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Author: Kim Sterelny
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0197531407
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 203
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Book Description
Kim Sterelny here builds on his original account of the evolutionary development and interaction of human culture and cooperation, which he first presented in The Evolved Apprentice (2012). Sterelny sees human evolution not as hinging on a single key innovation, but as emerging from a positive feedback loop caused by smaller divergences from other great apes, including bipedal locomotion, better causal and social reasoning, reproductive cooperation, and changes in diet and foraging style. He advances this argument in The Pleistocene Social Contract with four key claims about cooperation, culture, and their interaction in human evolution. First, he proposes a new model of the evolution of human cooperation. He suggests human cooperation began from a baseline that was probably similar to that of great apes, advancing about 1.8 million years ago to an initial phase of cooperative forging, in small mobile bands. Second, he then presents a novel account of the change in evolutionary dynamics of cooperation: from cooperation profits based on collective action and mutualism, to profits based on direct and indirect reciprocation over the course of the Pleistocene. Third, he addresses the question of normative regulation, or moral norms, for band-scale cooperation, and connects it to the stabilization of indirect reciprocation as a central aspect of forager cooperation. Fourth, he develops an account of the emergence of inequality that links inequality to intermediate levels of conflict and cooperation: a final phase of cooperation in largescale, hierarchical societies in the Holocene, beginning about 12,000 years ago. The Pleistocene Social Contract combines philosophy of biology with a reading of the archaeological and ethnographic record to present a new model of the evolution of human cooperation, cultural learning, and inequality.
Author: Kim Sterelny
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0197531407
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 203
Get Book
Book Description
Kim Sterelny here builds on his original account of the evolutionary development and interaction of human culture and cooperation, which he first presented in The Evolved Apprentice (2012). Sterelny sees human evolution not as hinging on a single key innovation, but as emerging from a positive feedback loop caused by smaller divergences from other great apes, including bipedal locomotion, better causal and social reasoning, reproductive cooperation, and changes in diet and foraging style. He advances this argument in The Pleistocene Social Contract with four key claims about cooperation, culture, and their interaction in human evolution. First, he proposes a new model of the evolution of human cooperation. He suggests human cooperation began from a baseline that was probably similar to that of great apes, advancing about 1.8 million years ago to an initial phase of cooperative forging, in small mobile bands. Second, he then presents a novel account of the change in evolutionary dynamics of cooperation: from cooperation profits based on collective action and mutualism, to profits based on direct and indirect reciprocation over the course of the Pleistocene. Third, he addresses the question of normative regulation, or moral norms, for band-scale cooperation, and connects it to the stabilization of indirect reciprocation as a central aspect of forager cooperation. Fourth, he develops an account of the emergence of inequality that links inequality to intermediate levels of conflict and cooperation: a final phase of cooperation in largescale, hierarchical societies in the Holocene, beginning about 12,000 years ago. The Pleistocene Social Contract combines philosophy of biology with a reading of the archaeological and ethnographic record to present a new model of the evolution of human cooperation, cultural learning, and inequality.
Author: Michael Harry Lessnoff
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 200
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Book Description
Author: Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 258
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Book Description
Author: Robert Ardrey
Publisher: Storydesign Limited
ISBN: 9780988604377
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 322
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Book Description
"Violation of biological command has been the failure of social man. Vertebrates though we may be, we have ignored the law of equal opportunity since civilization's earliest hours. Sexually reproducing beings though we are, we pretend today that the law of inequality does not exist. And enlightened though we may be, while we pursue the unattainable we make impossible the realizable." In his two previous books, Robert Ardrey exploded a series of philosophical landmines. African Genesis (1961) introduced his new evolutionary approach to an understanding of men. Then came The Territorial Imperative (1966), whose title is now a common phrase in our language. The Social Contract is the third in the series, and it denies that men are created equal - but that they deserve absolute equality of opportunity. Robert Ardrey maintains that since the publication of Rousseau's Social Contract two centuries ago, men have wasted social resources, converted much of education into a process of brain-washing, committed themselves to one political insane asylum after another, all in pursuit of a goal that is a natural impossibility in any sexually reproducing species. Discarding the myth, Robert Ardrey combines his wealth of knowledge of animal ways with the new insights of modern biology and the newest revelations concerning human evolution to probe perplexing contemporary problems: the revolt of the young, the status struggle and the role of leadership, population control, urban overcrowding, violence in civilized life. This brilliant classic offers a powerful challenge to accustomed thought. Praise for the 1970 edition: "Robert Ardrey's The Social Contract is as imaginative and exciting as his African Genesis or The Territorial Imperative, but this new book is broader in scope, better balanced, and more philosophical than its predecessors. I disagree with some of Ardrey's opinions concerning human aggression, because I have greater faith than he has in the power of environmental conditioning. But this does not affect my conviction that The Social Contract will be of immense value in helping the public to probe into the dark and misty areas where zoology, anthropology, and prehistory join to account for the origins of man as a social animal." - Rene Dubos, Rockefeller University
Author: Mark Hulliung
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 280
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Book Description
The first comprehensive examination of the social contract's role in American political development. Traces the history of the contract--the closest thing we have to a common philosophy--from its role in the Founding up to current day debates, and charts its rise--and demise--in influence over American political thought.
Author: Albert Weale
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0198853548
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 471
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Book Description
This volume offers an exposition and evaluation of major work in social contract theory from 1950 to the present.
Author: Jean Hampton
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316583252
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages :
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Book Description
This major study of Hobbes' political philosophy draws on recent developments in game and decision theory to explore whether the thrust of the argument in Leviathan, that it is in the interests of the people to create a ruler with absolute power, can be shown to be cogent. Professor Hampton has written a book of vital importance to political philosophers, political and social scientists, and intellectual historians.
Author: Sebastian Erckel
Publisher: GRIN Verlag
ISBN: 364032739X
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 29
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Book Description
Essay from the year 2008 in the subject Politics - Political Theory and the History of Ideas Journal, grade: 80%= good, University of Kerala (Department of Political Science), course: Political Theory- Liberal Tradition, language: English, abstract: This essay compares the classical social contract theories of Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau. Different perceptions of the state of nature resulted in different ideas about the social contract and its emphasis on either security (Hobbes), individual rights (Locke) or the collective freedom of Rousseau's general will. Political philosophy is believed to have started with Plato's "Republic", the first known sophisticated analysis of a fundamental question that humans have probably been concerned with much longer: how should human society be organised, i.e. who should rule and why? Plato believed that ruling required special training and skills and should therefore be left to an aristocracy of guardians who had received extensive training. While the notion that ruling requires expertise can hardly be denied there is also agreement among most philosophers that whoever qualifies for the job of ruling needs to do so with the interest of the people in mind. But what is the interest of the people and how can it be discovered? According to Plato, a necessary precondition for rulers is wisdom and that is why he wanted his guardians to be especially trained in philosophy. One may think that the people themselves should know what is best for them but somewhat surprisingly this idea has been rejected not just by Plato but also by many philosophers following him. Another approach is to link rule on Earth to a mandate received from a divine Creator. However, even the idea that humans could not exist without a government has been questioned, most notably by anarchism. Thus, the question of how political rule, the power to make decisions for others, could be justified is an essential one. Only legitimate rule creates obligation and without o
Author: Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Publisher: Barnes & Noble
ISBN: 9780760770214
Category : Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 164
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Book Description
Jean-Jacques Rousseau's ideas about society, culture, and government are pivotal in the history of political thought. His works are as controversial as they are relevant today. This volume brings together three of Rousseau's most important political writings -- The Social Contract and The First Discourse (Discourse on the Sciences and Arts) and The Second Discourse (Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality) -- and presents essays by major scholars that shed light on the dimensions and implications of these texts. Susan Dunn's introductory essay underlines the unity of Rousseau's political thought and explains why his ideas influenced Jacobin revolutionaries in France but repelled American revolutionaries across the ocean. Gita May's essay discusses Rousseau as cultural critic. Robert N. Bellah explores Rousseau's attempt to resolve the tension between the individual's desire for freedom and the obligations that society imposes. David Bromwich analyzes Rousseau as a psychologist of the human self. And Conor Cruise O'Brien takes on the "noxious, " "deranged" Rousseau, excoriated by Edmund Burke but admired by Robespierre and Thomas Jefferson. Written from different, even opposing perspectives, these lucid essays convey a sense of the vital and contentious debate surrounding Rousseau and his legacy.
Author: Ron Replogle
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 9780847675913
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 268
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Book Description
The author defends a novel philosophical thesis about the nature and foundation of moral rights. The thesis maintains that rights-claims derive their credibility from a distinctive idea of equality according to which persons are not just equally valuable but equally invaluable. The egalitarian ideal derives its normative content from widely acknowledged norms of competence that are distinguishable from and conceptually prior to the norms of rationality and morality that have exercised contemporary theorists of rational choice and justice. When its nature and foundation are appreciated, rights-based justice can be seen to be more powerful and, in an important sense, less ideological than alternative conceptions. In defending this view, the author considers how ideology corrupts thinking about justice and maintains that contemporary theorists are ideological in a sense that disqualifies them from setting credible normative standards.
