Stevenson, Leslie (Ed.) : University of St. Andrews, Scotland
Summary
This unique anthology provides an introduction to a wide variety of views on human nature. Drawing from diverse
cultures over three millennia, Leslie Stevenson has chosen selections ranging from ancient religious texts up to
contemporary theories based on evolutionary science. An ideal companion to the editor's previous book, Ten Theories
of Human Nature, Third Edition, this interdisciplinary reader can also be used independently.
The second edition of The Study of Human Nature offers substantial selections illustrating the perspectives
discussed in Ten Theories of Human Nature, Third Edition--the Bible, Hinduism, Confucianism, Plato, Kant,
Marx, Freud, Sartre, B.F. Skinner's behaviorism, and Konrad Lorenz's ethnological diagnosis of human aggression.
The Islamic tradition and 17th-18th century philosophers Descartes, Hobbes, Hume, and Rousseau are also represented.
Selections from Rousseau, J.S. Mill, and Nancy Holmstrom raise feminist issues, and Henry Bracken's paper deals
with racial issues. Examples from E.O. Wilson's sociobiology and his critics are also included, together with Chomsky
and recent examples from evolutionary psychology.
Table of Contents
Preface
THE HEBREW BIBLE (the Old Testament)
Genesis 1-3
Psalms
HINDUISM
Brihad Aranyaka Upanishad
Katha Upanishad
CONFUCIANISM
Mencius, "Human Nature is Good"
Hsun-tzu, "Human Nature is Evil"
PLATO
Republic
CHRISTIANITY (the New Testament)
St. Paul, Letter to the Romans
St. Paul, First Letter to the Corinthians
ISLAM
Ayatullah Murtaza Mutahhari, "Man and Faith"
RENÉ DESCARTES
Discourse on Method
THOMAS HOBBES
Leviathan
DAVID HUME
Treatise of Human Nature
JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU
Emile
IMMANUEL KANT
Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View
Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason
KARL MARX
The Materialist Theory of History
Consciousness and the Division of Labour
JOHN STUART MILL
The Subjection of Women
CHARLES DARWIN
The Descent of Man
SIGMUND FREUD
B.A. Farrell, "A Reconstruction of Freud's Mature Theory"
JEAN-PAUL SARTRE
Existentialism and Humanism
B.F. SKINNER
About Behaviorism
KONRAD LORENZ
On Aggression
NOAM CHOMSKY
"Language and the Human Mind"
HENRY M. BRACKEN
"Essence, Accident and Race"
EDWARD D. WILSON
On Human Nature
NANCY HOLMSTROM
"Do Women Have a Distinct Nature?"
STEVEN ROSE, RICHARD LEWONTIN, AND LEON J. KAMIN
Not in our Genes: Biology, Ideology and Human Nature
