Module ANT3035 for 2020/1
- Overview
- Aims and Learning Outcomes
- Module Content
- Indicative Reading List
- Assessment
Undergraduate Module Descriptor
ANT3035: Philosophical Anthropology
This module descriptor refers to the 2020/1 academic year.
Module Aims
Everybody has an opinion about ‘human nature’. In this class you will learn how to draw upon empirical sciences in making arguments that are not just opinions but claims that are accountable to evidence and logic. You will learn how to cross disciplinary boundaries in drawing and amalgamating evidence from different empirical sciences as well as from phenomenological analysis. You will gain insights into how biology, culture and history influence each other in the course of hominin/human becoming. You will gain experience in thinking about the relationship of descriptive to normative dimension in human understanding and you will write essays that enable you to address real contemporary problems in areas such as the bioethics of genetic engineering from the perspective of an empirically informed philosophy.
On successfully completing the programme you will be able to: | |
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Module-Specific Skills | 1. demonstrate knowledge and understanding of the basic ideas of Philosophical Anthropology as a tradition and school of thought. 2. demonstrate knowledge and understanding of the basic ideas of several leading contemporary scientific investigators whose work bears directly on general questions of what it means to be human. |
Discipline-Specific Skills | 3. skilfully and critically interrelate philosophical ideas with empirical findings 4. skilfully apply your knowledge of human nature to problems in any other area of philosophy |
Personal and Key Skills | 5. critically engage at a high level with assigned readings 6. lucidly communicate concepts and ideas both orally and in writing 7. demonstrate an ability to work independently, within a limited time frame, and without access to external sources, to complete a specified task. |
Indicative Reading List
This reading list is indicative - i.e. it provides an idea of texts that may be useful to you on this module, but it is not considered to be a confirmed or compulsory reading list for this module.
Readings will be derived from the following volumes along with assorted journal articles and manuscripts:
Clive Bromhall, The Eternal Child, 1988
Merlin Donald A Mind so Rare, W.W. Norton 1971.
Merlin Donald, Origins of the Modern Mind, Harvard, 1991
Hubert Dreyfus, Skillful Coping, 2014
Arnold Gehlen, Man, Columbia, 1988
Philip Honenberger, Naturalism and Philosophical Anthropology, 2016
Sarah Hrdy, Mothers and Others, Belknap 2011
Joseph Shear (ed) Mind, Reason and Being-in-the-World: The McDowell-Dreyfus Debate, 2013
Michael Tomasello, Why We Cooperate, Boston Review 2009