Carveth Read

Broschiertes Buch

The Origin of Man and of His Superstitions

Beschreibung

The volume now published explains in its first part an hypothesis that the human raee has descended from some ape-like stock by a series of changes which began and, until recently, were maintained by the practice of hunting in pack for animal food, instead of being content with the fruits and other nutritious products of the tropical forest. The hypothesis occurred to me many years ago, and was first published (in brief) inT heM etaphysics of Nature (1805), Chap. XIII., and again inN atural andS ocial Morals (1909); but all it implied did not become clear until, in lecturing on Comparative Psychology, there was forced upon me the necessity of effecting an intelligible transition from the animal to the human mind, and of not being satisfied to say year after year that hands and brains were plainly so useful that they must have been developed by Natural Selection. Then one day the requisite ideas came to light; and an outline of the hypothesis was read at theM eeting of theB ritish Association (S ection H) at Birmingham in 1913, and printed in Man, November 1914. The Council of the Anthropological Institute has kindly consented to my using the substance of that article in the first chapter here following. The article in Man dealt chiefly with the physical changes which our race has undergone. The correlative mental changes were explained in theB ritish Journal of Psychology in an article which supplies the basis of the second chapter of this book.

Autor

Carveth Read (1848-1931) was a noted 19th and early 20th-century philosopher and logician, with a profound interest in the evolution of human thought and the underpinnings of superstitions. Born into the intellectual ferment of Victorian England, Read was educated at the prestigious University of Oxford, where he was a contemporary of some of the era's most progressive thinkers. His contributions to philosophy were significant and wide-ranging, but he is often remembered for his work on the theory of knowledge and the philosophy of science. Read's scholarship traversed the murky territories between scientific inquiry and human belief, culminating in his seminal work, 'The Origin of Man and of His Superstitions' (1920). This book compels readers to consider the evolutionary genesis of mankind and the psychological basis for superstitious thought-an enterprise that dovetailed with the burgeoning field of psychology and the works of notable contemporaries such as William James and Sigmund Freud. Carveth Read's literary style is characterized by a clear, methodical prose, mixing empirical rigor with reflective inquiry, marking him as a distinctive voice in the naturalist intellectual landscape of his time. His keen observations continue to offer intriguing insights into the genesis of human belief systems, situating him as a noteworthy scholar in the annals of philosophical and anthropological literature.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Lushena Books
• Seitenzahl: 356
• Erscheinungstermin: 24. August 2023
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 216mm x 140mm x 23mm
• Gewicht: 664g
• ISBN-13: 9798890963284
• Artikelnr.: 68931974