Consilience
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
[[
|
Related e |
|
Featured: |
List of alternative names for the human species]]
In his book Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge (1998) Edward O. Wilson claimed that it was time for a cooperation of all the sciences to explore human nature. He defined human nature as a collection of epigenetic rules: the genetic patterns of mental development. Cultural phenomena, rituals etc. are products, not part of human nature. Artworks, for example are not part of human nature, but our appreciation of art is. And this art appreciation, or our fear for snakes, or incest taboo (Westermarck effect) can be studied by the methods of reductionism. Until now these phenomena were only part of psychological, sociological and anthropological studies. Wilson proposes it can be part of interdisciplinary research.
An example of this fear is discussed in the book An Instinct for Dragons, where anthropologist David E. Jones suggests a hypothesis based on that humans just like monkeys have inherited instinctive reactions to snakes, large cats and birds of prey. Folklore dragons have features that are combinations of these three, which would explain why dragons with similar features occur in stories from independent cultures on all continents. Other authors have suggested that especially under the influence of drugs or in children's dreams, this instinct may give raise to fantasies and nightmares about dragons, snakes, spiders, etc, which makes these symbols popular in drug culture and in fairy tales for children. The traditional mainstream explanation to the folklore dragons does however not rely on human instinct, but on the assumption that fossils of, for example, dinosaurs gave raise to similar fantasies all over the world.
See also
- Human condition
- Nature
- Nature (philosophy)
- Norm (sociology)
- Norm (philosophy)
- Normality (behavior)
- Common sense
- Homo sapiens
- Humanism
- Cynicism
- Nature versus nurture
- Tabula rasa
- Diathesis-stress model
- Differential susceptibility hypothesis
- Defence mechanism
- Enneagram of Personality
- Aggressionism
See also
- Arthur Schopenhauer
- Naturalism (literature)
- Sexual Personae
- Theme (literature)
- Theme (arts)
- Culture theory
- Nature (innate)
- Essays (Montaigne)
