Human Nature: Philosophical and Anthropological Perspectives
Involved cultural nature. The greater the geographical distance, the slower the increase in genetic diversity. No need to go away; leaving town is enough to have a fresh relationship.
Europe: A Historical Perspective
- 1st ed: Expansion of agro-livestock: Mesopotamian pastors gene.
- 2nd ed: Adaptation to cold.
- 3rd ed: The Indo-European peoples with horses impose their languages.
- 4th ed: The Greek cultural contagion spread easier than genetic.
- 5th ed: The Basques: spreads to eastern Europe.
Man: rational animal.
Creationism: Man in the image of God.
Fixism: Species unchanged.
Lamarck: All proceed from one another agency. He proposed two laws: the role of organs and the inheritance of acquired characteristics. Fijista, but not creationist.
Anthropogenesis (which changes a person): Acquisition of erect posture which develops creativity and that means an increase in brain and its neural connections, resulting in the ability to transform reality and contributes to the ability of communication.
Philosophical Anthropology
(which defines man): Max Scheler defined all that sets man apart. Language separates us from animals, as does moral conscience and the State (capacity to organize.)
Marxian Anthropology
Prática and stresses the social essence of man. Man is the result of the society in which they live. Man is the producer who transforms nature. Life = social production. There can be no production that has nothing to do with society.
- Mode of production: evolving in each period.
- Alienation: man transformed into an instrument.
- Gain: locking for less than you deserved.
Sarte: Existentialist, humanist, and Marxist. Man and his individual life give meaning to existence. If God does not exist, then man is his existence and freedom. Being and Nothingness is about personal autonomy and independence, as well as authenticity and self-responsibility.
Freud thought that the human mind is composed of: self (conscious, though it seems we are not), super ego (preconscious: standards, repressed impulses), and the id (unconscious primitive impulses, bad experiences.) Defense mechanisms of the super ego. Theories of sleep: during sleep, the unconscious emerges.
Socrates and Ethical Intellectualism
The good is associated with knowledge, so I learned what is good and bad, so ignorant. Knowledge is acquired by internal search. Uses ethics as a technique for obtaining happiness.
Cynics
Antisthenes and Diogenes: named for where they met and their lifestyle of wearing clothes (like dogs), they are radically unconventional and natural. Defenders of authentic life.
Epicureans
Epicurus of Samos: reality consists of atoms and void. Happiness is based on pleasure: catastemáticos: no pain, and kinetic: meeting needs. Individualistic.
Stoics
Concerned about the social commitment to produce a common good. Everything is written; fate.
Darwin
Struggle for survival and natural selection. Species diversity by De Vries, Correns, and Tschermak through genetic mutation and changes brought about by environmental change.
Relativism
Affirms the relativity of reality.
- Types:
- Ontological: there is no absolute reality; reality has access to what man is on him and different from reality itself (Kant).
- Epistemological: claims that the truth depends on context.
- Ethical: moral concepts depend on context.
Universalism
Affirms the absolute nature of truth. It aims to extend concepts to all mankind.
Dawkins: The concept of memes that are small imitations of knowledge, social learning.
Harris: Cultural Materialism: the taboos depend on material and economic conditions of culture.