Sold by Athena Rare Books ABAA, Fairfield, CT, U.S.A.
Association Member:
AbeBooks Seller since 24 January 2003
Seller rating 2 out of 5 stars
Half title + TP + Dedication page + [vii]-ix = Contents + [xi]-xii = Acknowledgments + [xiii]-xxii = Introduction + half title + [3]-377, Octavo. First Edition."A very important book… an urgently needed bridge between science and philosophy" [Iris Murdoch's quote from the front of the original dust jacket]At the age of 59, Mary Midgley published the first of her eighteen book: Beast and Man: The Roots of Human Nature. While her three Oxford friends were exploring the ways in which morality could be grounded in more traditional concepts of human nature and practical rationality, Midgley was insisting on the need to embrace a much larger context - one that acknowledged the realities of our emergence as species from a long line of primates and other evolutionary ancestors. It was the opening salvo in her lifelong fight for a broader and more inclusive understanding of "human nature."Midgely claims there is much in human behavior which has roots in other mammalian behavior and insists that we need to study this in as close and careful a manner as possible - taking careful note of context, exceptions and variations. Philosophers have traditionally concentrated on the qualities that make human beings different from other species, while Midgley wants to highlight and explore the continuities instead. What makes people tick? Largely, she says, the same things as animals. She tells us humans are rather more like other animals than we previously believed, and reminds us just how primitive we are in comparison to the sophistication of many other animals. [OUR FULL DESCRIPTION EXCEEDS ABE's SIZE LIMITATIONS - BUT A FULL DESCRIPTION ON THE IMPORTANCE OF THIS BOOK IS AVAILABLE UPON REQUEST]For Midgley, it also matters who is asking philosophical questions: philosophy is done by sociable primates evolved on a particular planet, not free-floating intellects or machines. Reason, held by some to be an almost supernatural guide, has its own evolutionary history, and is woven through with our emotions and imaginative visions. For Midgley, to call a person "rational" does not mean they are clever; it means that they have organized themselves - their natural yet conflicting needs and wants - into a coherent whole, in this messy world.Beast and Man is a stimulating, profound and delightfully witty book that insists we must change the way we think about ourselves and the world in which we live. It is a brilliant and persuasive attempt to set ourselves down firmly into our undeniable animal context. This, she claims, can lead to a social morality without religious absolutes - or any other absolutes - but rather one that is based on man's 'natural nature' - i.e. our complex, evolved, genetically given "pattern of living", a structure consisting of general "active and social tendencies" which is lived on the individual level based on certain "aims" derived from the motives that drive us. (This she explains rather simply as "To give meaning to life, we want to see what we do as an element in something that, as a whole, satisfies us.") Publisher's original dust jacket over dark grey textured boards with a red field and silver lettering to the spine. A near fine copy of this extremely important first book by Midgley. ADDITIONAL PHOTOS AVAILABLE UPON REQUEST.
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