Beyond Nature and Nurture

Perspectives on Human Multidimensionality

Javier Pérez-Jara, Íñigo Ongay (Herausgeber)

Buch | Hardcover

VI, 296 Seiten

2025
Springer International Publishing (Verlag)
978-3-031-87714-8 (ISBN)

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This book gathers several of the world s leading scholars in the nature vs. nurture debate, offering a timely reconsideration of the dynamic interactions between physical, chemical, biological, social, and cultural factors that shape human multidimensionality. Emphasizing this multidimensionality, this edited volume seeks to bridge the divide between biology and social theory two research communities that have too often overlooked each other. These disciplines, despite being central to understanding human nature, have long operated in isolation.

While some animal species exhibit higher degrees of phenotypic plasticity in specific traits, humans stand out as the most plastic species in both their neurological and sociocultural systems. This plasticity leads the contributors of this book to move beyond both biological reductionism and the blank-slate hypothesis. While biology undoubtedly plays a role in shaping and stabilizing human social and cultural processes, it does so only within the framework of an inherently social environment one shaped by historically contingent and socially constructed realities, such as values, codes, and cultural perceptions. More importantly, cultural structures and social interactions actively shape and transform certain biological features that were once considered immutable.

This book lays the groundwork for a productive dialogue among biologists, psychologists, social theorists, and philosophers. It also highlights some of the moral and political consequences of different perspectives within the nature vs. nurture debate. Through updated scientific and philosophical theorizing, the chapters in this book aim to overcome, once and for all, the simplistic yet persistent opposition between nature and nurture, offering a far more complex and dynamic yet richer and epistemologically manageable picture of the human being.

Javier Pérez-Jara is a Faculty Fellow at Yale University's Center for Cultural Sociology and an Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Sociology at Beijing Foreign Studies University. He has held visiting teaching and research positions across the world, including the University of Cambridge, Stanford University, Yale University, Kyoto University, Kyoto Sangyo University, the University of Seville, the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, the Taiwanese Fu Jen Catholic University, and Minzu University of China. Among his publications, he is co-editor (with Gustavo Romero and Lino Camprubí) of Contemporary Materialism: Its Ontology and Epistemology (Springer s Synthese Library 2022), and co-author (with Lino Camprubí) of Science and Apocalypse in Bertrand Russell (Lexington Books 2022). His current teaching and research explore the theoretical and practical bridges between scientific interdisciplinarity and philosophy.

Íñigo Ongay teaches philosophy at the University of Deusto in Spain and is a Research Associate at the Fundación Gustavo Bueno. Previously, he lectured as an Associate Professor at the Facultad de Filosofía de León (México) and as a Visiting Professor at Minzu University of China, Qingdao University, Shanghai Finance University,China Jiliang University of Hangzhou, Fu-Jen Catholic University of Taipei and at the National University of Costa Rica. His research covers a broad variety of issues ranging from the general philosophy of science, with particular attention to the philosophy of biology and life sciences, to the history of modern and contemporary philosophy. Some of his most recent publications include papers published in journals like Filozofia Nauki (The Philosophy of Science), Science and Education as well as several book chapters in edited volumes published in Springe

1 Introduction: From the Ancient Greek Sophists Binary Between Physis and Nomos to the Present (Javier Pérez-Jara and Íñigo Ongay).- Part I The Nature vs Nurture Debate.- 2 Nature vs nurture: time to let it go (Massimo Pigliucci and Jonathan Kaplan).- 3 Human Nature. A Process Perspective (John Dupré).- 4 Positioning Sociology in the Nature vs Nurture Debate An Ongoing Project (Ullica Segerstrale).- 5 Cultural Sociology and the Relative Independence of Culture: An Ontological and Epistemological Analysis (Javier Pérez-Jara).- 6 Psychogenesis in Evolution and History (José-Carlos Sánchez-González).- 7 Neither Nature nor Nurture: on the inadequateness of innatism and environmentalism in Biology and Psychology (Íñigo Ongay).- 8 Is Science and Ideology? (Gustavo E. Romero).- 9 Nature, Nurture, and Nous: The Role of Reflection and Reason in the Nature-Nurture Debate (Liane Gabora and Cosette Robertson).- Part II Case Studies in the Nature vs Nurture Debate.- 10 Naturalism of Mother s Milk and its Historical Change in Japan Modernization of Nature as Normative Concept (Shinji Kajitani).- 11 Sociocultural factors influencing fathers involvement in childcare: A historical perspective of Japan s Edo and Meiji periods (Atsuko Fujino).- 12 Culture and the Microbiome-Gut-Brain (Gabe Ignatow).- 13 From Territorial Behavior to Imagined Territories and Back Exploring Spatiality in International Relations (Jun J. Nohara).- 14 The constitutive component of sexes, genders, and sexualities: The case of Thailand (Porranee Singpliam).- 15 Naturalizing the Unnatural Beauty: Making Sense of the Iconic Performance of the Body in the Social Media Platform of China (Renxue Wan).- 16 Nature loves variety. On the Backlash against Gender Equal Policies in Japan (Kimio Ito).

Erscheinungsdatum	30.05.2025
Reihe/Serie	Synthese Library
Zusatzinfo	VI, 296 p. 4 illus.
Verlagsort	Cham
Sprache	englisch
Maße	155 x 235 mm
Themenwelt	Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie
Schlagworte	Darwinian Cultural Evolution and feminism • human nature and ethical theories • nature vs nurture • Philosophy of Biology • Social construction • Society and Economy • the gender concept
ISBN-10	3-031-87714-4 / 3031877144
ISBN-13	978-3-031-87714-8 / 9783031877148
Zustand	Neuware