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John Dupré - Human Nature and the Limits of Science

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John Dupré Human Nature and the Limits of Science
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John Dupr? 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. Dupr? 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. Dupr? 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. Anyone interested in science and human life will enjoy this book--unless they are its targets.

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Dupr John Professor of Philosophy of Science University of Exeter Human - photo 1
Dupr, John Professor of Philosophy of Science, University of Exeter
Human Nature and the Limits of Science
Publication date 2001 (this edition)
Print ISBN-10: 0-19-924806-0
Print ISBN-13: 978-0-19-924806-3
doi:10.1093/0199248060.001.0001
Abstract: This book applies to the study of human nature the generally pluralistic metaphysics and methodology developed in the author's earlier work. It begins with detailed criticism of two popular projects for understanding human nature, evolutionary psychology, and rational-choice theory. The argument shows how the flaws in these projects reflect deep misconceptions about the nature and the legitimate ambitions of science. Such scientific theories necessarily provide highly simplified accounts of a phenomenon as complex as human nature and can provide only a small part of the total picture of such a phenomenon. Only a pluralistic approach, an approach that combines insights from a variety of perspectives not limited to the scientific, can hope to provide anything close to an adequate account of human nature. In addition to a variety of partial perspectives from science, the humanities, and, not least, common human experience, it is argued that there is also room for a conception of human autonomy. The details of this conception, including a sketch of a novel voluntarist theory of freedom of the will, are provided in a concluding chapter.
Keywords: autonomy,Dupr,evolutionary psychology,free will,human nature,metaphysics,philosophy of science,pluralism,rational choice,science,scientism
Human Nature and the Limits of Science
end p.i
end p.ii
Human Nature and the Limits of Science
CLARENDON PRESS OXFORD
2001
end p.iii
Picture 2

Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox2 6dp
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John Dupr 2001
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First published 2001
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ISBN 0-19-924806-0
end p.iv
For Emily Farahar (1979-2001)
whom science failed
end p.v
end p.vi
Acknowledgements
In her recent book The Dappled World (), Nancy Cartwright makes the first reference in print of which I am aware to the Stanford School of the philosophy of science. The fixed point around which this movement revolved was undoubtedly Patrick Suppes. Suppes pioneered many of the themes we took up and taught at Stanford for several decades. Meanwhile, Ian Hacking, Peter Galison, Cartwright, and myself, taught there for various periods. Suppes's recent retirement completes the diaspora. However, these remain among the contemporary philosophers of science with whom my work has the greatest affinities, and I am grateful to Stanford University for bringing us together.
This book was written over the best part of a decade, and I cannot hope to recall all the colleagues and students with whom, at various times, I have discussed some of the topics it addresses. Colleagues at Stanford, Birkbeck, and Exeter have provided encouragement, advice, and intellectually stimulating environments that have made my work better. Ancestors of several chapters have been presented to audiences in those and many other universities in the United States and Europe, and I have benefited from the comments of many people on those occasions. Adrian Haddock, Jonathan Kaplan, Philip Kitcher, Helen Longino, Ina Roy, and an anonymous referee each read an entire draft of the book, and the final version has been much improved by their thoughtful comments. My understanding of biology owes much more to the work of Ernst Mayr and Richard Lewontin than appears from the citations, which focus inevitably on those with whom I disagree. Peter Momtchiloff of Oxford University Press has been an enthusiastic and supportive editor and has enabled publication to proceed with an efficiency and dispatch not universal in academic publishing.
The book was completed during a period of leave funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Board and research leaves granted by
end p.vii
Birkbeck College, University of London and the University of Exeter. I would like to thank all of these institutions for their support.
From my sons, Gabriel and Julian, I learned much of what I know about human development and about the futility of the dichotomy between nature and nurture. And, as always, my greatest debt is to Regenia Gagnier. Her humanistic learning, critical virtuosity, and domestic best practice have added value to my environment for almost twenty years.
I have drawn freely on previously published work in writing this book, and I would like to thank the publishers of various papers for allowing me to include substantial extracts in this book. Parts of Chapters includes most of 'The Solution to the Problem of the Freedom of the Will', Philosophical Perspectives 10 (1996): 385-402.
end p.viii
Contents
Introduction
The Foundations of Evolutionary Psychology
Introduction
Overview of the Evolutionary Argument
How Much Must Evolution Explain?
Atavism
Do Brains Cause Behaviour?
Nature and Culture
The Evolutionary Psychology of Sex and Gender
Introduction
The Sociobiology of Sex and Gender: The Classic Story
Sociobiology Twenty-five Years Later
Further Reflections on the Poverty of Evolutionary Psychological Inference
The Charms and Consequences of Evolutionary Psychology
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