Human nature and the limits of science Dupre, John

By:

Dupre, John

Publication details: Oxford Oxford University Press 2001Description: x, 201 p. ; 21 cmISBN:

9780199248063

Subject(s):

DDC classification:

Summary: John Dupre warns that our understanding of human nature is being distorted by two faulty and harmful forms of pseudo-scientific thinking. Not just in the academic world but in everyday life, we find one set of experts who seek to explain the ends at which humans aim in terms of evolutionary theory, while the other set uses economic models to give rules of how we act to achieve those ends. Dupre demonstrates that these theorists' explanations do not work and that, if taken seriously, their theories tend to have dangerous social and political consequences. For these reasons, it is important to resist scientism: an exaggerated conception of what science can be expected to do for us. Dupre restores sanity to the study of human nature by pointing the way to a proper understanding of humans in the societies that are our natural and necessary environments.

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Item type	Current library	Call number	Status	Date due	Barcode	Item holds
Book	Ahmedabad	128 D8H8 (Browse shelf(Opens below))	Available		160336

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Previous	128 B3B3 Better never to have been: the harm of coming into existence	128 C5M4 Mind and emergence: from quantum to consciousness	128 D3E6 Empiricism and subjectivity: an essay on Hume's theory of human nature	128 D8H8 Human nature and the limits of science	128 F7T6 To have or to be?	128 G4M4 Misanthropy: the critique of humanity	128 G7S8 Straw dogs: thoughts on humans and other animals	Next

Includes bibliographical references (p. [189]-196) and index

John Dupre warns that our understanding of human nature is being distorted by two faulty and harmful forms of pseudo-scientific thinking. Not just in the academic world but in everyday life, we find one set of experts who seek to explain the ends at which humans aim in terms of evolutionary theory, while the other set uses economic models to give rules of how we act to achieve those ends. Dupre demonstrates that these theorists' explanations do not work and that, if taken seriously, their theories tend to have dangerous social and political consequences. For these reasons, it is important to resist scientism: an exaggerated conception of what science can be expected to do for us. Dupre restores sanity to the study of human nature by pointing the way to a proper understanding of humans in the societies that are our natural and necessary environments.

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