What science offers the humanities : integrating body and culture / Edward Slingerland.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Slingerland, Edward, 1968- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Science and the humanities.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xv, 370 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2008.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

What Science Offers the Humanities examines some of the deep problems facing the study of culture. It focuses on the excesses of postmodernism, but also acknowledges serious problems with postmodernism's harshest critics. In short, Edward Slingerland argues that in order for the humanities to progress, its scholars need to take seriously contributions from the natural sciences - and particular research on human cognition - which demonstrate that any separation of the mind and the body is entirely untenable. The author provides suggestions for how humanists might begin to utilize these scientific discoveries without conceding that science has the last word on morality, religion, art, and literature. Calling into question such deeply entrenched dogmas as the 'blank slate' theory of nature, strong social constructivism, and the ideal of disembodied reason, What Science Offers the Humanities replaces the human-sciences divide with a more integrated approach to the study of culture.

Contents:

Exorcising the ghost in the machine

Embodying culture

Defending vertical integration.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).

Includes bibliographical references (p. 313-355) and index.

ISBN:

1-107-18315-4

1-281-25476-2

9786611254766

0-511-84116-7

0-511-38713-X

0-511-38610-9

0-511-38427-0

0-511-38246-4

0-511-38812-8

OCLC:

476146019