Affiliation:
1. Central European University
Abstract
This paper spells out the ways in which we need to be pluralists about ?human
nature?. It discusses a conceptual pluralism about the concept of ?human
nature?, stemming from post-essentialist ontology and the semantic
complexity of the term ?nature?; a descriptive pluralism about the
?descriptive nature? of human beings, which is a pluralism regarding our
self-understanding as human beings that stems from the long list of typical
features of, and relations between, human beings; a natural kind term
pluralism, which is a pluralism that concerns the choices we have in
deciding how to apply the kind term ?human?; and an explanatory pluralism
that results from the causal complexity of life. Because of the complexity
of being human, which gives rise to these pluralisms, being human is, the
paper claims, a kaleidoscopic affair, and one far from concerning the life
sciences only.
Publisher
National Library of Serbia
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