Anna L. Peterson
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520226548
- eISBN:
- 9780520926059
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520226548.003.0004
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Anthropology, Theory and Practice
This chapter examines the principle of human exceptionalism and the established Christian and modernist narratives of human uniqueness. It explains that these worldviews usually posit a definitive ...
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This chapter examines the principle of human exceptionalism and the established Christian and modernist narratives of human uniqueness. It explains that these worldviews usually posit a definitive and unbridgeable gap between humans and all other species, justified most often by the possession of a soul or rational thought. It suggests that these traditions have legitimized and expanded not only instrumental attitudes toward nature but also hierarchies among humans.Less
This chapter examines the principle of human exceptionalism and the established Christian and modernist narratives of human uniqueness. It explains that these worldviews usually posit a definitive and unbridgeable gap between humans and all other species, justified most often by the possession of a soul or rational thought. It suggests that these traditions have legitimized and expanded not only instrumental attitudes toward nature but also hierarchies among humans.
Kim Sterelny
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780262016797
- eISBN:
- 9780262302814
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262016797.001.0001
- Subject:
- Biology, Evolutionary Biology / Genetics
This book develops a novel account of the speed and extent of human evolutionary divergence from the great ape stock. It does not explain human uniqueness by positing a critical adaptive breakthrough ...
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This book develops a novel account of the speed and extent of human evolutionary divergence from the great ape stock. It does not explain human uniqueness by positing a critical adaptive breakthrough (episodic memory; advanced theory of mind; planning and causal reasoning; language). Rather, it identifies a series of positive feedback loops between initially minor advances in social tolerance, ecological flexibility, cooperative foraging, social learning, and links the results of these feedback loops to the archaeological and anthropological record. The analysis is organised round a new model of the evolution of social learning — the evolved apprentice model — and its coevolutionary interaction with cooperation in foraging and reproduction. Social learning expands through the increasing organisation and enrichment of juvenile learning environments, not just through changes in the intrinsic architecture of human minds. Initially, and for millions of years, these organised social learning environments made it possible for humans to reliably transmit a few core skills, but without supporting the reliable and intergenerationally stable transmission of incremental improvements to those skills. Ultimately, though, enriched and somewhat larger social environments made cumulative cultural evolution possible. Cumulative cultural evolution — Tomasello`s Ratchet — depended on some adaptations for social learning, richly structured learning environments, and demographic critical mass. Critical mass matters, for small and scattered groups can easily lose complex skills through unlucky accident. Humans are so different from great apes in part because they have constructed such novel developmental and selective niches.Less
This book develops a novel account of the speed and extent of human evolutionary divergence from the great ape stock. It does not explain human uniqueness by positing a critical adaptive breakthrough (episodic memory; advanced theory of mind; planning and causal reasoning; language). Rather, it identifies a series of positive feedback loops between initially minor advances in social tolerance, ecological flexibility, cooperative foraging, social learning, and links the results of these feedback loops to the archaeological and anthropological record. The analysis is organised round a new model of the evolution of social learning — the evolved apprentice model — and its coevolutionary interaction with cooperation in foraging and reproduction. Social learning expands through the increasing organisation and enrichment of juvenile learning environments, not just through changes in the intrinsic architecture of human minds. Initially, and for millions of years, these organised social learning environments made it possible for humans to reliably transmit a few core skills, but without supporting the reliable and intergenerationally stable transmission of incremental improvements to those skills. Ultimately, though, enriched and somewhat larger social environments made cumulative cultural evolution possible. Cumulative cultural evolution — Tomasello`s Ratchet — depended on some adaptations for social learning, richly structured learning environments, and demographic critical mass. Critical mass matters, for small and scattered groups can easily lose complex skills through unlucky accident. Humans are so different from great apes in part because they have constructed such novel developmental and selective niches.
Celia Deane-Drummond
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- January 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780823257522
- eISBN:
- 9780823261567
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823257522.003.0005
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology
Systematic theologian and biologist Celia Deane-Drummond elaborates on the issue of whether the human person can claim a unique status in creation, defending the idea of retaining the distinctiveness ...
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Systematic theologian and biologist Celia Deane-Drummond elaborates on the issue of whether the human person can claim a unique status in creation, defending the idea of retaining the distinctiveness of human beings in a nuanced way. From Thomas Aquinas she borrows his interpretation of the terms “image” and “likeness”: While using the language of divine “likeness” to describe other animals, thereby expressing a sense of shared creaturely being, the term “image” referred to the distinctive character of human beings. Deane-Drummond adopts this distinction but, informed by recent ethological studies on animals, bases the image dimension on the religious capacity rather than the capacity to freedom. Moreover, she interprets this distinctiveness in terms of the performative, as presenting the particular task of humanity to recognize its divine vocation to serve God and to exist in respectful communion with other beings. Rather than to argue that animals display the divine image, the author suggests that the close relationship between humans and other animals clarifies the distinctive features of what it means to be human.Less
Systematic theologian and biologist Celia Deane-Drummond elaborates on the issue of whether the human person can claim a unique status in creation, defending the idea of retaining the distinctiveness of human beings in a nuanced way. From Thomas Aquinas she borrows his interpretation of the terms “image” and “likeness”: While using the language of divine “likeness” to describe other animals, thereby expressing a sense of shared creaturely being, the term “image” referred to the distinctive character of human beings. Deane-Drummond adopts this distinction but, informed by recent ethological studies on animals, bases the image dimension on the religious capacity rather than the capacity to freedom. Moreover, she interprets this distinctiveness in terms of the performative, as presenting the particular task of humanity to recognize its divine vocation to serve God and to exist in respectful communion with other beings. Rather than to argue that animals display the divine image, the author suggests that the close relationship between humans and other animals clarifies the distinctive features of what it means to be human.
H. Clark Barrett
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- March 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780199348305
- eISBN:
- 9780199348336
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199348305.003.0014
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind, General
This chapter addresses the topics of human nature and human uniqueness. It argues that it is a mistake to conceptualize human nature as solely consisting of what is unique to humans, as most features ...
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This chapter addresses the topics of human nature and human uniqueness. It argues that it is a mistake to conceptualize human nature as solely consisting of what is unique to humans, as most features of human psychology have homologs in other species. It also constrasts “one reason” theories of human uniqueness with theories that can account for the coevolution of many features of human psychology since the chimpanzee-human common ancestor.Less
This chapter addresses the topics of human nature and human uniqueness. It argues that it is a mistake to conceptualize human nature as solely consisting of what is unique to humans, as most features of human psychology have homologs in other species. It also constrasts “one reason” theories of human uniqueness with theories that can account for the coevolution of many features of human psychology since the chimpanzee-human common ancestor.
Kim Sterelny
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- April 2021
- ISBN:
- 9780197531389
- eISBN:
- 9780197531419
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780197531389.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Science
No human now gathers for himself or herself the essential resources for life: food, shelter, clothing and the like. Humans are obligate co-operators, and this has been true for tens of thousands of ...
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No human now gathers for himself or herself the essential resources for life: food, shelter, clothing and the like. Humans are obligate co-operators, and this has been true for tens of thousands of years; probably much longer. In this regard, humans are very unusual. In the living world more generally, cooperation outside the family is rare. Though it can be very profitable, it is also very risky, as cooperation makes an agent vulnerable to incompetence and cheating. This book presents a new picture of the emergence of cooperation in our lineage, developing through four fairly distinct phases. Our trajectory began from a baseline that was probably fairly similar to living great apes, who cooperate, but in fairly minimal ways. As adults, they rarely depend on others when the outcome really matters. This book suggests that cooperation began to be more important for humans through an initial phase of cooperative foraging generating immediate returns from collective action in small mobile bands. This established in our lineage about 1.8 million years ago, perhaps earlier. Over the rest of the Pleistocene, cooperation became more extended in its social scale, with forms of cooperation between bands gradually establishing, and in spatial and temporal scale too, with various forms of reciprocation becoming important. The final phase was the emergence of cooperation in large scale, hierarchical societies in the Holocene, beginning about 12,000 years ago. This picture is nested in a reading of the archaeological and ethnographic record, and twinned to an account of the gradual elaboration of cultural learning in our lineage, making cooperation both more profitable and more stable.Less
No human now gathers for himself or herself the essential resources for life: food, shelter, clothing and the like. Humans are obligate co-operators, and this has been true for tens of thousands of years; probably much longer. In this regard, humans are very unusual. In the living world more generally, cooperation outside the family is rare. Though it can be very profitable, it is also very risky, as cooperation makes an agent vulnerable to incompetence and cheating. This book presents a new picture of the emergence of cooperation in our lineage, developing through four fairly distinct phases. Our trajectory began from a baseline that was probably fairly similar to living great apes, who cooperate, but in fairly minimal ways. As adults, they rarely depend on others when the outcome really matters. This book suggests that cooperation began to be more important for humans through an initial phase of cooperative foraging generating immediate returns from collective action in small mobile bands. This established in our lineage about 1.8 million years ago, perhaps earlier. Over the rest of the Pleistocene, cooperation became more extended in its social scale, with forms of cooperation between bands gradually establishing, and in spatial and temporal scale too, with various forms of reciprocation becoming important. The final phase was the emergence of cooperation in large scale, hierarchical societies in the Holocene, beginning about 12,000 years ago. This picture is nested in a reading of the archaeological and ethnographic record, and twinned to an account of the gradual elaboration of cultural learning in our lineage, making cooperation both more profitable and more stable.
Kim Sterelny
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- July 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780198823650
- eISBN:
- 9780191862267
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198823650.003.0007
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Moral Philosophy
David Hull famously argued that the very idea of human nature was pre-Darwinian; once we genuinely embrace Darwin’s insights into unbounded variation and plasticity over time, no robust account of ...
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David Hull famously argued that the very idea of human nature was pre-Darwinian; once we genuinely embrace Darwin’s insights into unbounded variation and plasticity over time, no robust account of human nature can survive. There have been a variety of responses to Hull’s critique, variously showing that some concept of human nature can be rebuilt in ways consistent with contemporary evolutionary biology. In this chapter, I argue that, in one sense, some of these reconstructive attempts succeed. One can develop a concept of human nature consistent with evolutionary insights into variation and potentially unbounded change. But in a deeper sense these reconstructive projects are in trouble: the cost of making a concept of human nature evolutionarily credible is, arguably, to rob that concept of explanatory salience.Less
David Hull famously argued that the very idea of human nature was pre-Darwinian; once we genuinely embrace Darwin’s insights into unbounded variation and plasticity over time, no robust account of human nature can survive. There have been a variety of responses to Hull’s critique, variously showing that some concept of human nature can be rebuilt in ways consistent with contemporary evolutionary biology. In this chapter, I argue that, in one sense, some of these reconstructive attempts succeed. One can develop a concept of human nature consistent with evolutionary insights into variation and potentially unbounded change. But in a deeper sense these reconstructive projects are in trouble: the cost of making a concept of human nature evolutionarily credible is, arguably, to rob that concept of explanatory salience.
Frederick L. Coolidge
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- January 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780190940942
- eISBN:
- 9780190940973
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190940942.003.0004
- Subject:
- Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, Neuropsychology
This chapter notes that the expansion of the brain, particularly the cortex, as well as increased behavioral flexibility, in mammals compared to that in reptiles, birds, and fishes. Mammalian brains ...
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This chapter notes that the expansion of the brain, particularly the cortex, as well as increased behavioral flexibility, in mammals compared to that in reptiles, birds, and fishes. Mammalian brains have been typified by mosaic evolution and concerted evolution. The two most important influences on modern human brains have been the evolution of mammalian brains and primate brains, and the latter had the most profound influence on modern human brains. The prefrontal cortex is one of the major exaptations of the human brain, where the cognitive abilities known executive functions primarily reside. Those functions include decision-making, forming plans and goals, organizing, devising strategies to attain goals, inhibition, and the monitoring of effective performance. The frontal lobes of the earliest primates were under selective pressure to identify and eat fruits with their forelimbs. The brains of hominins may have exapted these same regions for object manipulation, tool-making, and eventually language functions such as word choice and word sequencing.Less
This chapter notes that the expansion of the brain, particularly the cortex, as well as increased behavioral flexibility, in mammals compared to that in reptiles, birds, and fishes. Mammalian brains have been typified by mosaic evolution and concerted evolution. The two most important influences on modern human brains have been the evolution of mammalian brains and primate brains, and the latter had the most profound influence on modern human brains. The prefrontal cortex is one of the major exaptations of the human brain, where the cognitive abilities known executive functions primarily reside. Those functions include decision-making, forming plans and goals, organizing, devising strategies to attain goals, inhibition, and the monitoring of effective performance. The frontal lobes of the earliest primates were under selective pressure to identify and eat fruits with their forelimbs. The brains of hominins may have exapted these same regions for object manipulation, tool-making, and eventually language functions such as word choice and word sequencing.
