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Subject: Philosophy  Book Title: Human Nature and the Limits of Science
Human Nature and the Limits of Science
Dupré, John, Professor of Philosophy of Science, University of Exeter
Print publication date: 2001
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: November 2003
Print ISBN-13: 978-0-19-924806-3
doi:10.1093/0199248060.001.0001


 
Abstract: This book applies to the study of human nature the generally pluralistic metaphysics and methodology developed in the author's earlier work. It begins with detailed criticism of two popular projects for understanding human nature, evolutionary psychology, and rational-choice theory. The argument shows how the flaws in these projects reflect deep misconceptions about the nature and the legitimate ambitions of science. Such scientific theories necessarily provide highly simplified accounts of a phenomenon as complex as human nature and can provide only a small part of the total picture of such a phenomenon. Only a pluralistic approach, an approach that combines insights from a variety of perspectives not limited to the scientific, can hope to provide anything close to an adequate account of human nature. In addition to a variety of partial perspectives from science, the humanities, and, not least, common human experience, it is argued that there is also room for a conception of human autonomy. The details of this conception, including a sketch of a novel voluntarist theory of freedom of the will, are provided in a concluding chapter.

Keywords: autonomy, Dupré, evolutionary psychology, free will, human nature, metaphysics, philosophy of science, pluralism, rational choice, science, scientism
Table of Contents
1. Introduction
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2. The Foundations of Evolutionary Psychology
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3. The Evolutionary Psychology of Sex and Gender
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4. The Charms and Consequences of Evolutionary Psychology
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5. Kinds of People
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6. Rational Choice Theory
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7. Freedom of the Will
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Bibliography
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Index
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doi:10.1093/0199248060.001.0001



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