We live in the era of biology. We have heard of ‘obesity genes’,
‘homosexuality genes’ from daily news papers almost every week. Such
terms as Stem cell and GMO are no longer biological jargons. If contemporary
science and technology have changed our lives for the past centuries,
biology has been a center of the stage. Interesting enough, biology
has changed not only our lives but also our thinking. Rapid development
of reproductive technologies made us revisit our received view of the birth,
genetic engineering led to safety problems of GM foods, and news of homosexuality
genes evoked nature vs nurture debates again. Besides, recent
development of neurosciences makes us think seriously if the brain is me.
For the past two centuries, we have undertook three important revolutions:
Darwinian, molecular, and cognitive revolution. They have changed
our thinking of our selves dramatically. So it is valuable to discuss the humanistic
meaning, issues and implications of the three revolutions. In this
review paper, among the three I focus on the Darwinian revolution and its
implications for humanities. Firstly, I discuss philosophical implications of
Darwinian theory, reviewing its anti-essentialistic metaphysics and ethical
ramifications. Secondly, I review Darwinian approaches to understanding of
the human mind (especially for inference, emotion, and social cognition)
and compare them with traditional conceptions of mind. Thirdly, I review
two major theories of language evolution critically in order to explore the
influence of Darwinian revolution on linguistics. Finally I argue for evolutionary
theories of culture which has been hardly discussed in Darwinian
senses. Through these discussions, I reveal that we can have interesting
Darwinian views of ontology, morality, inference, emotion, social cognition,
language, and even culture. So this paper can be a primitive review of
‘Darwinian Humanities’ The Darwinian Humanities conflict with traditional
ones in some cases, while they can do a complementary cooperation
in others.
We live in the era of biology. We have heard of ‘obesity genes’,
‘homosexuality genes’ from daily news papers almost every week. Such
terms as Stem cell and GMO are no longer biological jargons. If contemporary
science and technology have changed our lives for the past centuries,
biology has been a center of the stage. Interesting enough, biology
has changed not only our lives but also our thinking. Rapid development
of reproductive technologies made us revisit our received view of the birth,
genetic engineering led to safety problems of GM foods, and news of homosexuality
genes evoked nature vs nurture debates again. Besides, recent
development of neurosciences makes us think seriously if the brain is me.
For the past two centuries, we have undertook three important revolutions:
Darwinian, molecular, and cognitive revolution. They have changed
our thinking of our selves dramatically. So it is valuable to discuss the humanistic
meaning, issues and implications of the three revolutions. In this
review paper, among the three I focus on the Darwinian revolution and its
implications for humanities. Firstly, I discuss philosophical implications of
Darwinian theory, reviewing its anti-essentialistic metaphysics and ethical
ramifications. Secondly, I review Darwinian approaches to understanding of
the human mind (especially for inference, emotion, and social cognition)
and compare them with traditional conceptions of mind. Thirdly, I review
two major theories of language evolution critically in order to explore the
influence of Darwinian revolution on linguistics. Finally I argue for evolutionary
theories of culture which has been hardly discussed in Darwinian
senses. Through these discussions, I reveal that we can have interesting
Darwinian views of ontology, morality, inference, emotion, social cognition,
language, and even culture. So this paper can be a primitive review of
‘Darwinian Humanities’ The Darwinian Humanities conflict with traditional
ones in some cases, while they can do a complementary cooperation
in others.