gill, L.C., F. Russell Hittinger, Daniel N. Robinson, Robert Royal, Peter Ryan, S.J., and Carroll William Westfall. ABOUT THE EDITORS: Daniel N. Robinson is professor of philosophy at Oxford University and visiting professor at the Institute for the Psychological Sciences. He is professor emeritus of Georgetown University. Gladys M. Sweeney is dean of the Institute for the Psychological Sciences. Richard Gill, L.C., is director of the women's section of the Legionaries of Christ. PRAISE FOR THE BOOK: "This volume offers the possibility of a fruitful dialogue on the question of Catholic identity in higher education." -- Lucien Richard, Catholic Library World
Author: Bhikhu Parekh
Publisher: Oxford Paperbacks
ISBN: 0192854577
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 152
Get Book Here
Book Description
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948) was one of the few men in history to fight simultaneously on moral, religious, political, social, economic, and cultural fronts. His life and thought has had an enormous impact on the Indian nation, and he continues to be widely revered - known before and after his death by assassination as Mahatma, the Great Soul.
Author: Edward M. Hundert
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674525412
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 298
Get Book Here
Book Description
This book is a bold, modern recasting of the age-old nature-nurture debate, informed by revolutionary insights from brain science, artificial intelligence, psychiatry, linguistics, evolutionary biology, child development, ethics, and even cosmology.
Author: Giles Hutchins
Publisher: Floris Books
ISBN: 1782501436
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 219
Get Book Here
Book Description
Our modern patterns of thinking and learning are all based on observing a world of 'things', which we think of as separate building blocks. This worldview allows us to count and measure objects without their having any innate value; it provides neat definitions and a sense of control over life. However, this approach also sets humans apart from each other, and from nature.In reality, in nature, everything is connected in a fluid, dynamic way. 'Separateness' is an illusion we have created -- and is fast becoming a dangerous delusion infecting how we relate to business, politi, and other key areas of our daily reality.Giles Hutchins argues that the source of our current social, economic and environmental issues springs from the misguided way we see and construct our world. With its roots in ancient wisdom, this insightful book sets out an accesssible, easy to follow exploration of the causes of our current crises, offering ways to rectify these issues at source and then pointing to a way ahead.
Author: Charles Forrest Jones
Publisher: University of Iowa Press
ISBN: 1609388313
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 274
Get Book Here
Book Description
"In a dry Kansas riverbed, a troop of Girl Scouts finds a human hand. This discovery leads Billy Spire, the tough and broken sheriff of Ewing County, to confront the depths of his community. The racism, the dying economy, the lies and truths of friendship, and his own injured marriage. But like any town where people still breathe, there is also love and hope and the possibility of redemption. To flyover people, Ewing County appears nothing more than a handful of empty streets amid crop circles and the meandering, depleted Arkansas River. But the truth of this place - the interwoven lives and stories - is anything but simple"--
Author: Steven Pinker
Publisher: Penguin Books
ISBN: 0143122010
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 834
Get Book Here
Book Description
Faced with the ceaseless stream of news about war, crime, and terrorism, one could easily think this is the most violent age ever seen. Yet as bestselling author Pinker shows in this startling and engaging new work, just the opposite is true.
Author: Wojciech Załuski
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN: 1786436507
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 219
Get Book Here
Book Description
Law and Evilpresents an alternative evolutionary picture of man, focusing on the origins and nature of human evil, and demonstrating its useful application in legal-philosophical analyses. Using this representation of human nature, Wojciech Zaluski analyses the development of law, which he interprets as moving from evolutionary ethics to genuine ethics, as well as arguing in favour of metaethical realism and ius naturale. Zaluski argues that human nature is undoubtedly ambivalent: human beings have been endowed by natural selection with moral, immoral, and neutral tendencies (the first ambivalence), and the moral tendencies themselves are ambivalent (the second ambivalence), giving rise to an inferior form of ethics called 'evolutionary ethics' Introducing a novel distinction between two types of evil, primary and secondary, this book explores the differences between evolutionary ethics and genuine ethics in order to analyse the history of legal systems and the controversy between natural law and legal positivism. Engaging and thought-provoking, this insightful book will be vital reading for both legal scholars and philosophers, especially those of law and moral philosophy. Evolutionary biologists with an interest in a philosophical interpretation of the results of evolutionary biology will also find this book an important read.
Author: Andreas Reckwitz
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1509545719
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 167
Get Book Here
Book Description
We live in a time of great uncertainty about the future. Those heady days of the late twentieth century, when the end of the Cold War seemed to be ushering in a new and more optimistic age, now seem like a distant memory. During the last couple of decades, we’ve been battered by one crisis after another and the idea that humanity is on a progressive path to a better future seems like an illusion. It is only now that we can see clearly the real scope and structure of the profound shifts that Western societies have undergone over the last 30 years. Classical industrial society has been transformed into a late-modern society that is molded by polarization and paradoxes. The pervasive singularization of the social, the orientation toward the unique and exceptional, generates systematic asymmetries and disparities, and hence progress and unease go hand in hand. Reckwitz examines this dual structure of singularization and polarization as it plays itself out in the different sectors of our societies and, in so doing, he outlines the central structural features of the present: the new class society, the characteristics of a postindustrial economy, the conflict about culture and identity, the exhaustion of the self resulting from the imperative to seek authentic fulfillment, and the political crisis of liberalism. Building on his path-breaking work The Society of Singularities, this new book will be of great interest to students and scholars in sociology, politics, and the social sciences generally, and to anyone concerned with the great social and political issues of our time.
