What's Left of Human Nature? - A Post Essentialist, Pluralist, and Interactive Account of a

A philosophical account of human nature that defends the concept against dehumanization, Darwinian, and developmentalist challenges. Human nature has always been a foundational issue for philosophy. What does it mean to have a human After answering each of these challenges, Kronfeldner presents a revisionist account of human nature that minimizes dehumanization and does not fall back on outdated biological ideas. Her account is post-essentialist because it eliminates the concept of an essence of being human; pluralist in that it argues that there are different things in the world that correspond to three different post-essentialist concepts of human nature; and interactive because it understands nature and nurture as interacting at the developmental, epigenetic, and evolutionary levels. On the basis of this, she introduces a dialectical concept of an ever-changing and “looping” human nature. Finally, noting the essentially contested character of the concept and the ambiguity and redundancy of the terminology, she wonders if we should simply eliminate the term “human nature” altogether.

About the author

Maria Kronfeldner is Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Central European University, Budapest.

Product details

• Authors: Maria Kronfeldner, Kronfeldner Maria
• Publisher: The MIT Press
• Languages: English
• Age Recommendation: from age 18
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 31.10.2023
• EAN: 9780262549684
• ISBN: 978-0-262-54968-4
• No. of pages: 336
• Series: Life and Mind: Philosophical Issues in Biology and Psychology; Strüngmann Forum Reports
• Subjects: Non-fiction book > Philosophy, religion > Philosophy: general, reference works; PHILOSOPHY / Mind & Body, Philosophy of Mind, SCIENCE / Philosophy & Social Aspects, PSYCHOLOGY / Cognitive Psychology & Cognition