The Trouble With Human Nature

Download or read book The Trouble with Human Nature written by Elizabeth D. Whitaker and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2017-02-03 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cover -- Title -- Copyright -- CONTENTS -- PART I Pathways to the present -- 1 Envisioning evolution: representations of humanness and causation -- 2 Origin stories: the co-evolution of human anatomy and sociality -- 3 Losses and gains: economic and health transitions since the Neolithic Revolution -- PART II Plasticity, identity, and health -- 4 Thicker than water: blood and milk in human evolution -- 5 Risk and responsibility: power and danger in individualized approaches to preventive health -- 6 Difference as destiny: race, sex, and culture -- PART III Sex and gender -- 7 Choosers and cheaters: the sexual/reproductive conflict hypothesis -- 8 Hoe and plow, pig and cow: work, family, and gender stratification -- 9 Tale of two-spirits: constructing gender and sexuality, aptitudes and inclinations -- PART IV Conflict and violence -- 10 Savage empathy: sources of competitiveness and cooperativeness, greed and generosity -- 11 Why stratify? Inequality and interpersonal violence -- 12 Peace and war: patterns and prevention of violent intergroup conflict -- Appendix: Life expectancy rate calculations -- Index.

Download or read book The Laws of Human Nature written by Robert Greene and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2018-10-23 with total page 626 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the #1 New York Times-bestselling author of The 48 Laws of Power comes the definitive new book on decoding the behavior of the people around you Robert Greene is a master guide for millions of readers, distilling ancient wisdom and philosophy into essential texts for seekers of power, understanding and mastery. Now he turns to the most important subject of all - understanding people's drives and motivations, even when they are unconscious of them themselves. We are social animals. Our very lives depend on our relationships with people. Knowing why people do what they do is the most important tool we can possess, without which our other talents can only take us so far. Drawing from the ideas and examples of Pericles, Queen Elizabeth I, Martin Luther King Jr, and many others, Greene teaches us how to detach ourselves from our own emotions and master self-control, how to develop the empathy that leads to insight, how to look behind people's masks, and how to resist conformity to develop your singular sense of purpose. Whether at work, in relationships, or in shaping the world around you, The Laws of Human Nature offers brilliant tactics for success, self-improvement, and self-defense.

Download or read book What's Left of Human Nature? written by Maria Kronfeldner and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2018-10-16 with total page 335 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A philosophical account of human nature that defends the concept against dehumanization, Darwinian, and developmentalist challenges. Human nature has always been a foundational issue for philosophy. What does it mean to have a human nature? Is the concept the relic of a bygone age? What is the use of such a concept? What are the epistemic and ontological commitments people make when they use the concept? In What's Left of Human Nature? Maria Kronfeldner offers a philosophical account of human nature that defends the concept against contemporary criticism. In particular, she takes on challenges related to social misuse of the concept that dehumanizes those regarded as lacking human nature (the dehumanization challenge); the conflict between Darwinian thinking and essentialist concepts of human nature (the Darwinian challenge); and the consensus that evolution, heredity, and ontogenetic development result from nurture and nature. After answering each of these challenges, Kronfeldner presents a revisionist account of human nature that minimizes dehumanization and does not fall back on outdated biological ideas. Her account is post-essentialist because it eliminates the concept of an essence of being human; pluralist in that it argues that there are different things in the world that correspond to three different post-essentialist concepts of human nature; and interactive because it understands nature and nurture as interacting at the developmental, epigenetic, and evolutionary levels. On the basis of this, she introduces a dialectical concept of an ever-changing and “looping” human nature. Finally, noting the essentially contested character of the concept and the ambiguity and redundancy of the terminology, she wonders if we should simply eliminate the term “human nature” altogether.

Download or read book The New Atlantis written by and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 590 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Beyond Human Nature written by Jesse J Prinz and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2012-01-26 with total page 439 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this provocative, revelatory tour de force, Jesse Prinz reveals how the cultures we live in - not biology - determine how we think and feel. He examines all aspects of our behaviour, looking at everything from our intellects and emotions, to love and sex, morality and even madness. This book seeks to go beyond traditional debates of nature and nurture. He is not interested in finding universal laws but, rather, in understanding, explaining and celebrating our differences. Why do people raised in Western countries tend to see the trees before the forest, while people from East Asia see the forest before the trees? Why, in South East Asia, is there a common form of mental illness, unheard of in the West, in which people go into a trancelike state after being startled? Compared to Northerners, why are people in the American South more than twice as likely to kill someone over an argument? And, above all, just how malleable are we? Prinz shows that the vast diversity of our behaviour is not engrained. He picks up where biological explanations leave off. He tells us the human story.

Download or read book The Trouble with Nature written by Roger N. Lancaster and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2003-05 with total page 466 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lancaster provides the disproof of evolutionary stories about men, women, and the nature of desire of the heterosexual fables that pervade popular culture, from prime-time sitcoms to scientific theories about the so-called gay gene.

Download or read book Human Nature and Suffering written by Paul Gilbert and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-08-05 with total page 473 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Human Nature and Suffering is a profound comment on the human condition, from the perspective of evolutionary psychology. Paul Gilbert explores the implications of humans as evolved social animals, suggesting that evolution has given rise to a varied set of social competencies, which form the basis of our personal knowledge and understanding. Gilbert shows how our primitive competencies become modified by experience - both satisfactorily and unsatisfactorily. He highlights how cultural factors may modify and activate many of these primitive competencies, leading to pathology proneness and behaviours that are collectively survival threatening. These varied themes are brought together to indicate how the social construction of self arises from the organization of knowledge encoded within the competencies. This Classic Edition features a new introduction from the author, bringing Gilbert's early work to a new audience. The book will be of interest to clinicians, researchers and historians in the field of psychology.