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Recent work on human nature: Beyond traditional essences
Title / Series / Name
Philosophy Compass
Publication Volume
9
Publication Issue
9
Pages
Editors
Keywords
Human behavior
Essentialism (Philosophy)
Bestiality
Human origins
Social marginality
Personality (Theory of knowledge)
Essentialism (Philosophy)
Bestiality
Human origins
Social marginality
Personality (Theory of knowledge)
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14018/13031
Abstract
Recent philosophical work on the concept of human nature disagrees on how to respond to the Darwinian challenge, according to which biological species do not have traditional essences. Three broad kinds of reactions can be distinguished: (1) conservative intrinsic essentialism, which defends essences in the traditional sense, (2) eliminativism, which suggests dropping the concept of human nature altogether, and (3) constructive approaches, which argue that revisions can generate sensible concepts of human nature beyond traditional essences. The different constructive approaches pick out one or two of the three epistemic roles that are fused in traditional essentialist conceptions of human nature: descriptive (descriptivism), explanatory (explanativism), definitional (taxonomic relationalism), or explanatory and definitional (property cluster essentialism). These turns towards diverging epistemic roles are best interpreted pluralistically: there is a plurality of concepts of human nature that have to be clearly distinguished, each with a legitimate role in respective scientific contexts.
Topic
Publisher
Place of Publication
Type
Journal article
Date
2014
Language
ISBN
Identifiers
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/phc3.12159