This volume explores the development of the idea of a common humanity for all human beings from Antiquity to the present time focussing on the "other" as "neighbour, enemy, and infidel", on the ...interpretation of the Biblical story of Abraham´s sacrifice and on ancient and modern ethical and legal implications of the concept of human dignity.
Once Out of Nature offers an original interpretation of Augustine's theory of time and embodiment. Andrea Nightingale draws on philosophy, sociology, literary theory, and social history to analyze ...Augustine's conception of temporality, eternity, and the human and transhuman condition. In Nightingale's view, the notion of embodiment illuminates a set of problems much larger than the body itself: it captures the human experience of being an embodied soul dwelling on earth. In Augustine's writings, humans live both in and out of nature—exiled from Eden and punished by mortality, they are "resident aliens" on earth. While the human body is subject to earthly time, the human mind is governed by what Nightingale calls psychic time. For the human psyche always stretches away from the present moment—where the physical body persists—into memories and expectations. As Nightingale explains, while the body is present in the here and now, the psyche cannot experience self- presence. Thus, for Augustine, the human being dwells in two distinct time zones, in earthly time and in psychic time. The human self, then, is a moving target.Adam, Eve, and the resurrected saints, by contrast, live outside of time and nature: these transhumans dwell in an everlasting present. Nightingale connects Augustine's views to contemporary debates about transhumans and suggests that Augustine's thought reflects our own ambivalent relationship with our bodies and the earth. Once Out of Nature offers a compelling invitation to ponder the boundaries of the human.
To be human is to be curious. And one of the things we are most curious about is how we came to be who we are--how we evolved over millions of years to become creatures capable of inquiring into our ...own evolution. In this lively and readable introduction, renowned anthropologist Ian Tattersall thoroughly examines both the fossil and archeological records to trace human evolution from the earliest beginnings of our zoological family Hominidae, through the emergence of Homo sapiens, to the Agricultural Revolution. He begins with an accessible overview of evolutionary theory and then explores the major turning points in human evolution: the emergence of the genus Homo, the advantages of bipedalism--the trait that most strongly distinguishes humans from other primates--the birth of the big brain and symbolic thinking, Paleolithic and Neolithic tool-making, and finally the enormously consequential shift from hunter-gatherer to agricultural societies 10,000 years ago in the Fertile Crescent and elsewhere. Focusing particularly on the pattern of events and innovations in human biological and cultural evolution, Tattersall offers illuminating commentary on a wide range of topics, from early intimations of symbolism in Africa to our earliest known artistic expressions--the exquisite Cro-Magnon cave paintings and 30,000 year--old flutes made from vulture bones-to ancient burial rites, the beginnings of language, the likely causes of Neanderthal extinction, the relationship between agriculture and Christianity, and the still unsolved mysteries of human consciousness. Complemented by a wealth of illustrations and written with the grace and accessibility for which Tattersall is widely admired, The World from Beginnings to 4000 BCE invites us to take a closer look at the strange and distant beings who, over the course of millions of years, would become us.
Paleodemography Hoppa, Robert D; Vaupel, James W
01/2002, Letnik:
v.Series Number 31
eBook
Paleodemography is the field of enquiry that attempts to identify demographic parameters from past populations (usually skeletal samples) derived from archaeological contexts, and then to make ...interpretations regarding the health and well-being of those populations. However, paleodemographic theory relies on several assumptions that cannot easily be validated by the researcher, and if incorrect, can lead to large errors or biases. In this book, physical anthropologists, mathematical demographers and statisticians tackle these methodological issues for reconstructing demographic structure for skeletal samples. Topics discussed include how skeletal morphology is linked to chronological age, assessment of age from the skeleton, demographic models of mortality and their interpretation, and biostatistical approaches to age structure estimation from archaeological samples. This work will be of immense importance to anyone interested in paleodemography, including biological and physical anthropologists, demographers, geographers, evolutionary biologists and statisticians.
Written by one of today's most creative and innovative philosophers, Ruth Garrett Millikan, this book examines basic empirical concepts; how they are acquired, how they function, and how they have ...been misrepresented in the traditional philosophical literature. Millikan places cognitive psychology in an evolutionary context where human cognition is assumed to be an outgrowth of primitive forms of mentality, and assumed to have 'functions' in the biological sense. Of particular interest are her discussions of the nature of abilities as different from dispositions, her detailed analysis of the psychological act of reidentifying substances, and her critique of the language of thought for mental representation. In a radical departure from current philosophical and psychological theories of concepts, this book provides the first in-depth discussion on the psychological act of reidentification.
Since its inception, anthropology's authority has been based on the assumption that it is a unified discipline emanating from the West. In an age of heightened globalization, anthropologists have ...failed to discuss consistently the current status of their practice and its mutations across the globe. World Anthropologies is the first book to provoke this conversation from various regions of the world in order to assess the diversity of relations between regional or national anthropologies and a contested, power-laden Western discourse.
Can a planetary anthropology cope with both the 'provincial cosmopolitanism' of alternative anthropologies and the 'metropolitan provincialism' of hegemonic schools? How might the resulting 'world anthropologies' challenge the current panorama in which certain allegedly national anthropological traditions have more paradigmatic weight - and hence more power - than others? Critically examining the international dissemination of anthropology within and across national power fields, contributors address these questions and provide the outline for a veritable world anthropologies project.
Thinking Matter Catalano, Joseph S.
2000, 20020601, 2002-06-01
eBook
First published in 2000. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
Joseph S. Catalano is an internationally recognized Sartre scholar and Professor Emeritus at Kean University ...of at Kean University of New Jersey. He is the author of classic commentaries on Jean-Paul Sartre's Critique of Dialectical Reason and Being and Nothingness, and of Good Faith and Other Essays (1996).
Is sex identity a feature of one’s mind or body, and is it a relational or intrinsic property? Who is in the best position to know a person’s sex, do we each have a true sex, and is a person’s sex an ...alterable characteristic? When a person’s sex assignment changes, has the old self disappeared and a new one emerged; or, has only the public presentation of one’s self changed? “You’ve Changed” examines the philosophical questions raised by the phenomenon of sex reassignment, and brings together the essays of scholars known for their work in gender, sexuality, queer, and disability studies, feminist epistemology and science studies, and philosophical accounts of personal identity. An interdisciplinary contribution to the emerging field of transgender studies, it will be of interest to students and scholars in a number of disciplines.
