The Study of Human Nature A Reader

by Stevenson, Leslie

• ISBN13: 9780195127157
• ISBN10: 0195127153
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1999-11-11
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Now in a new edition, this exceptional anthology provides an introduction to a wide variety of views on human nature. Drawing from diverse cultures over three millennia, Leslie Stevenson has chosen selections ranging from ancient religious texts to contemporary theories based on evolutionary science. An ideal companion to the editor's recent book, Ten Theories of Human Nature, 3/e (OUP, 1998), this interdisciplinary reader can also be used independently. The Study of Human Nature, 2/e offers substantial selections illustrating the ten perspectives discussed in Ten Theories of Human Nature, 4/e --The Bible, Hinduism, Confucianism, Plato, Kant, Marx, Freud, Sartre, B.F. Skinner's behaviorism, and Konrad Lorenz's ethological diagnosis of human aggression. The Islamic tradition is represented by a selection from the 20th-century Iranian philosopher Ayatullah Murtaza Mutahhari. The 17th- and 18th-century philosophers Descartes, Hobbes, Hume, Rousseau, and Kant are also represented. Selections from Rousseau, J.S. Mill, and Nancy Holmstrom discuss alleged differences between women and men, and a paper by Henry Bracken deals with racial issues. Examples from E.O. Wilson's sociobiology and his critics are also included, together with material from Chomsky and from recent evolutionary psychology. This new edition includes more substantial selections from the Hindu, Confucian, and Christian traditions and provides more accessible extracts from Marx, Sartre, and Lorenz. An excellent reader for introductory courses in philosophy, religious studies, human nature, and intellectual history, The Study of Human Nature, 2/e, is also an essential resource for anyone interested in ancient, modern, and contemporary perspectives on human nature.

Author Biography

Leslie Stevenson is Reader in Logic and Metaphysics at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland.

Table of Contents

Preface	v
The Hebrew Bible (the Old Testament)	1	(8)
Genesis 1--3	2	(5)
Psalms	7	(2)
Hinduism	9	(13)
Bribad Aranyaka Upanishad	10	(4)
Katha Upanishad	14	(8)
Confucianism	22	(12)
Mencius, ``Human Nature Is Good''	23	(4)
Hsun-tzu, ``Human Nature Is Evil''	27	(7)
Plato	34	(22)
Republic	35	(21)
Christianity (the New Testament)	56	(13)
St. Paul, Letter to the Romans	57	(8)
St. Paul, First Letter to the Corinthians	65	(4)
Islam	69	(15)
Ayatullah Murtaza Mutahhari, ``Man and Faith''	70	(14)
Rene Descartes	84	(6)
Discourse on Method	85	(5)
Thomas Hobbes	90	(8)
Leviathan	91	(7)
David Hume	98	(11)
Treatise of Human Nature	99	(10)
Jean-Jacques Rousseau	109	(8)
Emile	110	(7)
Immanuel Kant	117	(22)
Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View	118	(9)
Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason	127	(12)
Karl Marx	139	(14)
The Materialist Theory of History	140	(7)
Consciousness and the Division of Labour	147	(6)
John Stuart Mill	153	(9)
The Subjection of Women	154	(8)
Charles Darwin	162	(7)
The Descent of Man	163	(6)
Sigmund Freud	169	(16)
B. A. Farrell, ``A Reconstruction of Freud's Mature Theory''	170	(15)
Jean-Paul Sartre	185	(22)
Existentialism and Humanism	186	(21)
B. F. Skinner	207	(15)
About Behaviorism	208	(14)
Konrad Lorenz	222	(15)
On Aggression	223	(14)
Noam Chomsky	237	(20)
``Language and the Human Mind''	238	(19)
Henry M. Bracken	257	(13)
``Essence, Accident and Race''	258	(12)
Edward O. Wilson	270	(18)
On Human Nature	271	(17)
Nancy Holmstrom	288	(15)
``Do Women Have a Distinct Nature?''	289	(14)
Steven Rose, Richard Lewontin, and Leon J. Kamin	303	(13)
Not in Our Genes: Biology, Ideology and Human Nature	304	(12)
Matt Ridley	1
The Origins of Virtue	317