In Light of Our Differences How Diversity in Nature and Culture Makes Us Human

by Harmon, David

• ISBN13: 9781588340665
• ISBN10: 158834066X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2002-09-17
• Publisher: Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press

Summary

More and more work in applied biology, anthropology, linguistics, and other related fields is now driven by the assumption that we are approaching a threshold of irreversible loss, that events during the next few decades will decide whether we cross over into a fundamentally changed and significantly diminished world. This leads to a very simple question that has not, until now, been answered satisfactorily Why should anyone care? David Harmon takes a unique approach to answering this essential question by drawing on insights from conservation biology, evolutionary theory, linguistics, geography, psychology, philosophy, and ethics.

Author Biography

David Harmon cofounded Terralingua. He is also executive director of the George Wright Society

Table of Contents

Preface	p. ix
Acknowledgments	p. xv
Voltaire's Solution	p. 1
Diversity, Globalization, and the Roots of Endangerment	p. 5
The Great Chain of Being and the Principle of Plenitude	p. 9
The Romantic Transformation and Beyond	p. 14
The Real Discovery of Diversity	p. 17
The Converging Extinction Crises	p. 19
Biodiversity as Scientific Concept and Rallying Cry	p. 23
A Brief History of Biological Extinctions	p. 27
Agriculture and the Decline of Variety	p. 29
Extinction Rates: Measuring the Past, Predicting the Future	p. 33
What is Cultural Diversity?	p. 40
Globalization and Cultural Diversity	p. 42
The Value of Cultural Diversity	p. 44
Indicators of Cultural Diversity	p. 46
Language: The Best Proxy	p. 55
The History of Language Extinctions: Some Speculations	p. 58
Prospects for Languages in the Coming Century	p. 60
The Example of Manx	p. 70
The Biocultural Presence	p. 71
Species, Languages, and the Structure of Diversity	p. 74
Similarities Between Species and Languages	p. 79
Speciation and Language Genesis	p. 82
Endemism in Species and Languages	p. 87
Reasons for Decline	p. 93
Assessing Diversity	p. 95
Monothetic versus Polythetic Classification	p. 97
Foundations of Polythetic Classification	p. 99
Polythetic Classification: Recent Elaborations	p. 103
Polythetic Groups as "Natural Kinds"	p. 108
The Reality of Species and Languages	p. 117
What We Do with Difference	p. 119
Distilling Sameness from Difference: William James	p. 122
Distilling Sameness from Difference: A Model	p. 127
Diversity and Determinism	p. 131
A Polythetic Universe	p. 135
Loss of Diversity: Cognitive and Cultural Consequences	p. 139
Our Evolutionary Inheritance	p. 145
Diversity and the Human Identity	p. 147
Are Biological and Cultural Diversity Really Related?	p. 150
Avoiding the Trap of Relativism: Polythetic Morality	p. 153
The Coming Threshold	p. 160
From Uniformity to Unity	p. 163
Notes	p. 169
References	p. 203
Index	p. 221
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