Being Human

List of Contents:

* Wulf Schiefenhövel: Foreword for the English Edition
* Preface
* Acknowledgements

*** PART I: Contributions to the epistemology of interdisciplinarity in the human sciences

* 1. Interdisciplinary theoretical foundation of the natural sciences
* 1.1 The central questions
* 1.1.1 The question of causation
* 1.1.2 The question of ontogeny
* 1.1.3 The question of adaptive value
* 1.1.4 The question of phylogeny
* 1.2 The reference levels
* 1.3 Chapter appendix: evolutionary psychology, evolutionary medicine
* 2. Contributions of the humanities to the interdisciplinary dialogue in human sciences
* 2.1 The body-mind problem: how it came to the separation of academic faculties
* 2.2 Approaches bridging the division between the humanities and the natural sciences
* 2.2.1 Popper’s postulate of falsifiability
* 2.2.2 The structure of the real world according to Nicolai Hartmann
* 2.2.3 Levels of evidence and demands for certainty
* 2.2.4 David Hume and Norbert Bischof
* 2.3 A plea in favour of orientational knowledge
* 2.4 Chapter appendix: forms of knowledge, Semmelweis Effect

*** PART II: Behavioural phylogeny in relation to the higher-level systematics of vertebrates
* 3. On the phylogeny of human cognition
* 3.1 Evolutionary stages of human cognition
* 3.1.1 Phylogenetic and ontogenetic knowledge gain
* 3.1.2 The evolution of cognitive capacities
* 3.1.3 Communal coexistence and culture; cultural-theoretical considerations
* 3.1.4 Overlaps between concepts of psychotherapy and ethology
* 3.2 Chapter appendix: further aspects of hominisation
* 4. From animal brood care to human social behaviour
* 4.1 From brood care to cooperativeness and its limits
* 4.2 Grieving, greeting and leave-taking
* 4.3 From brood care to sexual behaviour
* 4.3.1 Incest avoidance mechanisms
* 4.3.2 Gender differences
* 5. The apple from the tree of knowledge and the expulsion from paradise: on the evolution of morality
* 5.1 Questions about human nature
* 5.2 Evolutionary origins of humanity
* 5.2.1 Social attractiveness
* 5.2.2 Self-exploration and empathy
* 5.2.3 Time horizon and emphronesis as prerequisites for the ability to feel shame
* 5.2.4 Reflection and moral responsibility in adult humans
* 5.2.5 Summary: scope and limitations of cultural freedom
* 5.2.6 Concluding remarks
* 6. On the ethology of resource appropriation and ownership
* 6.1 The resource is appropriated by the strongest
* 6.2 The resource is appropriated by the higher-ranking individual and/or the first to arrive
* 6.3 Give and take
* 6.4 The right to possession is respected even in the absence of the owner
* 6.5 Chapter appendix: rank order and hierarchy
* 7. The natural difference: on the biopsychology of gender differences
* 7.1 General remarks and biological foundations
* 7.1.1 Benefits of sexual reproduction
* 7.1.2 Basic principles and causes for the origin of sexual dimorphism
* 7.2 Sexual reproduction in nonhuman and human primates
* 7.2.1 Excursus: communication in primates
* 7.2.2 The sociology of primate mating systems
* 7.2.3 The “principle of antithesis” in male-female differences
* 7.2.4 Human sexual behaviour
* 7.3 Variants of sexual behaviour
* 7.4 Prospects
* 8. Does the psychomotor development of children follow the biogenetic rule?
* 8.1 On the history of the biogenetic rule
* 8.2 Developmental physiological basis for recapitulation: metaphenes and interphenes
* 8.3 The significance of the biogenetic rule for biological research
* 8.4 The biogenetic rule and the ontogenetic development of behaviour
* 8.4.1 Interphenes commonly lack external adaptive value
* 8.4.2 Anatomical recapitulation with simultaneous functional “recapitulation"
* 8.4.3 The role of primordial behaviour in ontogeny
* 8.4.4 Morphogenesis and psychogenesis as distinct ontogenetic steps
* 8.4.5 No behavioural interphenes in nervous system ontogeny
* 8.5 Summary

*** PART III: Contributions to the ethology of specific behavioural areas and capacities, with an emphasis on universal traits in higher mammals and unique traits in apes and humans
* 9. On the evolutionary epistemological critique of constructivism
* 9.1 Information and “learning” genes
* 9.2 How do information, knowledge, (sense) organs and behaviour relate to the environment?
* 9.3 Convergence and consistency as evidences of truthlikeness
* 9.4 Expectation and experience
* 9.5 Constructions or reconstructions?
* 9.6 The three worlds according to Popper (1972)
* 9.7 Insights and methods of constructivism
* 9.7.1 Transparency
* 9.7.2 Pluralism versus monism
* 9.8 Conclusive remarks
* 10. Human infant attachment and its significance during life
* 10.1 Preliminary remarks
* 10.2 Ethological aspects of attachment
* 10.2.1 Human parents and their attachment to their children
* 10.2.2 Comparative cross-cultural observations on adult-child interaction
* 10.2.3 Allomothers and sibling-assisted brood care
* 10.2.4 Human children and their attachment to their parents
* 10.2.5 Programmed developmental stages of attachment and detachment
* 10.2.6 The Zurich model: the relationship between attachment, curiosity and independence
* 10.3 Incest inhibition
* 10.4 The susceptibility to attachment disorder
* 10.5 Concluding remarks
* 11. Aggression from a behavioural biological and cross-cultural perspective
* 11.1 Foundations
* 11.1.1 Misnamed forms of “aggression”
* 11.2 Conditions that lead to aggression
* 11.2.1 The three categories of genetic distance
* 11.2.2 Aggression across species and cultures
* 11.3 Conditions that help reduce or inhibit aggression
* 11.4 Summary
* 12. The biopsychology of the Zôon politikón
* 12.1 Foundations and preconditions for political behaviour
* 12.2 Constraints within small groups
* 12.3 Constraints within large societies
* 12.3.1 Affect-logic
* 12.4 Chapter-appendix: comparison of sociopolitical attitudes

*** List of the author’s publications used in this book

*** Bibliography

*** Subject Index

*** Author Index