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Ideas of Human Nature: From the Bhagavad Gita to Sociobiology, 1/e

David P. Barash, University of Washington

Published January, 1998 by Prentice Hall Humanities/Social Science

Copyright 1998, 294 pp.
Paper
ISBN 0-13-647587-6


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Summary

Unique in both scope and organization, this anthology presents an intriguing yet challenging introduction to the world's great ideas concerning the nature of human nature — with a sampling of different approaches. The material has been carefully selected and conceptually organized to make sense to students. The selections are drawn from religious writings, academic treatises, nonfiction, fiction, etc. — enabling students to encounter the great thinkers through their own words.

Features


Presents numerous perspectives that expose students to an extraordinary diversity of approaches and original writings — from the Bhagavad Gita to sociobiology.
Organizes selections into intellectually coherent topics — Religious/Mythic Views, The Mind, The Social Setting, The Human Animal? — and then subtopics — e.g., The Role of Reason, The Limits of Reason, People Are Basically Nasty, People Are Basically Good, Animals as “Human,” and Vice Versa, Sex and Gender, etc.
Includes selections from a variety of important thinkers (Rousseau, Locke,) as well as from non-philosophers (Boas, Kroeber).
Offers a sampling of fiction — e.g., Gulliver's Travels, The Sea Wolf — as well as nonfiction.
Provides brief orienting commentaries for each chapter and each selection — but is careful to retain the flavor of the original works.
Lists brief Study Questions and Suggestions for Further Reading at the end of each chapter.


Table of Contents
(NOTE:Each chapter concludes with Study Questions and Some Additional Readings) I. RELIGIOUS VIEWS.

    1. In the Beginning: Views of Creation and Being.

      Hindu: Bhagavad Gita. Buddhist: Prajnaparamita Sutra. Taoist: The Tao Te Ching. Judeo-Christian: Old Testament. Christian: New Testament. Muslim: Koran (or Qur'an).

    2. Body and Soul.

      Plato: Phaedo. Augustine: The City of God. Lucretius: On the Nature of Things. Aquinas: Summa Theologica and Summa Contra Gentiles.

II. THE MIND.
    3. The Imprint of Experience.

      Locke: An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Hume: A Treatise on Human Nature. Kant: Critique of Pure Reason and Critique of Practical Reason.

    4. The Role of Reason.

      Plato: The Republic and Phaedrus. Aristotle: The Nicomachean Ethics. Smith: The Wealth of Nations. Doyle: A Study in Scarlet.

    5. The Limits of Reason.

      Dostoyevsky: Notes From Underground.
      Crane: The Black Riders.

    6. The Mind/Brain Problem.

      Descartes: Discourse on the Method, Meditations on First Philosophy, Treatise on Man, and Automatism of Brutes.
      La Mettrie: Man a Machine. Crick, The Astonishing Hypothesis.

    7. Behaviorism.

      Watson: Behaviorism. Skinner: Science and Human Behavior and Beyond Freedom and Dignity.

    8. Psychoanalysis.

      Freud: The Interpretation of Dreams, The Ego and the ID, Totem and Taboo, and Civilization and Its Discontents.
III. THE SOCIAL SETTING.
    9. People are Basically Bad.

      Plato: The Republic.
      Augustine: The City of God. Hobbes: The Leviathan. Kafka: The Bucket Rider.

    10. People are Basically Good.

      Rousseau: Discourse on the Origin of Inequality (The Second Discourse).
      Kropotkin: Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution.

    11. People are Basically a Product of Their Cultures.

      Durkheim: Rules of Sociological Method.
      Boas: The Mind of Primitive Man. Kroeber: The Superorganic.

    12. Marxist “Man” and Alienation.

      Marx: Comments on James Mill, The Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844, The Grundrisse, and Das Kapital. Markham: The Man with the Hoe.”

    13. The Pursuit of Power.

      Machiavelli: The Prince. Nietzsche: The Antichrist and Thus Spake Zarathustra. London: The Sea-Wolf.

    14. The Existential Imagination.

      Kiergegaard: Either/Or, Fear and Trembling, and Concluding Unscientific Postscript.
      Sartre: Existentialism and Humanism and Being and Nothingness. Camus: The Myth of Sisyphus and The Plague.

    15. Sex and Gender.

      Wollstonecraft: A Vindication of the Rights of Women. Mill: The Subjection of Women. Stanton: Introductin to The Women's Bible. Woolf: A Room of One's Own. Beauvoir: The Second Sex.
      Gilligan: In a Different Voice.
IV. THE HUMAN ANIMAL?
    16. Humans as Animals, and Vice Versa.

      Swift: Gulliver's Travels. Lorenz: On Aggression. D. Griffin: Animal Minds.

    17. Evolution and Sociobiology.

      Darwin: The Origin of Species, and The Descent of Man. Wilson: Sociobiology and On Human Nature. Dawkins: The Selfish Gene.

    18. Uniquely Human?

      Becker: The Denial of Death. Pinker: The Language Instinct. Westermarck: The History of Human Marriage.

    Credits.

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