BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//Talks.cam//talks.cam.ac.uk//
X-WR-CALNAME:Talks.cam
BEGIN:VEVENT
SUMMARY:Human nature: from theory to practice - Tim Lewens (Department of 
 History and Philosophy of Science)
DTSTART:20140205T130000Z
DTEND:20140205T143000Z
UID:TALK49839@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Christopher Clarke
DESCRIPTION:Edouard Machery (2008\, 2012) and Richard Samuels (2012) have 
 both argued for a restrictive notion of human nature. In the first part of
  this talk I\nraise two problems for their views. A biologically plausible
  account of human nature must make room for variation within a population 
 as an explanandum\, and it must also make room for the possibility that fo
 rms of learning and enculturation explain the development of widely distri
 buted traits. This means that the only theoretically respectable concept o
 f human nature is a libertine one. In the second part of the talk I ask wh
 ether the explanatory practices of cultural evolutionary theorising are co
 mmitted to\na more restrictive notion of human nature. I argue that\, in s
 pite of appearances\, not even models of gene-culture co-evolution are com
 mitted to strong distinctions between natural and cultural traits. The res
 ult is that restrictive accounts of human nature gain no support from scie
 ntific practice.
LOCATION:Seminar Room 2\, Department of History and Philosophy of Science
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR