Human universals, human nature & human culture

Daedalus ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 133 (4) ◽  
pp. 47-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donald E. Brown
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Human Culture ◽  
Human Universals

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tim Lewens
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Potential Functions ◽  
Human Psychology ◽  
Human Culture ◽  
The Third ◽  
Current State ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
The Social ◽  
Compare And Contrast

Many evolutionary theorists have enthusiastically embraced human nature, but large numbers of evolutionists have also rejected it. It is also important to recognize the nuanced views on human nature that come from the side of the social sciences. This introduction provides an overview of the current state of the human nature debate, from the anti-essentialist consensus to the possibility of a Gray’s Anatomy of human psychology. Three potential functions for the notion of species nature are identified. The first is diagnostic, assigning an organism to the correct species. The second is species-comparative, allowing us to compare and contrast different species. The third function is contrastive, establishing human nature as a foil for human culture. The Introduction concludes with a brief synopsis of each chapter.

scholarly journals Other Ethics: Decentering the Human in Weird Horror

2017 ◽  
pp. 12-24
Author(s):  
Marianne Gunderson
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Human Experience ◽  
Transformative Power ◽  
Self And Other ◽  
Human Culture ◽  
Human Subjectivity ◽  
Ethical Implications ◽  
Weird Fiction ◽  
The Absolute

Margrit Shildrick has argued that the monster’s ability to disturb and unsettle arises from its position as simultaneously same and different, both self and other at the same time. Through an analysis of Algernon Blackwood’s novella The Willows, this article discusses the challenge posed by the nonhuman Absolute other, the nebulous creatures whose whose difference is total, as they appear in weird fiction. Drawing on posthuman theory, it explores the ethical implications of imagining the crumbling horizons of human subjectivity in the meeting with the absolute and unknowable other. This article argues that by bringing concepts such as the horror of scale, ecophobia, the transformative power of awe, and the strangeness of matter into the monstrous figure, the weird undermines the structures that constructs human, culture, and mind as separate and different from the non-human, nature, and matter. By making us imagine a perspective from which humans are not just insignificant, but irrelevant, weird fiction not only challenges the anthropocentric worldview, but also makes us aware of the limitations and situatedness of human experience.

Human Nature and Human Universals

2020 ◽  
pp. 2056-2061
Author(s):  
Dario Maestripieri ◽  
James Marvel-Coen
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Human Universals

scholarly journals The River Exists, Therefore I Am: Ecocriticism, Nature and Human Nature in Willa Cather’s 'The Enchanted Bluff'

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 137-145
Author(s):  
Alireza Sardari
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Environmental Degradation ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Human Identity ◽  
Ecological Awareness ◽  
Human Culture ◽  
Fresh Perspective ◽  
Representations Of Nature ◽  
Nature Preservation ◽  
The Relationship

Today, environmental degradation and nature preservation are among the most discussed topics in media, academia, and beyond. Adopting Glotfelty’s ecocritical approach, this article investigates the relationship between human culture and the natural world in Willa Cather’s The Enchanted Bluff (2009). The present study determines the different representations of nature along with the ecological issues to (a) heighten the ecological awareness and (b) to provide a fresh perspective to look at the natural world; therefore, this article shifted its focus from the anthropocentric attitude to the biocentric and focuses on nature and its correlation with humanity. This paper challenges the human/nature binary to help us look at the natural world stripped of established stereotypes. The results indicate that nature is an indivisible portion of human identity; furthermore, humankind and the natural world are codependent and interconnected; the results also emphasize that preserving the natural world is, indeed, the prerequisite for the protection of humanity.

The Use and Non-Use of the Human Nature Concept by Evolutionary Biologists

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter J. Richerson
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Early Development ◽  
Evolutionary History ◽  
Modern Synthesis ◽  
First Year ◽  
Human Culture ◽  
Infancy And Childhood ◽  
First Year Of Life

A number of prominent modern evolutionists embraced ‘human nature’, signalling their commitment to the Modern Synthesis. Their claim is that for most of our evolutionary history, culture was of little importance, and that genes, not culture, controlled early development. More recently, cultural evolutionists have argued that culture and reason were present deep in the Homo lineage, and that the ability to learn socially develops in the first year of life. Thus, it is reasonable to think that genes and culture coevolved in the evolutionary past, and that they codevelop in infancy and childhood. Human nature theorists seek to deny this claim, while at the same time trying in various ways to make room for human culture and reason. I argue here that they are unsuccessful in their attempts.

Off Human Nature and On Human Culture:

2017 ◽  
pp. 58-70
Author(s):  
Robert Sussman ◽  
Linda Sussman
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Human Culture

scholarly journals Human nature, human culture: the case of cultural evolution

2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (5) ◽  
pp. 20170018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tim Lewens
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Social Anthropology ◽  
Human Culture ◽  
Organic Evolution ◽  
Related Idea ◽  
Cultural Evolutionary

In recent years, far from arguing that evolutionary approaches to our own species permit us to describe the fundamental character of human nature, a prominent group of cultural evolutionary theorists has instead argued that the very idea of ‘human nature’ is one we should reject. It makes no sense, they argue, to speak of human nature in opposition to human culture. The very same sceptical arguments have also led some thinkers—usually from social anthropology—to dismiss the intimately related idea that we can talk of human culture in opposition to human nature. How, then, are we supposed to understand the cultural evolutionary project itself, whose proponents seem to deny the distinction between human nature and human culture, while simultaneously relying on a closely allied distinction between ‘genetic’ (or sometimes ‘organic’) evolution and ‘cultural’ evolution? This paper defends the cultural evolutionary project against the charge that, in refusing to endorse the concept of human nature, it has inadvertently sabotaged itself.

scholarly journals Teaching in hunter–gatherer infancy

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 150403 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barry S. Hewlett ◽  
Casey J. Roulette
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Central Africa ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Multiple Forms ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
Human Culture ◽  
Natural Pedagogy

A debate exists as to whether teaching is part of human nature and central to understanding culture or whether it is a recent invention of Western, Educated, Industrial, Rich, Democratic cultures. Some social–cultural anthropologists and cultural psychologists indicate teaching is rare in small-scale cultures while cognitive psychologists and evolutionary biologists indicate it is universal and key to understanding human culture. This study addresses the following questions: Does teaching of infants exist in hunter–gatherers? If teaching occurs in infancy, what skills or knowledge is transmitted by this process, how often does it occur and who is teaching? The study focuses on late infancy because cognitive psychologists indicate that one form of teaching, called natural pedagogy, emerges at this age. Videotapes of Aka hunter–gatherer infants were used to evaluate whether or not teaching exists among Aka hunter–gatherers of central Africa. The study finds evidence of multiple forms of teaching, including natural pedagogy, that are used to enhance learning of a variety of skills and knowledge.

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