Natural Categories and Human Kinds

Natural Categories and Human Kinds

Author: Muhammad Ali Khalidi, (Pr

Publisher:

Published: 2014-05-14

Total Pages: 268

ISBN-13: 9781107250000

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Muhammad Ali Khalidi proposes a new approach to classifications in the natural and social sciences, avoiding essentialism and social constructionism.


Natural Categories and Human Kinds

Natural Categories and Human Kinds

Author: Muhammad Ali Khalidi

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2013-05-16

Total Pages: 267

ISBN-13: 1107244595

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The notion of 'natural kinds' has been central to contemporary discussions of metaphysics and philosophy of science. Although explicitly articulated by nineteenth-century philosophers like Mill, Whewell and Venn, it has a much older history dating back to Plato and Aristotle. In recent years, essentialism has been the dominant account of natural kinds among philosophers, but the essentialist view has encountered resistance, especially among naturalist metaphysicians and philosophers of science. Informed by detailed examination of classification in the natural and social sciences, this book argues against essentialism and for a naturalist account of natural kinds. By looking at case studies drawn from diverse scientific disciplines, from fluid mechanics to virology and polymer science to psychiatry, the author argues that natural kinds are nodes in causal networks. On the basis of this account, he maintains that there can be natural kinds in the social sciences as well as the natural sciences.


Natural Categories and Human Kinds

Natural Categories and Human Kinds

Author: Muhammad Ali Khalidi

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2013-05-16

Total Pages: 267

ISBN-13: 1107012740

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Muhammad Ali Khalidi proposes a new approach to classifications in the natural and social sciences, avoiding essentialism and social constructionism.


Language, Interaction and Social Cognition

Language, Interaction and Social Cognition

Author: G. R. Semin

Publisher: Sage Publications (CA)

Published: 1992

Total Pages: 282

ISBN-13:

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The importance of language is increasingly acknowledged within social psychology. In this seminal book, a group of distinguished authors goes beyond general theory to address, from a research base, key issues in the interrelationship between language, interaction and social cognition. Their starting point is that the ways in which we perceive and, therefore, interact with others are structured by the language available to us, as a socially constructed system above and beyond individual minds. The relationship between language and social cognition is not, however, a fixed or unicausal one: linguistic terms are also generated in response to social and cultural development. The interplay is dialectical - a dialectic of the social. The authors explore this dialectic through such themes as: the use and power of category labels; trait-behaviour relations in social information processing; and interpersonal verbs and attribution. They examine the significance of language use in the persistence of stereotypes, and the links between syntactical reasoning processes and social cognition, as well as the impact of perspectivity. They consider the ways in which communication roles and context shape, and are shaped by, language. Language, Interaction and Social Cognition will be essential reading for all those in social psychology, psycholinguistics, linguistics and communication studies concerned with the role of language in interaction and social cognition.


The Laws of Human Nature

The Laws of Human Nature

Author: Robert Greene

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2018-10-23

Total Pages: 626

ISBN-13: 0698184548

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From the #1 New York Times-bestselling author of The 48 Laws of Power comes the definitive new book on decoding the behavior of the people around you Robert Greene is a master guide for millions of readers, distilling ancient wisdom and philosophy into essential texts for seekers of power, understanding and mastery. Now he turns to the most important subject of all - understanding people's drives and motivations, even when they are unconscious of them themselves. We are social animals. Our very lives depend on our relationships with people. Knowing why people do what they do is the most important tool we can possess, without which our other talents can only take us so far. Drawing from the ideas and examples of Pericles, Queen Elizabeth I, Martin Luther King Jr, and many others, Greene teaches us how to detach ourselves from our own emotions and master self-control, how to develop the empathy that leads to insight, how to look behind people's masks, and how to resist conformity to develop your singular sense of purpose. Whether at work, in relationships, or in shaping the world around you, The Laws of Human Nature offers brilliant tactics for success, self-improvement, and self-defense.


Nature, Human Nature, and Human Difference

Nature, Human Nature, and Human Difference

Author: Justin E. H. Smith

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2017-03-14

Total Pages: 309

ISBN-13: 0691176345

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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.


Human Kinds and Other Natural Kinds

Human Kinds and Other Natural Kinds

Author: Marion Godman

Publisher:

Published: 2011

Total Pages: 312

ISBN-13:

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This thesis is about natural kinds, conceived as the basic subject matter of inductive generalizations. An account of natural kinds is developed that pays particular attention to the empirical possibility and reality of kinds in the life and human sciences. It is argued that natural kinds should be understood as groups of individuals/instances that support multiple generalisations and that they do so by no accident because the members of these groups share a basic commonality. This commonality represents the kind's non-accidental grounding. As opposed to the prevailing attitude, it is argued that this understanding of natural kinds does allow for the inclusion of human and social kinds in the same framework as "other" natural kinds. Nor is the account overly permissive since it also rules out definitional, conventional, and functional categories. -- The main part of the thesis is devoted to showing how science itself can -- and often does -- discover why it is no accident that a given natural kind supports a variety of generalizations by determining the kind's grounding. Two general and exhaustive models of grounding are proposed: first, an intrinsic or non-relational account, and second, a historical account. The basic model is inspired by Ruth Millikan's work on the historical sciences (1999), but, in contrast to her, it is contended that the two models of grounding are both applicable in the life and human sciences. -- It is argued against Michael Devitt's biological intrinsic essentialism (2008) that biological species, such as tigers and humans, are natural kinds that have historical grounds. Moreover the possibility of historically grounded kinds can also explain why we expect to find cases of variably realization in these sciences. Finally, a case of a putative natural kind in child psychiatry is discussed in some detail.


What's Left of Human Nature?

What's Left of Human Nature?

Author: Maria Kronfeldner

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2018-10-16

Total Pages: 335

ISBN-13: 0262347970

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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 nature? Is the concept the relic of a bygone age? What is the use of such a concept? What are the epistemic and ontological commitments people make when they use the concept? In What's Left of Human Nature? Maria Kronfeldner offers a philosophical account of human nature that defends the concept against contemporary criticism. In particular, she takes on challenges related to social misuse of the concept that dehumanizes those regarded as lacking human nature (the dehumanization challenge); the conflict between Darwinian thinking and essentialist concepts of human nature (the Darwinian challenge); and the consensus that evolution, heredity, and ontogenetic development result from nurture and nature. 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.


Tribal Leadership Revised Edition

Tribal Leadership Revised Edition

Author: Dave Logan

Publisher: Harper Collins

Published: 2012-01-03

Total Pages: 322

ISBN-13: 0062196790

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It’s a fact of life: birds flock, fish school, people “tribe.” Malcolm Gladwell and other authors have written about how the fact that humans are genetically programmed to form “tribes” of 20-150 people has proven true throughout our species’ history. Every company in the word consists of an interconnected network of tribes (A tribe is defined as a group of between 20 and 150 people in which everyone knows everyone else, or at least knows of everyone else). In Tribal Leadership, Dave Logan, John King, and Halee Fischer-Wright show corporate leaders how to first assess their company’s tribal culture and then raise their companies’ tribes to unprecedented heights of success. In a rigorous eight-year study of approximately 24,000 people in over two dozen corporations, Logan, King, and Fischer-Wright discovered a common theme: the success of a company depends on its tribes, the strength of its tribes is determined by the tribal culture, and a thriving corporate culture can be established by an effective tribal leader. Tribal Leadership will show leaders how to employ their companies’ tribes to maximize productivity and profit: the author’s research, backed up with interviews ranging from Brian France (CEO of NASCAR) to “Dilbert” creator Scott Adams, shows that over three quarters of the organizations they’ve studied have tribal cultures that are adequate at best.


Science And Human Behavior

Science And Human Behavior

Author: B.F Skinner

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2012-12-18

Total Pages: 484

ISBN-13: 1476716153

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The psychology classic—a detailed study of scientific theories of human nature and the possible ways in which human behavior can be predicted and controlled—from one of the most influential behaviorists of the twentieth century and the author of Walden Two. “This is an important book, exceptionally well written, and logically consistent with the basic premise of the unitary nature of science. Many students of society and culture would take violent issue with most of the things that Skinner has to say, but even those who disagree most will find this a stimulating book.” —Samuel M. Strong, The American Journal of Sociology “This is a remarkable book—remarkable in that it presents a strong, consistent, and all but exhaustive case for a natural science of human behavior…It ought to be…valuable for those whose preferences lie with, as well as those whose preferences stand against, a behavioristic approach to human activity.” —Harry Prosch, Ethics