CONSTRUCTING HUMAN NATURE: THE PRIMORDIAL AS PROPHETIC
CONSTRUCTING HUMAN NATURE: THE PRIMORDIAL AS PROPHETIC

Summary/Abstract: Questions about human nature can only be formulated and answered within a particular tradition of discourse. The major question we may thus ask about any conception of human nature concerns its implications for cultural life. As our formulations of primordial nature enter cultural life, so may they become prophetic in terms of their effects. Largely replacing religious institutions, the sciences are now perhaps the major authorities on human nature. In this context I first consider the core conception of human nature prevailing in psychological science. In my view the socio-political ramifications of this cognitive-biological conception are deeply problematic. I then take up newly emerging conceptions of humans as constituents of relational process. The outcomes of this view for human well-being in a globalizing world seem far more promising.

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