Human Nature

This volume contains notable essays addressing questions of human nature, based on a 2010 conference at Oxford Brookes University.

Constantine Sandis (Edited by), Mark J. Cain (Edited by)

9781107651975, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 17 May 2012

290 pages
22.8 x 15.1 x 1.2 cm, 0.42 kg

"contains some interesting contributions...."
--Davide Vecchi, Universidad de Santiago de Chile, Metapsychology Online Reviews

An understanding of human nature has been central to the work of some of the greatest philosophical thinkers including Plato, Descartes, Hume, Hobbes, Rousseau, Freud and Marx. Questions such as 'what is human nature?', 'is there such a thing as an exclusively human nature?', 'through what methods might we best discover more about our nature?', and 'to what extent are our actions and beliefs constrained by it?' are of central importance not only to philosophy, but to our general understanding of ourselves as part of the human species. This volume addresses such questions through the inclusion of special commissioned essays by specialists including John Cottingham, Hans-Johann Glock, P. M. S. Hacker, Wolfram Hinzen, Rosalind Hursthouse, Peter Kail, Sarah Patterson and Richard Samuels.

Notes on contributors
Preface
1. Science and human nature Richard Samuels
2. Essentialism, externalism, and human nature M. J. Cain
3. Human nature and grammar Wolfram Hinzen
4. Can evolutionary biology do without Aristotelian essentialism? Stephen J. Boulter
5. The anthropological difference: what can philosophers do to identify the differences between human and non-human animals? Hans-Johann Glock
6. Paul Broca and the evolutionary genetics of cerebral asymmetry Tim J. Crow
7. The sad and sorry history of consciousness: being, among other things, a challenge to the 'consciousness-studies community' P. M. S. Hacker
8. Human nature and Aristotelian virtue ethics Rosalind Hursthouse
9. Doubt and human nature in Descartes's meditations Sarah Patterson
10. The sceptical beast of the beastly sceptic: human nature in Hume P. J. E. Kail
11. Human nature and the transcendent John Cottingham
12. Being human: religion and superstition in a psychoanalytic philosophy of religion Beverley Clack.

Subject Areas: Ethics & moral philosophy [HPQ], Philosophy of mind [HPM], Philosophy [HP], Humanities [H]