Darwin and the Emergence of Evolutionary Theories of Mind and Behavior

Darwin and the Emergence of Evolutionary Theories of Mind and Behavior
Author: Robert J. Richards
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 719
Release: 2014-06-01
Genre: Science
ISBN: 022614951X

With insight and wit, Robert J. Richards focuses on the development of evolutionary theories of mind and behavior from their first distinct appearance in the eighteenth century to their controversial state today. Particularly important in the nineteenth century were Charles Darwin's ideas about instinct, reason, and morality, which Richards considers against the background of Darwin's personality, training, scientific and cultural concerns, and intellectual community. Many critics have argued that the Darwinian revolution stripped nature of moral purpose and ethically neutered the human animal. Richards contends, however, that Darwin, Herbert Spencer, and their disciples attempted to reanimate moral life, believing that the evolutionary process gave heart to unselfish, altruistic behavior. "Richards's book is now the obvious introduction to the history of ideas about mind and behavior in the nineteenth century."—Mark Ridley, Times Literary Supplement "Not since the publication of Michael Ghiselin's The Triumph of the Darwinian Method has there been such an ambitious, challenging, and methodologically self-conscious interpretation of the rise and development and evolutionary theories and Darwin's role therein."—John C. Greene, Science "His book . . . triumphantly achieves the goal of all great scholarship: it not only informs us, but shows us why becoming thus informed is essential to understanding our own issues and projects."—Daniel C. Dennett, Philosophy of Science

Science and Religion

Science and Religion
Author: Pietro Corsi
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 358
Release: 1988
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0521242452

Science and Religion assesses the impact of social, political and intellectual change upon Anglican circles, with reference to Oxford University in the decades that followed the French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars. More particularly, the career of Baden Powell, father of the more famous founder of the Boy Scout movement, offers material for an important case-study in intellectual and political reorientation: his early militancy in right-wing Anglican movements slowly turned to a more tolerant attitude towards radical theological, philosophical and scientific trends. During the 1840s and 1850s, Baden Powell became a fearless proponent of new dialogues in transcendentalism in theology, positivism in philosophy, and pre-Darwinian evolutionary theories in biology. He was for instance the first prominent Anglican to express full support for Darwin's Origin of Species. Analysis of his many publications, and of his interaction with such contemporaries as Richard Whately, John Henry and Francis Newman, Robert Chambers, William Benjamin Carpenter, George Henry Lewes and George Eliot, reveals hitherto unnoticed dimensions of mid-nineteenth-century British intellectual and social life.

On Animals

On Animals
Author: David L. Clough
Publisher: A&C Black
Total Pages: 194
Release: 2012-02-02
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0567171213

This volume is a project in systematic theology: a rigorous engagement with the Christian tradition in relation to animals under the doctrinal headings of creation, reconciliation and redemption and in dialogue with the Bible and theological voices central to the tradition. The book shows that such engagement with the tradition with the question of the animal in mind produces surprising answers that challenge modern anthropocentric assumptions. For the most part, therefore, the novelty of the project lies in the questions raised, rather than the proposal of innovative answers to it. The transformation in our thinking about animals for which the book argues results in the main from looking squarely for the first time at the sum of what we are already committed to believing about other animals and their place in God's creation.

Evil

Evil
Author: Andrew P. Chignell
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 529
Release: 2019-04-16
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0199915466

The code of conduct for a leading tech company famously says "Don't Be Evil." But what exactly is evil? Is it just badness by another name--the shadow side of good? Or is it something more substantive--a malevolent force or power at work in the universe? These are some of the ontological questions that philosophers have grappled with for centuries. But evil also raises perplexing epistemic and psychological questions. Can we really know evil? Does a victim know evil differently than a perpetrator or witness? What motivates evil-doers? Satan's rebellion, Iago's machinations, and Stalin's genocides may be hard to understand in terms of ordinary reasons, intentions, beliefs, and desires. But what about the more "banal" evils performed by technocrats in a collective: how do we make sense of Adolf Eichmann's self-conception as just an effective bureaucrat deserving of a promotion? Evil: A History collects thirteen essays that tell the story of evil in western thought, starting with its origins in ancient Hebrew wisdom literature and classical Greek drama all the way to Darwinism and Holocaust theory. Thirteen interspersed reflections contextualize philosophical developments by looking at evil through the eyes of animals, poets, mystics, witches, librettists, film directors, and even a tech product manager. Evil: A History will enlighten readers about one of the most alluring and difficult topics in philosophy and intellectual life, and will challenge their assumptions about the very nature of evil.

The Cost Book of Carey and Lea, 1825-1838

The Cost Book of Carey and Lea, 1825-1838
Author: David Kaser
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Total Pages: 360
Release: 2016-11-11
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1512803146

This book is a volume in the Penn Press Anniversary Collection. To mark its 125th anniversary in 2015, the University of Pennsylvania Press rereleased more than 1,100 titles from Penn Press's distinguished backlist from 1899-1999 that had fallen out of print. Spanning an entire century, the Anniversary Collection offers peer-reviewed scholarship in a wide range of subject areas.