In this chapter I explore the phenomenon of dehumanization in relation to public policy. Using two examples of spectacle lynchings of African Americans, I articulate a conception of dehumanization as the attitude of conceiving of others as subhuman creatures and explain the psychological basis for this phenomenon. I suggest that dehumanization is pertinent to policies concerning hate speech. I address objections to my conception of dehumanization: that dehumanizers implicitly or explicitly acknowledge the humanity of their victims and that dehumanizers regard (...) their victims not merely as animals but also as demons and monsters. I explain how these objections can be met. (shrink)

Representing members of racial minorities as apes or monkeys is a special case of dehumanization and cannot be properly understood outside of a general theory of dehumanization. We argue that to fully understand any particular case of dehumanization it is mandatory to consider the intersection of its psychological, cultural, and political determinants: the psychological component explains the distinctive form of dehumanizing thinking, the cultural component explains the significance of the choice of animal with which members of the dehumanized population are (...) equated, and the political component explains the ideological function of particular cases of dehumanization. We apply analysis to the special case of the simianization of people of African descent. (shrink)

Westermarck’s Hypothesis is widely accepted by evolutionary scientists as the best explanation for human incest avoidance. However, its explanatory shortcomings have been largely ignored and it has never been pitted against alternative biological hypotheses. Although WH may account for incest avoidance between co-reared kin, it cannot explain other forms of incest avoidance, and cannot account for the differential incidence of sibling-sibling, mother-son, father-daughter and other forms of incest. WH also faces problems adequately addressing phenomena within its explanatory domain. Neither of (...) the studies generally considered to corroborate WH provides a genuine test of it, and the results of experiments thought to confirm WH are vitiated by methodological problems. The present article considers two alternatives to WH: the shared mother hypothesis and the maternal phenotype-matching hypothesis . SMH states that human infants imprint on their mother, and then treat as kin those individuals toward whom their mother behaves in akin-like or mate-like manner. MPMH states that humans unconsciously use the maternal phenotype as a visual template for estimating coefficients of relatedness, and that these estimates regulate altruistic and mating behavior. Both SMH and MPMH are able to account for the kibbutz and simpua marriage data, and entail additional epidemiological and experimental predictions. SMH and MPMH have greater explanatory power than WH. (shrink)

Throughout the darkest moments of human history, evildoers have convinced communities to turn on groups that are regarded as in some way other and, by starting to think of them as less than human, persecute or even eliminate them. We can all recognize the unfathomable evils of dehumanization in slavery, the Holocaust, the Rwandan genocide, and the Jim Crow South, but we are not free from its power today. With climate change and political upheaval driving millions of refugees worldwide to (...) leave their homes, we are likely to see more and more of this ugly and persistent phenomenon. What are we to do? Drawing on his deep and wide-ranging knowledge of the history, psychology, and politics of dehumanization, David Livingstone Smith shows us how to recognize it and how to fight back. (shrink)

Less Than Human is a chilling indictment of our nature, and is as timely as it is relevant.

In previous writings, I proposed that we dehumanize others by attributing the essence of a less-than-human creature to them, in order to disable inhibitions against harming them. However, this account is inconsistent with the fact that dehumanizers implicitly, and often explicitly, acknowledge the human status of their victims. I propose that when we dehumanize others, we regard them as simultaneously human and subhuman. Drawing on the work of Ernst Jentsch, Mary Douglas, and Noël Carroll, I argue that the notion of (...) dehumanized people as metaphysically transgressive provides important insights into the distinctive phenomenology of dehumanization. (shrink)

Despite its importance, the phenomenon of dehumanization has been neglected by philosophers. Since its introduction, the term “dehumanization” has come to be used in a variety of ways. In this paper, I use it to denote the psychological stance of conceiving of other human beings as subhuman creatures. I draw on an historical example – Morgan Godwyn's description of 17th century English colonists' dehumanization of African slaves and use this to identify three explanatory desiderata that any satisfactory theory of dehumanization (...) needs to address. I then summarize and criticize the theories of dehumanization developed by Jacques-Philippe Leyens and Nicholas Haslam, focusing on what I take to be their misappropriation of the theory of psychological essentialism, and show that both of these approaches suffer from major difficulties. I finish with an assessment of the degree to which Leyens' and Haslam's theories satisfy the three desiderata mentioned earlier, conclude that they fail to address them, and offer a brief sketch of a more satisfactory approach to understanding dehumanization. (shrink)

This paper aims to offer an alternative to the existing philosophical theories of self-deception. It describes and motivates a teleofunctional theory that models self-deception on the subintentional deceptions perpetrated by non-human organisms. Existing theories of self-deception generate paradoxes, are empirically implausible, or fail to account for the distinction between self-deception and other kinds of motivated irrationality. Deception is not a uniquely human phenomenon: biologists have found that many non-human organisms deceive and are deceived. A close analysis of the pollination strategy (...) of the mirror orchid (Ophrys speculum) provides the basis for an analysis of non-human deception as subintentionally purposive. This teleofunctional analysis is then used as the basis for a theory of self-deception that accounts for its normative and purposive features without defaulting to intentionalism. The teleofunctional theory accounts for distinction between self-deception and phenomena such as wishful thinking in an empirically plausible manner. Three objections to the theory are considered and rejected. (shrink)

This is the first comprehensive study of Freud's relationship with philosophy.

The paper presents a novel interpretation of the function of the word "human.".

How Biology Shapes Philosophy is a seminal contribution to the emerging field of biophilosophy. It brings together work by philosophers who draw on biology to address traditional and not so traditional philosophical questions and concerns. Thirteen essays by leading figures in the field explore the biological dimensions of ethics, metaphysics, epistemology, gender, semantics, rationality, representation, and consciousness, as well as the misappropriation of biology by philosophers, allowing the reader to critically interrogate the relevance of biology for philosophy. Both rigorous and (...) accessible, the essays illuminate philosophy and help us to acquire a deeper understanding of the human condition. This volume will be of interest to philosophers, biologists, social scientists, and other readers with an interest in bringing science and the humanities together. (shrink)

We are a supremely social species whose ecological success rests largely on our capacity for large-scale cooperation. This high degree of sociality is only possible against a background of immensely powerful inhibitions against performing acts of lethal violence against conspecifics. There are circumstances, however, in which acts of lethal violence are individually or collectively advantageous and attractive. To perform such acts, we must override our inhibitions. This essay argues that this tension causes us to be ambivalent about killing other human (...) beings and that our being so is manifested in the widespread belief, found across cultures and historical epochs, that taking human life contaminates the killer and may pose a threat to the entire community, unless rituals of purification are performed to counteract it. Examples from the Hebrew Bible, the Greco-Roman world, medieval Europe, Africa, and Native America are examined to substantiate this claim. Premodern beliefs, moreover, about the consequences of killing are echoed in the symptoms of “moral injury” described by contemporary psychiatrists treating combat veterans, which suggests that, in defying or disabling our inhibitions against performing acts of lethal violence, we ultimately do violence to ourselves. (shrink)

Deflationists about self-deception understand self-deception as the outcome of biased information processing, but in doing so, they lose the normative distinction between self-deception and wishful thinking. Von Hippel & Trivers (VH&T) advocate a deflationist approach, but they also want preserve the purposive character of self-deception. A biologically realistic analysis of deception can eliminate the contradiction implicit in their position.

The paper critically interrogates the claim that Freudian theory is morally nihillistic.

This letter addresses the editorial decision to publish the article, “Research on group differences in intelligence: A defense of free inquiry” (Cofnas, 2020). Our letter points out several critical problems with Cofnas's article, which we believe should have either disqualified the manuscript upon submission or been addressed during the review process and resulted in substantial revisions.

A comprehensive user-friendly introductory account of Freudian theory and other major currents in psychoanalytic thought. It also includes biographical material on the major theorists. It helps to clear up many misconceptions about psychoanalytic theory and practice.

This paper examines the reaction of Victorian Presbyterian culture to the theory of evolution in late nineteenth century Scotland. Focusing on the role played by the Free Church theologian, biblical critic and anthropological theorist, William Robertson Smith, it argues that, compared with Smith’s radical scholarship, evolutionary theories did little to disturb the Scottish Calvinist mind-set. After surveying the attitudes to evolution among a range of theological leaders, the paper examines Smith’s fundamentally threatening proposals and the circumstances that (...) led to the public spectacle of his dismissal from his Free Church professorship. It concludes by suggesting that, ironically, even while his fellow churchmen were making their peace with Darwin, Smith was mobilising an evolutionary outlook that challenged Scotland’s conservative religious culture to its very core. (shrink)

Anthropological inquiry has often been considered an agent of intellectual secularization. Not least is this so in the sphere of religion, where anthropological accounts have often been taken to represent the triumph of naturalism. This metanarrative, however, fails to recognize that naturalistic explanations could sometimes be espousedforreligious purposes and in defence of confessional creeds. This essay examines two late nineteenth-century figures – Alexander Winchell in the United States and William Robertson Smith in Britain – who found in anthropological analysis (...) resources to bolster rather than undermine faith. In both cases these individuals found themselves on the receiving end of ecclesiastical censure and were dismissed from their positions at church-governed institutions. But their motivation was to vindicate divine revelation, in Winchell's case from the physical anthropology of human origins and in Smith's from the cultural anthropology of Semitic ritual. (shrink)

This chapter, which is concerned with the phenomenology of perception, especially the role of content and context in the intentionality of perception, tries to provide an account of the structure of perceptual experience and its intentional relation to its objects. In particular, it presents an analysis of consciousness and intentionality in perception. Perceptual experience is sensuous and paradigmatically intentional. The intentional character of a visual experience of an object is different to the successful intentional relation between the experience and the (...) object. The twin-tomatoes experiment reveals that content alone does not settle which tomato is the correct object of perception. Perception gives a direct awareness of an object in the sense that the external object is itself the object of perception, and the object is actually present to the subject and experienced as actually present in the context of perception. (shrink)

J. N. (Jitendra Nath) Mohanty (1928–2023). -/- Professor J. N. Mohanty has characterized his life and philosophy as being both “inside” and “outside” East and West, i.e., inside and outside traditions of India and those of the West, living in both India and United States: geographically, culturally, and philosophically; while also traveling the world: Melbourne to Moscow. Most of his academic time was spent teaching at the University of Oklahoma, The New School Graduate Faculty, and finally Temple University. Yet his (...) preeminent work in Husserlian phenomenology developed alongside his eminent work in Indian philosophy: describing his interests as “a fusion of disparate horizons.” -/- J. N. Mohanty was born September 26, 1928, in Cuttack (Odisha, East India). After graduating from high school, he went on to study both Indian and Western philosophy in Calcutta, earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees. There he read Whitehead and Kant’s First Critique; although he wanted to include mathematics in his curriculum, he was led instead to include Indian philosophy and Sanskrit. On the shelves of his teacher, Ras Vihar Das, he came upon a copy of the English translation (Ideas I, 1931) of Edmund Husserl’s classic Ideen I (1913), which presented Husserl’s ground-breaking conception of phenomenology. In 1952–1954 he left India for the first time, reaching Göttingen to study mathematics and philosophy, which earned him a doctorate in mathematics and “philosophy of mathematical sciences” (in his own words). In Göttingen, Mohanty found the powerful mathematical world that Husserl himself had earlier interacted with, where several Husserl students had formed the Göttingen school of phenomenology. During these years Mohanty studied primarily mathematics, alongside Kant and also Vedic Sanskrit. From his friend Günter Patzig, interpreter of Aristotle and Frege, Mohanty was drawn to Frege in relation to mathematical logic. He attended lectures of Heidegger, intrigued by his ontological thinking. Yet, despite the Husserlian legacy, Mohanty was completely self-taught in his studies of Husserl (as he has reported). With a doctorate in mathematics, and ideas from Kant and Frege in his philosophical background, Mohanty set about crafting his own conception of philosophy grounded in phenomenology, drawing on Husserl’s extensive work, critically sifting through Husserl’s texts and their emerging concepts of intentionality, meaning, subject, intersubjectivity, and world. In between he wrote his first book-length study: on phenomenological insights in Nicolai Hartmann and A. N. Whitehead (1958). -/- Over many decades Mohanty formulated and argued, in analytical detail, for a conception of phenomenology and its place in philosophy, later presented in a clear and concise book titled Transcendental Phenomenology: An Analytic Account (1989). Over these very decades the same scholar explored classical and recent Indian philosophy, thinking through kindred ideas of consciousness, self, and knowledge drawn from the Indian philosophical contexts. While writing on Nyāya theory of truth, he also pondered whether the world and finite individual are illusory or real, and whether Marx, Arendt, Gandhi (whom he heard speak in Calcutta), or Vinoba Bhave (with whom he marched across India for the land-grant movement) could best navigate post-Independent India’s social and svarāj or self-rule reforms. The two Mohantys, thinking through a vision of self and world, turned out to be “non-different” or “non-dual” as they each practiced critical phenomenology from both inside and outside the respective philosophical and cultural traditions. Numerous students, fellows, and colleagues or collaborators have benefited immensely from this infusion and unified approach to diversity in philosophical thought. In the 2000s, moving into retirement, Mohanty wrote two long books devoted to his understanding of Husserl and phenomenology and the calling of philosophy itself. This two-volume study shows Mohanty himself thinking through Husserl, critically, in The Philosophy of Edmund Husserl: A Historical Introduction (2008), and Edmund Husserl’s Freiburg Years: 1916–1938. As Mohanty worked on Husserl, he carefully indicated where he agreed and where he rejected or changed ideas, all part of his practice in phenomenology of “description and interpretation.” It was the same pattern he used in addressing the thought of Husserl vis-à-vis Kant or Frege or even Quine. -/- As Mohanty developed his understanding of phenomenology over the years, he wrote books on theory of meaning and the concept of intentionality, developing a model of ideal meaning and its foundation in intentionality, drawing on Husserl’s results. He followed these with the book Husserl and Frege (1982), linking the thought of those foundational figures for the “continental” and “analytic” traditions, respectively, in twentieth-century Western philosophy. Over his long career Mohanty addressed both traditions in his clear and accessible writing style. While developing his views on phenomenology, Mohanty regularly looked to “Husserl and his others,” evaluating views in Heidegger, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, Ricoeur, and then Derrida and others in the wake of Husserl. With his background in Kant, Mohanty also looked toward Heidegger and Hegel in relation to Husserl’s later work in the Crisis (1935–38). Similarly, he looked to contemporary analytic philosophers, adjudicating his own, oft-wise Husserlian views in relation to Frege, Nagel, and others. Amid his active scholarly career, Mohanty co-founded the journal Husserl Studies, and was editorial advisor to Philosophy & Phenomenological Research, Philosophy East & West, Journal of Indian Philosophy, Sophia, among others. -/- Yet all this while Mohanty was also thinking and writing about Indian philosophy and its relation to phenomenology. In his own retrospective, Indian philosophy is “the permanent background” of his Husserlian thinking, while Kant is the recurrent Western background of his Husserlian phenomenology. Mohanty’s form of “transcendental phenomenology” evolved, in his own perspective, against the background of his studies of Navya-Nyāya on logic and Vedānta on consciousness, in Indian philosophy, and against the background of Kant’s First Critique on the transcendental, in Western philosophy. Accordingly, Mohanty’s study of logical form and of the intentionality of consciousness seeks a fusion of East and West in the conception of transcendental phenomenology. (Cf. Mohanty’s apt response to critics in The Empirical and the Transcendental (2000).) Even in the context of North American Husserl scholarship, Mohanty has exercised an earnest fusion of East and West. For the so-called East Coast and West Coast interpretations of Husserl’s crucial notion of noema both find a sympathetic spirit in J. N. Mohanty’s careful and nuanced interpretation of Husserlian transcendental phenomenology. With Mohanty the two faces of the noema are the logical (Fregean) and the phenomenal (Kantian), and these views of intentional structure join in consciousness—in a way resonant with Indian thought. -/- - David Woodruff Smith (UC Irvine) and Purushottama Bilimoria (SFSU, San Francisco; University of Melbourne) -/- For photo of Prof Mohanty visit APA online memorial_minutes2023 Courtesy of APA Memorial Minutes (& Proceedings) 2023 . (shrink)

In this stimulating introduction, David Woodruff Smith introduces the whole of Husserl’s thought, demonstrating his influence on philosophy of mind and language, on ontology and epistemology, and on philosophy of logic, mathematics and science. Starting with an overview of his life and works, and his place in twentieth-century philosophy, and in western philosophy as a whole, David Woodruff Smith introduces Husserl’s concept of phenomenology, explaining his influential theories of intentionality, objectivity and subjectivity. In subsequent chapters he (...) covers Husserl’s logic, metaphysics, realism and transcendental idealism, and epistemology. Finally, he assesses the significance and implications of Husserl’s work for contemporary philosophy of mind and cognitive science. Including a timeline, glossary and extensive suggestions for further reading, _Husserl_ is essential reading for anyone interested in this eminent philosopher, phenomenology or twentieth-century philosophy. (shrink)

In this stimulating introduction, David Woodruff Smith introduces the whole of Husserl’s thought, demonstrating his influence on philosophy of mind and language, on ontology and epistemology, and on philosophy of logic, mathematics and science. Starting with an overview of his life and works, and his place in twentieth-century philosophy, and in western philosophy as a whole, David Woodruff Smith introduces Husserl’s concept of phenomenology, explaining his influential theories of intentionality, objectivity and subjectivity. In subsequent chapters he (...) covers Husserl’s logic, metaphysics, realism and transcendental idealism, and epistemology. Finally, he assesses the significance and implications of Husserl’s work for contemporary philosophy of mind and cognitive science. Including a timeline, glossary and extensive suggestions for further reading, Husserl is essential reading for anyone interested in this eminent philosopher, phenomenology or twentieth-century philosophy. (shrink)

This article examines the UNESCO Convention on Intangible Cultural Heritage. It accepts the general case made by UNESCO, but urges greater attention to the ‘real-world’ knowledge of ordinary people. The paper rejects taxonomies of knowledge based on metaphysical discussions of knowing. Instead, it argues for an approach to knowledge based on the social production of ‘knowledge acts’. It concludes by asserting that support for the diversity of social enactment of knowledge could have valuable outcomes in the form of new ways (...) of understanding new and emerging technologies. (shrink)

Husserl’s philosophy, by the usual account, evolved through three stages: 1. development of an anti-psychologistic, objective foundation of logic and mathematics, rooted in Brentanian descriptive psychology; 2. development of a new discipline of "phenomenology" founded on a metaphysical position dubbed "transcendental idealism"; transformation of phenomenology from a form of methodological solipsism into a phenomenology of intersubjectivity and ultimately (in his Crisis of 1936) into an ontology of the life-world, embracing the social worlds of culture and history. We show that this (...) story of three revolutions can provide at best a preliminary orientation, and that Husserl was constantly expanding and revising his philosophical system, integrating views in phenomenology, ontology, epistemology and logic with views on the nature and tasks of philosophy and science as well as on the nature of culture and the world in ways that reveal more common elements than violent shifts of direction. We argue further that Husserl is a seminal figure in the evolution from traditional philosophy to the characteristic philosophical concerns of the late twentieth century: concerns with representation and intentionality and with problems at the borderlines of the philosophy of mind, ontology, and cognitive science. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Implicit Soul of Charlie Kaufman's AdaptationDavid L. SmithI don't know what else there is to write about other than being human, or, more specifically, being this human. I have no alternative. Everything is about that, right? Unless it's about flowers.—Charlie Kaufman 1There are some things that cannot be observed directly, even in principle: a single quark, the present moment, ones own eye. What Richard Rodriquez calls the "one (...) subject" of literature—"What it feels like to be alive" 2 —is perhaps another one of those things. A writer struggles to be true to something central about life—to catch it on the fly, to get it right. Some have reified this "something" as "the soul" or "the human spirit." Today, though, we mainly rely on placeholders: "it," for example, as in "do you get it?" or "what's it all about?"—a usage that flirts with the vanishing "it" of "it is raining," implying a source or substance behind phenomena in which we do not really believe but without which we cannot do justice to experience. In any case, the writer's attempt to represent this elusive heart of things is typically frustrated, done in by the slipperiness of words, the cludginess of the conventions of communication, and the waywardness of the imagination. Writing inevitably falls short of its deepest aims.Nevertheless, there is something deviously affirmative in this state of affairs. For if life is a thing that refuses to be observed, then isn't the very failure of literature, if consciously acknowledged, a way of staying true to it? Isn't the writer's disappointment an especially telling feature of "what it feels like to be alive?" Emerson, more clearly than most, understood how this trick is turned: "We grant that human life is [End Page 424] mean; but how did we find out that it was mean? What is the ground of this uneasiness of ours; of this old discontent? What is the universal sense of want and ignorance, but the fine innuendo by which the soul makes its enormous claim?" 3 As noted above, "the soul" is a disposable term here. If you prefer, say simply "the human," "life," or "it." The point, in any case, is that the elusive subject which cannot be stated or represented directly may nevertheless be implied. If the human cannot be caught in a formula, it may be embodied or enacted in the ongoing work of creation.Charlie Kaufman's Adaptation is both an argument for and an example of this implicit realization of the human in art. Many viewers and even reviewers might see it as a poor candidate for humanistic interpretation along these lines. Most, in fact, have seen the film as little more than a clever postmodern puzzle-box, albeit one with great acting, deft direction, and a generous sense of humor. Its theme, after all, is the representation of representation. A book is being rewritten or adapted to become the film we are watching. The subject of that film is its own author's struggle to create it. The film further calls attention to its own artificiality by changing the rules of representation on us midway through. Its tone, style, and basic genre conventions shift when the author/protagonist begins to rethink his original purposes, undermining the credibility of all representational schemes in the process. Adaptation, in short, seems to be what the graduate-educated a decade ago might have felt comfortable calling "an endless play of simulacra," a text absorbed in its own textuality, a snake that eats its own tail. 4All of this is true enough, but it is not the whole story. The point of Adaptation, I will argue, is not simply the pleasure it takes in playing with issues of representation, but its clear sense of the human issues at stake in that play. Adaptation, that is, is not only about the way words tend to float free of the world. Rather, it is also a demonstration of the way a writer's basic goal can survive the wreck of her intentions, or the way that failed attempts to be true to life... (shrink)

The essays in this volume explore the full range of Husserl's work and reveal just how systematic his philosophy is. There are treatments of his most important contributions to phenomenology, intentionality and the philosophy of mind, epistemology, the philosophy of language, ontology, and mathematics. An underlying theme of the volume is a resistance to the idea, current in much intellectual history, of a radical break between 'modern' and 'postmodern' philosophy, with Husserl as the last of the great Cartesians. Husserl is (...) seen in this volume as a philosopher constantly revising his system in order to be able to integrate philosophy with ideas emanating from science and culture. The so-called rift between analytic and 'continental' philosophy emerges as an artificial construct. (shrink)

Geography and Ethics examines the place of geography in ethics and of ethics in geography by drawing together specially commissioned contributors from distinguished scholars from around the world.