Are we losing touch with our humanity? Yes, contends Alan Wolfe in this provocative critique of modern American intellectual life. From ecology, sociobiology, and artificial intelligence to post-modernism and the social sciences, Wolfe examines the antihumanism underlying many contemporary academic trends. Animal rights theorists and "ecological extremists" too often downplay human capacities. Computers are smarter than we are and will soon replace us as the laws of evolution continue to unfold. Even the humanities, held in sway by imported theories that are explicitly antihumanistic in intention, have little place for human beings. Against this backdrop, Wolfe calls for a return to a moral and humanistic social science, one in which the qualities that distinguish us as a species are given full play. Tracing the development of modern social theory, Wolfe explores the human-centered critical thinking of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century scholars, now eclipsed by post-modern and scientistic theorizing. In the work of Durkheim, Marx, Weber, and Mead, human beings are placed on the center stage, shaping and interpreting the world around them. Sociology in particular emerged as a distinct science because the species it presumed to understand was distinct as well. Recent intellectual trends, in contrast, allow little room for the human difference. Sociobiology underlines the importance of genetics and mathematically governed evolutionary rules while downplaying the unique cognitive abilities of humans. Artificial intelligence heralds the potential superiority of computers to the human mind. Post-modern theorizing focuses on the interpretation of texts in self-referential modes, rejecting humanism in any form. And mainstream social science, using positivist paradigms of human behavior based on the natural sciences, develops narrow and arid models of social life. Wolfe eloquently makes a case for a new commitment to humanistic social science based on a realistic and creative engagement with modern society. A reconstituted social science, acknowledging our ability to interpret the world, will thrive on a recognition of human difference. Nurturing a precious humanism, social science can celebrate and further refine our unique capacity to create morality and meaning for ourselves. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1993. Are we losing touch with our humanity? Yes, contends Alan Wolfe in this provocative critique of modern American intellectual life. From ecology, sociobiology, and artificial intelligence to post-modernism and the social sciences, Wolfe examines the antihu

From a multidisciplinary perspective grounded in psychoanalysis, this book explores the manifestations of mind that distinguish humans from other species, culture, civilization, and destructiveness. Psychoanalysis was created by Freud in an effort to understand neurosis and psychosis, the names he gave to individual human destructiveness. His understanding was limited and incorrect because the science of evolution and the disciplines of sociology and cultural anthropology were in their infancy when he formulated his ideas. He did not comprehend that destructiveness is qualitatively different in humans than in other species and he ignored the problem of how biological instincts become mental processes. These limitations left psychoanalysis with one of its most perplexing unsolved problems, the mysterious leap from mind to body. This book explains how neoteny, the prolonged period of postnatal immaturity that distinguishes humans from other animals, requires and enables complex learning from caregivers. It is the knowledge acquired from this learning and its intergenerational transmission that links the biological theory of evolution with the psychosocial theory of psychoanalysis and explains how the human species is unique. This book will be of interest to those who want to learn about how integrating the findings of evolutionary science, primatology, sociology, and cultural anthroplogy with the theory of psychoanalysis expands our understanding of what makes humans unique and its implications for the future of our species, and how it empowers us to influence the destiny of humankind.

Living in proximity to human disability, with a son who has Down Syndrome, Andrew Barron has come to understand that not only do we live in a world of human difference, but that God wants us to live in this kind of world, for our own flourishing. Human Difference is an extended meditation on that experience and a reflection on the nature of human care and hospitality. Barron seeks to understand and embrace the uncertainty that comes with living in proximity to difference and disability and reflects on how we might better cope with and ultimately be enriched by its ambiguity. He undertakes a new approach to difference: we must be ready to venture into uncomfortable territory, to "put out into the deep water" and to actively seek out an intimate and open closeness with difference and disability.

People have always been xenophobic, but an explicit philosophical and scientific view of human racial difference only began to emerge during the modern period. Why and how did this happen? Surveying a range of philosophical and natural-scientific texts, dating from the Spanish Renaissance to the German Enlightenment, Nature, Human Nature, and Human Difference charts the evolution of the modern concept of race and shows that natural philosophy, particularly efforts to taxonomize and to order nature, played a crucial role. Smith demonstrates how the denial of moral equality between Europeans and non-Europeans resulted from converging philosophical and scientific developments, including a declining belief in human nature's universality and the rise of biological classification. The racial typing of human beings grew from the need to understand humanity within an all-encompassing system of nature, alongside plants, minerals, primates, and other animals. While racial difference as seen through science did not arise in order to justify the enslavement of people, it became a rationalization and buttress for the practices of trans-Atlantic slavery. From the work of François Bernier to G. W. Leibniz, Immanuel Kant, and others, Smith delves into philosophy's part in the legacy and damages of modern racism. With a broad narrative stretching over two centuries, Nature, Human Nature, and Human Difference takes a critical historical look at how the racial categories that we divide ourselves into came into being.

Christine Battersby is a leading thinker in the field of philosophy, gender studies and visual and literary aesthetics. In this important new work, she undertakes an exploration of the nature of the sublime, one of the most important topics in contemporary debates about modernity, politics and art. Through a compelling examination of terror, transcendence and the ‘other’ in key European philosophers and writers, Battersby articulates a radical ‘female sublime’. A central feature of The Sublime, Terror and Human Difference is its engagement with recent debates around ‘9/11’, race and Islam. Battersby shows how, since the eighteenth century, the pleasures of the sublime have been described in terms of the transcendence of terror. Linked to the ‘feminine’, the sublime was closed off to flesh-and-blood women, to ‘Orientals’ and to other supposedly ‘inferior’ human types. Engaging with Kant, Burke, the German Romantics, Nietzsche, Derrida, Lyotard, Irigaray and Arendt, as well as with women writers and artists, Battersby traces the history of these exclusions, while finding resources within the history of western culture for thinking human differences afresh The Sublime, Terror and Human Difference is essential reading for students of continental philosophy, gender studies, aesthetics, literary theory, visual culture, and race and social theory.

“[A] shimmering new book . . . This is the place to look to learn about our best scientific understanding of what it means to be human.” —Steven Pinker, New York Times bestselling author of The Language Instinct and How the Mind Works “A cognitive neuroscientist at the University of California, Santa Barbara (and one of the inventors of the field), takes us on a lively tour through the latest research on brain evolution.” —The New York Times Book Review What happened along the evolutionary trail that made humans so unique? In his accessible style, Michael Gazzaniga pinpoints the change that made us thinking, sentient humans different from our predecessors. He explores what makes human brains special, the importance of language and art in defining the human condition, the nature of human consciousness, and even artificial intelligence. “As wide-ranging as it is deep, and as entertaining as it is informative . . . will please a diverse array of readers.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review “A rich testimony to the incredible accomplishments of the human brain in coming to understand itself.” —New York Sun “Truly engaging.” —CNBC.com “A savvy, witty guide to neuroscience today.” —Kirkus Reviews “Brilliantly written and utterly fascinating.” —Robert Bazell, Chief Science Correspondent, NBC News “Sweeping, erudite and humorous . . . If you are looking for one book that gives you a Cook’s Tour of the human brain, where it came from and where it is heading, this would be an excellent choice.” —Pittsburgh Post-Gazette