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Paul Grobstein's picture

situating humanity: culture as the outer layer of an onion

"Are we attending to ... overemphasizing ... ?"

Which we?  At least some of us have been arguing for some time that "human adaptations ... [are] the outer skins of an onion" with regard to not only morality and society but many other things as well (cf The brain and social organization / culture).  And that idea is inherent in the project to situate "meaning" etc in a larger pattern of evolutionary change.  It was also, of course, a component of Darwin's program (cf The Expression of the Emotions in Man and the Animals), and of William James' motivation in founding American experimental psychology ("it is psychology that shapes philosophy").  Nice to know that contemporary philosophers are catching up.   Whether they are conscious of the connections or not

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