What is it about human nature that makes our species capable of thinking scientifically? Inspired by a debate between Noam Chomsky and Jean Piaget, Scott Atran traces the development of natural history from Aristotle to Darwin, and demonstrates how the science of plants and animals has emerged from the common conceptions of folkbiology. The author proceeds not only from the more traditional philosophical, historical or sociological perspectives, but from a point of view he considers more basic and necessary to all of these: that of cognition.
Author(s): Scott Atran
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Year: 1993
Language: English
Commentary: toc included
Pages: 376
PREFACE/ix
1 COMMON SENSE: ITS SCOPE AND LIMITS/1
Introduction/1
PART I FOLKBIOLOGY/15
2 FOLKTAXONOMY/17
2.1 In the beginning . . . ./17
2.2 A basic level/15
2.3 Life-forms/30
2.4 Exceptions that prove the rule/35
2.5 Family fragments/41
3 THE SEMANTICS OF LIVING KINDS/47
3.1 Domain specificity/47
3.2 Meaning as a motley/52
3.3 Nature and necessity/58
3.4 Phenomenal reality and nomic theory/64
3.5 Kinds of natural kinds/71
PART II ARISTOTELIAN ESSENTIALS/81
4 ESSENCE AND ENVIRONMENT/83
4.1 Essentialism reconsidered/83
4.2 "Induction"/87
4.3 Form and matter/93
5 MATERIALS OF LOGICAL DIVISION/100
5.1 Genus and Eidos 10D
5.2 Division and assembly/106
5.3 Analogy/115
5.4 Failure's triumph/119
PART III FROM HERBALS TO SYSTEMS/123
6 ORIGINS OF THE SPECIES CONCEPT/127
6.1 Back to nature/127
6.2 Charting new territory/135
6.3 Species forever/138
6.4 Omnia ex ovo/142
7 THE NATURE OF THE GENUS/151
7.1 Fruits of reason/151
7.2 Trial and error/158
7.3 Art and intuition/165
7.4 Paradise regained/170
PART IV THE SCIENTIFIC BREAKAWAY/183
8 THE METHOD OF FAMILIES AND CLASSES/185
8.1 Stress and strain/185
8.2 And the walls came tumbling down/190
8.3 Piecing together the fragments/196
8.4 Organization/203
8.5 End of series/206
9 SCIENCE, SYMBOLISM AND COMMON SENSE/212
9.1 Savage savvy/212
9.2 Cognitive "pathogenesis"/217
9.3 Speculating/220
9.4 Plants as animals 2 2.4
9.5 The analogy of nature/230
9.6 Man dethroned/239
9.7 Dispositions to susceptibilities/247
CONCLUSIONS/252
10 RUDIMENTS OF THE LINNAEAN HIERARCHY: TOWARDS AN ANTHROPOLOGY OF SCIENCE/253
APPENDIX MILESTONES OF NATURAL HISTORY/270
NOTES/275
REFERENCES/323
INDEX/340
