Brighton Philosophy Society lecture by Raymond Tallis, the well-known philosopher, poet, novelist and cultural critic, and until recently also a physician, gerontologist and clinical scientist, will be speaking on Aping Mankind: Neuromania and Darwinitis and the Misrepresentation of Mankind.
Abstract
Increasingly, it is assumed that human beings are best understood in biological terms; that, not withstanding the apparent differences between humans and their nearest animal kin, people are, at bottom, organisms; that individual persons are their brains, and that societies are best understood as collections of brains (“Neuromania”);and that we should look to evolutionary theory to understand what we are now (“Darwinitis”); that our biological roots explain our cultural leaves. I will argue that we are not just our brains; rather we belong to a community of minds that has grown up over the hundreds of thousands of years since we parted company from the other primates. The gap between our nearest animal kin and ourselves is too wide to read across from the one to the other.
All welcome, contact:
Bob Brecher:
R.Brecher@brighton.ac.uk
