The term “deep history” refers to historical accounts framed temporally not by the advent of a written record but by evolutionary events (Smail 2008; Shryock and Smail 2011). The presumption of deep history is that the events of today have a history that traces back beyond written history to events in the evolutionary past. For human kinship, though, even forming a history of kinship, let alone a deep history, remains problematic, given limited, relevant data (Trautman et al. 2011). With regard (...) to a deep history, one conjecture is that human kinship evolved from primate social systems in a gradual, more-or-less continuous manner (see Chapais 2008); another conjecture is that kinship, in accordance with the incest account of Claude Lévi-Strauss (1969) or the fanciful, tetradic account of Nicholas J. Allen (1986), “comes into existence with a leap” (Trautman et al. 2011: 176); and yet another, the account to be developed in this paper, is that kinship, as it is understood and lived by culture bearers today, is the consequence of a profound and qualitative evolutionary transformation going from an ancestral primate-like social system predicated on extensive face-to-face interaction to the relation-based social systems that characterize human societies (Read 2012). (shrink)

The evolution from pre-human primates to modern Homo sapiens is a complex one involving many domains, ranging from the material to the social to the cognitive, both at the individual and the community levels. This article focuses on a critical qualitative transition that took place during this evolution involving both the social and the cognitive domains. For the social domain, the transition is from the face-to-face forms of social interaction and organization that characterize the non-human primates that reached, with Pan, (...) a hiatus due to the centripetal effects that highly individualized behavior has on a social system. The transition is to the relation-based forms of social organization that evolved in the hominins ancestral to Homo sapiens and are universal in human societies today. For the cognitive domain, this transition involves going from behavior responding mainly to phenomenal level sensory inputs to behavior formed in accordance with the concept of a relation, initially abstracted from behavior patterns, then extending the concept of a relation beyond abstraction from behavior patterns to the concept of a relation generated recursively through constructing the relation of a relation. This extension made possible the construction of systems of relations; initially genealogical systems of relations constructed culturally using the logic of recursion, and subsequently, the symbolic, computational systems of kin term relations referred to by anthropologists as kinship terminologies. The latter are “constructed realities” in the sense this term is used by cultural anthropologists. It follows that the evolution of relation-based systems of social interaction is not adequately accounted for through population model evolutionary accounts such as the Dual Inheritance Theory of human evolution since “constructed realities” constitute collectively and publicly shared cultural knowledge rather than the individually and privately possessed knowledge that is assumed in the population model framework for human evolution. (shrink)

The evolutionary trajectory from non-human to human forms of social organization involves change from experiential- to relational-based systems of social interaction. Social organization derived from biologically and experientially grounded social interaction reached a hiatus with the great apes due to an expansion of individualization of behaviour. The hiatus ended with the introduction of relational-based social interaction, culminating in social organization based on cultural kinship. This evolutionary trajectory links biological origins to cultural outcomes and makes evident the centrality of distributed forms (...) of information for both the boundary and internal structure of human societies as these evolved from prior forms of social organization. (shrink)

© Cambridge University Press 2016.Richerson et al. propose cultural group selection as the basis for understanding the evolution of cultural systems. Their proposal does not take into account the nature of cultural idea systems as being constituted at an organizational rather than an individual level. The sealing partners of the Netsilik Inuit exemplify the problem with their account.

Subjective experience is transformed into objective reality for societal members through cultural idea systems that can be represented with theory and data models. A theory model shows relationships and their logical implications that structure a cultural idea system. A data model expresses patterning found in ethnographic observations regarding the behavioral implementation of cultural idea systems. An example of this duality for modeling cultural idea systems is illustrated with Arabic proverbs that structurally link friend and enemy as concepts through a culturally (...) defined computational system. Computational systems also generate new concepts, as will be illustrated through a theory model for the structure of a .. (shrink)

Guala does not go far enough in his critique of the assumption that human decisions about sharing made in the context of experimental game conditions accurately reflect decision-making under real conditions. Sharing of hunted animals is constrained by cultural rules and is not as assumed in models of weak and strong reciprocity. Missing in these models is the cultural basis of sharing that makes it a group property rather than an individual one.

How children learn number concepts reflects the conceptual and logical distinction between counting numbers, based on a same-size concept for collections of objects, and natural numbers, constructed as an algebra defined by the Peano axioms for arithmetic. Cross-cultural research illustrates the cultural specificity of counting number systems, and hence the cultural context must be taken into account.

Human beings, as a species, have two outstanding characteristics compared to all other species: the apparently enormous elaboration of our thought through language and symbolism, and the elaboration of our forms of social organization. The obvious question is whether these two characteristics are connected. ... Our view is that they are connected intimately. Thought and social organization are two aspects of the same larger phenomenon, or better the same larger bundle of phenomena. ... Here we bring the two streams of (...) analysis together, in what is at once an exposition of the basic structure of the systems of thought that organizations are built upon and, eo ipso, an exposition of the organizational basis and origin of human thinking as such. The resulting reconfiguring of questions, answers, and methods, we believe, cannot be described otherwise than as a new science and not just a new paradigm. (shrink)

We present an algebraic account of the Tongan kinship terminology (TKT) that provides an insightful journey into the fabric of Tongan culture. We begin with the ethnographic account of a social event. The account provides us with the activities of that day and the centrality of kin relations in the event, but it does not inform us of the conceptual system that the participants bring with them. Rather, it is a slice in time of an ongoing dynamic process that links (...) behavior with a conceptual system of kin relations and vice versa. To understand this interplay, we need an account of the underlying conceptual system that is being activated during the event. Thus, we introduce a formal, algebraically based account of TKT. This account brings to the fore the underlying logic of TKT and allows us to distinguish between features of the kinship system that arise from the logic of TKT as a generative structure and features that must have arisen through cultural intervention. (shrink)

Encultured individuals see the behavioral rules of cultural systems of moral norms as objective. In addition to prescriptive regulation of behavior, moral norms provide templates, scripts, and scenarios regulating the expression of feelings and triggered emotions arising from perceptions of norm violation. These allow regulated defensive responses that may arise as moral idea systems co-opt emotionally associated biological survival instincts.

This is a new release of the original 1925 edition.

This topically organized, interdisciplinary anthology provides competing perspective on the claim that western culture faces a moral crisis. Using clearly written, accessible essays by well-known authors in philosophy, the social sciences, and the humanities, the book introduces students to a variety of perspectives on the current cultural debate about values that percolates beneath the surface of most of our social and political controversies.

In the Transcendental Aesthetic (TA), Kant is typically held to make negative assertations about “things in themselves,” namely that they are not spatial or temporal. These negative assertions stand behind the “neglected alternative” problem for Kant’s transcendental idealism. According to this problem, Kant may be entitled to assert that spatio-temporality is a subjective element of our cognition, but he cannot rule out that it may also be a feature of the objective world. In this paper, I show in a new (...) way how Kant’s view (focusing on his conclusions about space) is not subject to this objection, by showing that he does not make the denial about mind-independent reality that he is typically held to make. The argument develops consequences of a new reading of Kant’s expression “an sich selbst” (‘in itself’; ‘in themselves’). I argue that “an sich selbst” or “per se” has a special, judgment-level role, so that this expression does not form new noun-terms adjectivally. It follows that the conceptual unit of Kant’s “Conclusions” in the TA is simply “things” (Dinge), since “things in themselves” is not a nominal expression; Kant adopts the Wolffian ontological use of “thing” as the basic kind-term for any existent. The arguments that things per se are not in space are arguments that space cannot be a necessary property or relations of things as a kind. I show that this does not involve the positive claim about mind-independent reality that inspires the neglected alternative objection. (shrink)

De Interpretatione is among Aristotle's most influential and widely read writings; C. W. A. Whitaker presents the first systematic study of this work, and offers a radical new view of its aims, its structure, and its place in Aristotle's system. He shows that De Interpretatione is not a disjointed essay on ill-connected subjects, as traditionally thought, but a highly organized and systematic treatise on logic, argument, and dialectic.

This is an in-depth study of J.G. Fichte’s philosophy of mathematics and theory of geometry. It investigates both the external formal and internal cognitive parallels between the axioms, intuitions and constructions of geometry and the scientific methodology of the Fichtean system of philosophy. In contrast to “ordinary” Euclidean geometry, in his Erlanger Logik of 1805 Fichte posits a model of an “ursprüngliche” or original geometry – that is to say, a synthetic and constructivistic conception grounded in ideal archetypal elements that (...) are grasped through geometrical or intelligible intuition. -/- Accordingly, this study classifies Fichte’s philosophy of mathematics as a whole as a species of mathematical Platonism or neo-Platonism, and concludes that the Wissenschaftslehre itself may be read as an attempt at a new philosophical mathesis, or “mathesis of the mind.” -/- “This work testifies to the author's exact and extensive knowledge of the Fichtean texts, as well as of the philosophical, scientific and historical contexts. Wood has opened up completely new paths for Fichte research, and examines with clarity and precision a domain that up to now has hardly been researched.” Professor Dr. Marco Ivaldo -/- “This study, written in a language distinguished by its limpidity and precision, and constantly supported by a close reading of the Fichtean texts and secondary literature, furnishes highly detailed and convincing demonstrations. In directly confronting the difficult historical relationship between the Wissenschaftslehre and mathematics, the author has broken new ground that is at once stimulating, decidedly innovative, and elegantly audacious.” Professor Dr. Emmanuel Cattin. (shrink)

The Market Economy: A Reader outlines the characteristics and philosophical underpinnings of the market economy and its usefulness in the allocation of resources. This anthology offers a comprehensive set of authentic, primary source selections that demonstrate how the tenets of classical economic liberalism provide the foundation for an efficient economic system--while also maximizing individual freedom. The readings also provide a structure for analyzing economic and philosophical issues. The book includes selections from several authors who are not economists but whose work (...) is important in terms of their contribution to economic thought, such as Henry David Throeau and Ayn Rand. It also features classic readings such as Adam Smith's invisible hand from his Wealth of Nations, David Ricardo's original explanation of comparative advantage from Principles of Political Economy and Taxation, and John Stuart Mill's eloquent expression of the limits of government in On Liberty. Latter day proponents of private enterprise include Friedrich Hayek, Ludwig von Mises, and Milton Friedman. These authors and others address how the market economy responds to such topical issues as the environment, income distribution, and free trade. (shrink)

Considered in light of the reader’s expectation of a thoroughgoing criticism of the pretensions of the rational psychologist, and of the wealth of discussions available in the broader 18th century context, which includes a variety of proofs that do not explicitly turn on the identification of the soul as a simple substance, Kant’s discussion of immortality in the Paralogisms falls lamentably short. However, outside of the Paralogisms (and the published works generally), Kant had much more to say about the arguments (...) for the soul’s immortality as he devoted considerable time to the topic throughout his career in his lectures on metaphysics. In fact, as I show in this paper, the student lecture notes prove to be an indispensable supplement to the treatment in the Paralogisms, not only for illuminating Kant’s criticism of the rational psychologist’s views on the immortality of the soul, but also in reconciling this criticism with Kant’s own positive claims regarding certain theoretical proofs of immortality. (shrink)

Kant's A-Edition objective deduction is naturally (and has traditionally been) divided into two arguments: an " argument from above" and one that proceeds " von unten auf." This would suggest a picture of Kant's procedure in the objective deduction as first descending and ascending the same ladder, the better, perhaps, to test its durability or to thoroughly convince the reader of its soundness. There are obvious obstacles to such a reading, however; and in this chapter I will argue that the (...) arguments from above and below constitute different, albeit importantly inter-related, proofs. Rather than drawing on the differences in their premises, however, I will highlight what I take to be the different concerns addressed and, correspondingly, the distinct conclusions reached by each. In particular, I will show that both arguments can be understood to address distinct specters, with the argument from above addressing an internal concern generated by Kant’s own transcendental idealism, and the argument from below seeking to dispel a more traditional, broadly Humean challenge to the understanding’s role in experience. These distinct concerns also imply that these arguments yield distinct conclusions, though I will show that they are in fact complementary. (shrink)

In the Protagoras, Plato subjects virtue to examination starting from two main questions: Can it be taught? and Is it one thing or many? In the course of their discussion, Protagoras, Socrates, and the others who speak in the dialogue regard virtue from a variety of intriguing perspectives. A provisional conclusion is that the meaning assigned virtue in this dialogue remains elusive, but must certainly be more complex in character than is normally allowed in modernizing philosophical interpretations of it. If (...) it cannot be taught, we nevertheless find ourselves learning about it; and if it is not clearly a unity about which we read, we find ourselves prompted to look for an understanding of it that can in due course emerge as such. (shrink)

Can a corporation have a conscience? What is wrong with reverse discrimination? Can ethical management and managed care coexist? Hoffman, Frederick, and Schwartz address these and many other current, intriguing, often complex issues in corporate morality. This introductory business ethics text contains a thorough general introduction on ethical theory, 54 readings, and 25 cases. Divided into five parts, each with an introduction that presents the major themes of its articles and cases, the text contains an impartial, point-counterpoint presentation of different (...) perspectives on the most important issues being debated in business ethics. Each chapter ends with questions that can be used for student discussion, review, tests/quizzes, or for student assignments. The fourth edition has 27 new readings, 15 new cases, and 10 new mini-cases. (shrink)

It is commonly assumed that the expression “an sich selbst” (“in itself”) in Kant combines with terms to form complex nouns such as “thing in itself” and “end in itself.” I argue that the basic use of “an sich selbst” in Kant’s German is as a sentence adverb, which has the role of modifying subject-predicate combinations, rather than either subject or predicate on their own. Expressions of the form “S is P an sich selbst” mean roughly that S is P (...) ‘in its own right’ or without some further ‘condition’. Accordingly, “an sich selbst” should not be treated as forming complex nouns. This analysis has significant consequences for the interpretation of “thing in itself” in particular, for it implies that the latter is not a complete nominal expression. Instead, one must treat ‘an sich selbst’ as expressing how some S is a ‘thing’, looking to the wider sentential context. I conclude with a brief account of the new significance granted to the concept of a ‘thing’ (Ding) according to the present interpretation. (shrink)

Allison begins this book by observing that although the eighteenth century is often called the “age of reason,” it has also been called the “century of taste.” There is a clear enough connection, however, between the two names, for anyone with eyes open enough to see it. For the phenomenon of taste—of likings and dislikings conforming to sharable standards, and invited or sought from others precisely for the sake of sharing them universally—was recognized by eighteenth-century rationalists, and certainly by Kant, (...) as a necessary adjunct or perhaps even a precondition for universally valid judgments based on reason, about science or morality or politics. Taste was also seen by them as overcoming the division between reason and sensation, and thus of making human beings whole; it is a way for reason to gain access to people’s feelings and motives, hence a precondition for it to shape their conduct. For Kant, a critique of aesthetic judgment is the inquiry in which the “great gulf” between knowledge and practice, theoretical understanding and moral reason is to be overcome and philosophy itself is to be made whole. (shrink)