Beyond
Evolution: Human Nature and the Limits of Evolutionary Explanation
by Anthony O'Hear
From The Publisher
O'Hear takes a stand against
the fashion for explaining human behavior in terms of evolution. He argues
that evolutionary theory, successful as it is in explaining the development
of living things, cannot give a satisfactory account of such distinctive
facets of human life as self-consciousness, the quest for knowledge, moral
sense, and the appreciation of beauty; in these we transcend our biological
origins.
CUSTOMER REVIEWS
Darren Burris (bdarren7@hotmail.com),
a student at Georgetown College, April 19, 1999
Transcendence of Beauty
and Morality
O'Hear is engaging our evolution
history with the tools of human rationality and reflection. In accepting
an evolutionary origin he defines individuals and communities outside of
the ordinary evolutionary tenets of survival and reproduction. He portrays
the human experience with regard to the search for knowledge and the perception
of beauty as points where we transcend a purely evolutionary understanding
of ourselves. This transcendence allows us to see ourselves outside of
a scientific and reductive understanding, and rather part of a different,
larger reality. It is a book full of interesting arguments and I highly
recommend it as a work that tries to restore meaning to our experience
as rational, self-conscious beings.
Also recommended: The
Ethical Primate by Mary Midgley, The
Openness of God by Clark Pinnock, A
Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold, On
Human Nature by E.O. Wilson
Table of Contents
1 Mind and Nature
2 Immanent and Transcendent Dimensions of
Reason
3 Self-Conscious Belief
4 Evolutionary Epistemology
5 Evolution and Epistemological Pessimism
6 Morality and Politics
7 Beauty and the Theory of Evolution
8 Conclusion
Select Bibliography
Index
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