Tag: History

Free download of my book, Standards for Behavioral Commitments: Philosophy of Humanism

Link to a free download of Standards for Behavioral Commitments: Philosophy of Humanism. Topics covered include chemistry, biology, genetics, neuroscience, epistemology, the history of Western philosophy, cultural evolution, theory of cognition, ethics and much more. https://philosophyofhumanismcom.files.wordpress.com/2022/05/standards-for-behavioral-commitments-philosophy-of-humanism.pdf A brief outline: 1. “Section 1: Behavioral Functions and Scientific Models”   Subsection i., Behavioral Functions, frames the intersection … Continue reading Free download of my book, Standards for Behavioral Commitments: Philosophy of Humanism →

Qualitative Intrastructural Reasoning

As was described, we have intuitions about the physical world that can be clarified with reference to objects: there are types of objects or object classes, wholes and parts, mutually exclusive positions, object interactions, persistences of structural integrity, larger objects forcing smaller ones to move, and substances conceived as in a state of perpetual stability or a state of perpetual motion.  We … Continue reading Qualitative Intrastructural Reasoning →

The Crisis of the Individual in Contemporary Civilization

During the Medieval period, Europe commenced small-scale education in the liberal arts, which expanded into cathedral schools and eventually a continent-wide system of universities, cultivating many brilliant talents.  This movement towards a culture of intellectuality informed by academia came to full fruition in the 18th century when scholars orchestrated a promotion of reason as the … Continue reading The Crisis of the Individual in Contemporary Civilization →

Immunity and the Institution of Health Care

It is unlikely that a mutation from changes to the genetic code during transcription of the DNA sequence has caused widespread alteration in traits of the human immune system, at least since the origin of our species, unless there is some phenomenon of transmission between individuals we know nothing about.  Beneficial mutations are too rare to alone be an explanation for … Continue reading Immunity and the Institution of Health Care →

The Food Supply’s Central Role in the Origins of Our Species and in Culture

Homo sapiens may have descended from a monkeylike species forced to spend more time on the ground as the Earth entered a period of cooling sometime between fifty and twenty million years ago, during which the amount of jungle shrank dramatically.  The largest of these primates would have no doubt been most successful at exploiting land-based food … Continue reading The Food Supply’s Central Role in the Origins of Our Species and in Culture →

The Psychology and Institutions of Intimacy and Sexuality

The first notions of the psyche's development were theorized with reference to 'libido', the formative spontaneity of an organism as it extends itself into surroundings, grappling with environments in order to meet its needs, primarily those of nutrition, reproduction and aptness of perception-driven response, for which processes the nervous system and especially the brain are the body's control center.  Psychical libido was … Continue reading The Psychology and Institutions of Intimacy and Sexuality →

Causality and Uncertainty

We have thus far talked of the science, psychology and institutions of human health, food consumption, combat and reproduction as if they are distinct modules with separate developmental histories, but they interact in profound ways.  All four of these domains are interdependent: an immune system is useless without adequate metabolism, both of these are impotent if the … Continue reading Causality and Uncertainty →

The Synergistic Function and Coevolution of Language and Theoretical Thought

One of the most apparent aspects of modern theory is its intimate relationship with language.  Settings where theories are taught, applied and analyzed often feature a barrage of verbiage, and this becomes truer the farther individuals advance professionally.  It seems language is a condition of the possibility for highly developed theoretical frameworks: spoken and written … Continue reading The Synergistic Function and Coevolution of Language and Theoretical Thought →

Perception of Perception: History in the Theorizing of Reason, Mind, Matter and Soul

As mentioned in chapter 8 of section 1, “A Brief History of Quantification in Science”, awareness in early humans and other intelligent organisms almost certainly made no distinction between spirit and matter, but the most cognitively advanced species at the same time had their dispositions to experience the environment as consisting of causal order manipulatable in predictable ways by behavior, such as in nest-building, … Continue reading Perception of Perception: History in the Theorizing of Reason, Mind, Matter and Soul →