Study Of Human Nature Research Articles

Leviathan, King of the Proud

AbstractHobbes begins the Elements of Law by claiming that "[t]he true and perspicuous explanation of the elements of laws natural and politic... dependeth upon the knowledge of what is human nature." (E.L. I.1.1)1 He agrees that morality and politics are "not to be discovered but to be made," but they are to be made as solutions to problems discovered through a detailed study of human nature.2 Among other things, this study reveals that humans are obsessed both with contemplating their own power and having others recognize it. The former desire is the desire for glory: the latter is the desire for honour. Hobbes goes on to show the conflict these desires cause. They ensure scarcity, since their objects are intrinsically scarce, and they contribute to irresolution, and so make it hard to keep covenants. In addition, they determine the form of any solution: the market is not a fully satisfactory solution, and the sovereign must redirect desires for honour and glory into harmless channels. I shall first argue against David Gauthier, who takes Hobbesian men to pursue honour and glory as mere instruments to the satisfaction of their asocial desires. I shall then present a revamped version of what Jean Hampton calls the "passions account" of conflict, defending it from her objections. I shall close by sketching how Hobbes responds to the problems caused by the desire for honour and glory.

Stereotyping and prejudice: changing conceptions

The study of stereotyping and prejudice is a study of human nature, group mem bership, and intergroup relationships. It sheds light on each of these aspects of social psychology. With respect to the first two, it has been observed that since groups provide the best framework for satisfying various human needs, individuals continuously organize themselves in collectives. They belong to a variety of groups-many of which they voluntarily select and some to which they are ascribed. Group membership, therefore, is one of the most salient and important of an indi vidual's characteristics. The implication of this characteristic is that human beings not only constantly classify other people into group categories, either by identifying membership or constructing their own categories, but also judge and evaluate them on this basis. The stereotypes and prejudice are outcomes of this process. They are the beliefs and attitudes toward members of another In addition, the study of stereotyping and prejudice reflects an interest in inter group relationships. While we recognize that a discussion of intergroup relation ships may focus on behaviors describing actions such as confrontations, violence, wars, cooperation, alliance, negotiation, or coordination, we also believe that each of these intergroup behaviors is mediated by perceptions, beliefs, and attitudes. In the case of intergroup behaviors, the listed actions are not performed instinctively or mindlessly, but are preceded by cognitive processes which, among other outputs, involve the formation of stereotypes and prejudice toward the other group.

Some developments in catholic moral theology and their promise for social workers

Catholic moral theology has changed in several ways since Vatican II. This article explains three major changes: the shift from classical to historical consciousness, the move from physicalism to the subject, and the move from study of abstract human nature to concrete human nature influenced by history and culture. Following on this explanatory reflection, three issues of ethical import and interest to social workers are examined: 1) contraception 2) homosexual marriages and 3) the distribution of income in the U.S. from a liberation theology perspective. The article concludes by suggesting that the three changes in moral theology offer helpful resources for Catholic social workers and Catholic agencies.

Psychology of the Scientist: LX. Relation of Training about Science to Preference for Objective Psychology

Correlational data suggest that knowledge of the aim, methods, and limitations of science helps students to adopt a more scientific or objective approach to the study of human nature. The total sample of 444 undergraduates included majors in Psychology, Mathematics, Science, Humanities, and preprofessional programs. The advanced students scored higher than beginning students for Science Knowledge and Objective Psychology. Advanced Psychology majors, plus Philosophy majors who took a Philosophy of Science course, scored higher than other advanced students on both measures. Curriculum differences seem to explain this finding.

Mining the human sciences: Some relations between hermeneutics and epistemology

The word mining has two primary meanings. The first is that of excavating for the purpose of extracting valued resources; the second is that of laying explosives under something for the purpose of bringing it down. The two actions described are ordinarily incompatible yet both are important, I shall argue, in dealing with what has come to be called the human or the "interpretive" sciences. On the one hand, they provide rich and unique resources which have greatly enhanced our understanding of human beings, their artifacts, and their institutions, and progress in the social and behavioral sciences can be made only by assimilating those understandings. Yet on the other hand, the human sciences are sometimes seen as an alternative to scientific, "positivistic" epistemology, as a new method for the apprehension of truth. Because it has become somewhat of a touchstone for radical critiques of the "scientific" study of human nature, that assumption is worth criticizing if not exploding altogether. Hence, our two ways of"mining" the human sciences. Hermeneutics is a branch of scholarship devoted to the theory and practice of the interpretation of texts. Originally, the objects of interpretation were sacred texts or scripture but more recently the objects of study have included texts of any sort, ranging from ordinary discourse and literary texts to "honorary" texts such as human action (Ricoeur, 1981; Sullivan, 1984) or to whole cultures (Geertz, 1973). Further, the application of an interpretive stance to philosophical problems of action (Ricoeur, 1981), perception, and knowledge (Nicholson, 1984) has proven to be extremely revealing. But beyond this, as mentioned, is the possibility that the theory of interpretation may offer an alternative to the more objectivist or "positivistic" epistemology that dominates the social or behavioral sciences including psychology, anthropology, sociology, and educational studies. Hermeneutics, it is suggested, may provide an epistemology suited to the human sciences. The appeal of an hermeneutic epistemology is that it faces squarely the problems of human intentionality, rationality, and subjectivity as well as the making and apprehension of meaning, as these notions are fundamental to the interpretation of any text. Further, it articulates the important distinctions involved in interpreting a text and it suggests a method, the "hermeneutic circle," by means of which these distinctions may be applied in any particular case. We may think of this approach to the study of human beings as the "interpretive" or "understanding" stance. Epistemology is the study of the nature of human knowledge. Scientific epistemology is the branch of scholarship devoted to elaborating and examining the

Dusting off Darwin: Can We Still Afford to Ban Him from the Schools?

CAN THE NEXT GENERATION of American adults survive in ignorance of laws of evolution by natural selection? Perhaps, but it won't be easy. As permanence of our tenure on planet grows increasingly questionable, it is time that we took seriously Alexander Pope's dictum that the proper study of mankind is man. And we will never fully grasp human nature until we are willing to marry findings of evolutionary biology to insights of social science in order to develop a more comprehensive understanding of biological as well as social and cultural forces that influence human behavior. As a longtime observer of poverty of social education in this country, I am increasingly pursuaded that our best hope for saving planet's most endangered species, homo sapiens is to integrate teaching of science and social studies around study of human nature. To achieve this we can no longer avoid teaching human evolution in our schools. Mixing science with social studies is hardly a new idea. The era of educational reform that began with Sputnik-inspired revolution in science and mathematics teaching swept all educators into its wake, and for a time it appeared as if liberal education was to be equated with teachings of science. Most social science reformers of that period accepted without question premise that scientific approaches to learning were better approaches. The rise of inquiry-based teaching, search for Jerome Bruner's structure of and stress upon introduction of quantifiable data into social studies classroom were all influences of science curriculum reform movement, and new approach quickly eclipsed older social studies commitment to political socialization and transmission of values. The humanists, it seemed, were willing to throw over historic distinction between what C.P. Snow called cultures while hardly questioning social implications of new educational reforms. Today we inhabit an entirely different educational environment-one in which tide has turned sharply away from science teaching as core of liberal studies. Indeed, we can sense a disturbing tendency among educators and parents alike to abandon intellectual goals of past two decades in favor of a return to rote learning of skills and teaching of traditional values. This trend sounds ominously reminiscent of abortive life-adjustment movement of 1930s and 1940s. Few educators would argue that science curriculum reform movement of 1960s was sufficiently sensitive to social needs, but new atmosphere threatens to undermine solid intellectual gains of period, and this current mood may limit our opportunities to develop new educational approaches that combine perspectives from both sciences and humanities. As I see it, integration of science and social science teaching has not yet gone far enough. The reforms of 1960s exposed social science educator to substance and methods of science and in so doing brought increased intellectual rigor to social studies classroom. Enormous gains were made in introduction of social science methods and in exposing students to new ways of analyzing social world. The old, narrow focus on history and geography was now broadened to include perspectives drawn from anthropology, sociology, psychology, political science, and economics, and with these new disciplines came an issueoriented and less ethnocentric approach to study of human behavior. With it also came fragmentation and a diffusion of focus to point that it became increasingly difficult to identify a unifying purpose for social studies teaching. The time has now come, therefore, to reintegrate disciplines, not by a return to outworn socializing methods of past, but by reorganizing social studies curriculum around scientific study of human behavior. Only through a further integration of science and social studies teaching can this objective be achieved.

Hume's Political Methodology: A Reconsideration of “That Politics May Be Reduced to a Science”

In his analysis of Plato's Republic, Aristotle objects to his teacher's abstract and psychological method by suggesting that “there is another matter which must not be ignored—the teaching of actual experience. We are bound to pay some regard to the long past and the passage of the years, in which these things…would not have gone unnoticed if they had been really good.” Ever since that time, political theorists have been divided on the question of the appropriate approach to the study of politics, and often, as in the case of Plato and Aristotle, the focal point of the disagreement has been whether politics is best seen through the lens of history or the study of human nature and the development of a consequent psychology. This, for example, is the crux of the argument between James Mill and T. B. Macaulay. Mill is the proponent of a psychological approach; he maintains “it is immediately obvious that a wide and difficult field is presented, and that the whole science of human nature must be explored to lay a foundation for the science of government.” Macaulay disagrees, for he believes that “the style which the Utilitarians admire, suits only those subjects on which it is possible to reason a priori.” Indeed, in Macaulay's view, Mill belongs in the Middle Ages: “of those schoolmen Mr. Mill has inherited both the spirit and the style. He is an Aristotelian of the fifteenth century, born out of due season.” Far better, continues Macaulay, is the inductive historical method which observes the world, examines facts, devotes itself to the careful study of the past, and checks itself “by perpetually bringing the theory which we have constructed to the test of new facts….”

Dewey, Maslow, and Consummatory Experience

John Dewey and Abraham Maslow do not hold similar philosophies. Dewey is a thorough-going pragmatist, while Maslow might be described as a naturalistic realist. Both place great reliance and faith in science as it bears on the problems of men and society, and a study of their writing reveals some notable similarities of thought and considerable similarity in outcomes. The most striking of these is their analysis of the best and highest in experience. Dewey's approach is through an examination of experience in general culminating in the aesthetic experience; Maslow's, through a study of human nature and psychology culminating in his examination of the peak experience. One throws light on the other, and both deal similarly with this important phase of human experience. Educators, at least practicing ones, have not been overly concerned with the place of the consummatory in the schools. It is understandable, perhaps, that they are too often bogged down with the everyday, the mundane, the troublesome. But they have exhibited an overriding preoccupation with the cognitive. Schools do not often admit the transcendent, the ineffable. If these aspects of experience are to be admitted, it behooves us first of all to explicate what these mean, to examine their characteristics.

Helvétius and Jefferson: studies of human nature and government in the eighteenth century.

Helvétius and Jefferson: studies of human nature and government in the eighteenth century.

Hegel's Conception of the Study of Human Nature

It is easy to understand why Hegel's philosophy should be little studied by English-speaking philosophers today. Those who at the beginning of the twentieth century initiated the movement we are now caught up in presented their earliest philosophical arguments as criticisms of the prevailing Anglo-Hegelian views. It may now be thought illiberal to take much interest in this perhaps excusably slaughtered royal family, and positively reactionary to hanker after the foreign dynasty from which it sometimes claimed descent. Hegel was a systematic philosopher with a scope hardly to be found today, and men who, as we say, wish to keep up with their subject may well be daunted at the idea of having to understand a way of looking at philosophy which they suspect would not repay them for their trouble anyway. Furthermore, since Hegel wrote, formal logic has advanced in ways he could not have foreseen, and has, it seems to many, destroyed the whole basis of his dialectical method. At the same time, the creation of a science of sociology, it is supposed, has rendered obsolete the philosophy of history for which Hegel was at one time admired. In countries where there are Marxist intellectuals, Hegel does get discussed as the inadvertent forerunner of historical and dialectical materialism. But in England, where there is no such need or presence, there do not seem to be any very strong ideological reasons for discussing him. In what follows I shall be asking you to direct your thoughts to certain forgotten far-off things which I hope you will find historically interesting even if you do not agree with me that they give important clues for an understanding of human nature and human society.

Hegel's Conception of the Study of Human Nature

It is easy to understand why Hegel's philosophy should be little studied by English-speaking philosophers today. Those who at the beginning of the twentieth century initiated the movement we are now caught up in presented their earliest philosophical arguments as criticisms of the prevailing Anglo-Hegelian views. It may now be thought illiberal to take much interest in this perhaps excusably slaughtered royal family, and positively reactionary to hanker after the foreign dynasty from which it sometimes claimed descent. Hegel was a systematic philosopher with a scope hardly to be found today, and men who, as we say, wish to keep up with their subject may well be daunted at the idea of having to understand a way of looking at philosophy which they suspect would not repay them for their trouble anyway. Furthermore, since Hegel wrote, formal logic has advanced in ways he could not have foreseen, and has, it seems to many, destroyed the whole basis of his dialectical method. At the same time, the creation of a science of sociology, it is supposed, has rendered obsolete the philosophy of history for which Hegel was at one time admired. In countries where there are Marxist intellectuals, Hegel does get discussed as the inadvertent forerunner of historical and dialectical materialism. But in England, where there is no such need or presence, there do not seem to be any very strong ideological reasons for discussing him. In what follows I shall be asking you to direct your thoughts to certain forgotten far-off things which I hope you will find historically interesting even if you do not agree with me that they give important clues for an understanding of human nature and human society.

Economic Maturity: An Industrial View

IT IS not the writer's wish to add to the theoretical discussion of his subject but rather to point out some of the human reactions involved in attempts to reduce the theory of maturity to a working system Economics is only the study of human nature in its bread-and-butter relations.What we call economic laws are merely statements of the ways in which human nature reacts to particular conditions. As conditions change, reactions change, even though the underlying motivation (usually self-interest) remain constant. Thus, the change from an agricultural to a predominantly manufacturing economy does not change human nature; but it changes profoundly its ways of expressing itself. The change from a handicraft economy of limited output to a machine economy of mass production and large fixed capital has brought into play a whole new set of reactions-virtually laws. Those new laws fitting new conditions are no more repealable by statute than is human nature itself or the law of gravitation. We may debate their precise formulation and how best to use them; it is futile to debate their force.

Paternalism in the American College

theories. History should be presented as the story of humanity with valuable lessons for today. Literature should be stressed as the study of human nature rather than as a cadaver for minute dissection. Finally, in the paternalistic college, the English language should be taught to the many who cannot pronounce it correctly, write it grammatically, or read it understandingly. The accurate use of words is the basis of all clear thinking, and the ability to use one's mother tongue with accuracy is of the highest practical value. Since the American college has been gradually led by circumstances to become a paternalistic institution, it will at least be fulfilling its obligations when it provides good teachers, uses lectures and seminars sparingly, stresses recitations and examinations in the more rigorous subjects, wisely regulates a student's choice of electives, and sees to it that those courses he does elect carry him far enough to be of genuine value in later life.

Book Review: Psychology for Executives, A Study of Human Nature in Industry

Book Review: Psychology for Executives, A Study of Human Nature in Industry

The Varieties of Religious Experience: a Study in Human Nature. Being the Gifford Lectures on Natural Religion, delivered at Edinburgh in 1901–2 by William James, LL.D., etc. London, 1902: Longmans. Royal octavo, pp. 534.

The Varieties of Religious Experience: a Study in Human Nature. Being the Gifford Lectures on Natural Religion, delivered at Edinburgh in 1901–2 by William James, LL.D., etc. London, 1902: Longmans. Royal octavo, pp. 534. - Volume 49 Issue 204

The Varieties of Religious Experience. A Study of Human Nature. William James

Previous articleNext article FreeBook ReviewsThe Varieties of Religious Experience. A Study of Human Nature. William James J. H. MuirheadJ. H. Muirhead Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Volume 13, Number 2Jan., 1903 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/intejethi.13.2.2376454 Views: 9Total views on this site Journal History This article was published in The International Journal of Ethics (1890-1938), which is continued by Ethics (1938-present). PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature. Being the Gifford Lectures on Natural Religion, Delivered at Edinburgh in 1901-1902. William James

Previous articleNext article FreeRecent Theological LiteratureThe Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature. Being the Gifford Lectures on Natural Religion, Delivered at Edinburgh in 1901-1902. William James George B. StevensGeorge B. Stevens Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Volume 7, Number 1Jan., 1903 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/478290 Views: 97Total views on this site Journal History This article was published in The American Journal of Theology (1897-1920), which is continued by The Journal of Religion (1921-present). Copyright 1903 The University of ChicagoPDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

V.—CRITICAL NOTICES

Journal Article V.—CRITICAL NOTICES Get access The Varieties of Religious Experience: a Study in Human Nature. Being the Gifford Lecture on Natural Religion Delivered at Edinburgh in 1901–1902. By WILLIAM JAMES, etc., Corresponding Member of the Institute of France and of the Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences, Professor of Philosophy at Harvard University. Longmans, Green & Co., London, New York and Bombay, 1902. H. RASHDALL H. RASHDALL Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Mind, Volume XII, Issue 2, 1903, Pages 245–250, https://doi.org/10.1093/mind/XII.2.245 Published: 01 January 1903

Review of The Varieties of Religious Experience, A Study in Human Nature.

Review of The Varieties of Religious Experience, A Study in Human Nature.

Book Review:The Varieties of Religious Experience. A Study of Human Nature. William James

Book Review:The Varieties of Religious Experience. A Study of Human Nature. William James