CfP: Human Evolution and Philosophical Anthropology
ISHPSS
From: Julien Kloeg <kl...@ESPHIL.EUR.NL>
We welcome short abstracts (max. 300 words) with a view to developing a chapter for the twelfth volume of the International Yearbook for Philosophical Anthropology (De Gruyter). The theme of this volume will be human evolution and philosophical anthropology, and it will be edited by Hub Zwart and Julien Kloeg. Please send in your abstract by Sept 1 to kl...@esphil.eur.nl: you will be contacted by Sept 5. Please note: full manuscripts will be due by December 1st. Submissions can be in either German or English.
For the most recent volume of the yearbook, please see https://www.degruyter.com/journal/key/jbpa/11/1/html
Theme description:
Since the discovery of the first Neanderthal remains in 1856, Neanderthals, our most proximate “other”, have served as a mirror to consider the question of who we are as human beings. First of all because Neanderthal research forces us to ask whether and why only Homo sapiens should be seen as truly embodying the idea of humanity. Neanderthals are more like us than other early humans, but the guiding conviction was that they were still markedly different. Precisely this difference (genetic, behavioural, and cultural) allegedly confirmed our own exceptionality. The overall trend has been to frame Homo sapiens as favoured evolutionary “winners”, whose alleged “superiority” led to the demise of Neanderthals. Research is rapidly questioning this. Meanwhile, in the face of the current global environmental crisis, the narrative of humanity as an evolutionary success story (outcompeting rivals) is challenged and problematised from various perspectives. Neanderthal research challenges us to rethink our “place” (Scheler) in nature in such a way that our self–image is no longer grounded in a logic of dichotomies and binary oppositions, but rather in a logic of connectedness and inclusion. Philosophical anthropology has always been informed by empirical research (e.g., archaeology and paleo-archaeology, primatology, ethology, ethnography, etc.) emphasising the role of language, technology, art, symbolism, etc. in becoming human. Evidence indicates that dental hygiene, cooperative hunting, complex stone tools, language, planning, care for the ill, symbolic behaviour and burial were practiced by Neanderthals as well. Thus, alleged markers of humanity are increasingly no longer seen as unique to Homo sapiens. One response is to include Neanderthals in the “in-group” and to consider them more or less “fully human”. However, it is possible that the philosophical-anthropological impact of recent findings in human evolution is more challenging than that. Should we now develop a more inclusive framework that no longer relies on the logic of dualist thinking (human versus non-human)? Or does philosophical anthropology in fact suggest a reformed kind of dualism, holding on to alterity? This volume not only envisions a reflection on human evolution from a philosophical-anthropological perspective, but rather aims to stage a mutual learning dialogue between representatives of both fields. Though occasioned by recent findings in Neanderthal research, the volume is open to explorations of historical as well as cutting-edge interconnections between philosophical anthropology and (empirical) work on human evolution.
Classification: Internal