Rationally Speaking #64 - Jesse Prinz on Looking Beyond Human Nature

Rationally Speaking Podcast

New York City Skeptics

Society & Culture, Skepticism, Science, Philosophy

4.6 • 787 Ratings

🗓️ 1 July 2012

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Nature vs. Nurture? Massimo and Julia revive the age-old debate in this episode of Rationally Speaking, with special guest Jesse Prinz. Jesse is a professor of philosophy at CUNY and the author of several books, most recently "Beyond Human Nature." The trio debate Jesse's argument that human behavior is far more culturally determined than evolutionary psychologists would have you believe, and in the process explore the question of where morality comes from and how to distinguish between nature and nurture.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Rationally speaking is a presentation of New York City skeptics dedicated to promoting critical thinking, skeptical inquiry, and science education.
0:22.6	For more information, please visit us at NYCCEPTICs.org.
0:35.3	Welcome to Rationally Speaking, the podcast where we explore the borderlands between reason and nonsense.
0:41.0	I am your host, Massimo Piliucci.
0:42.7	And with me, as always, is my co-host, Julia Galev.
0:45.6	Julia, what are we going to talk about today?
0:47.7	Well, Masmo, today we have a special guest with us in our studio.
0:51.1	Jesse Prince is a distinguished professor of philosophy at the City University of New York
0:55.9	Graduate Center. Oh, that's what I heard about him. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, it sounds familiar.
0:59.9	Yeah. So, Jesse works primarily in the philosophy of psychology, and just generally speaking,
1:07.9	how the mind works. And he has published a bunch of popular books.
1:12.7	Most recently, a book called Beyond Human Nature,
1:15.8	how culture and experience shape our lives,
1:18.4	which is one of the things we're going to focus on in our discussion today.
1:21.4	Jesse, welcome.
1:22.1	It's great to have you.
1:22.7	Great to be here, Julia.
1:23.6	Thanks very much.
1:25.6	So to start out, maybe you could just summarize for our listeners what the thesis of your new book is.
1:33.0	Well, the book really began because of a spate of books that were coming out telling a very biological story about the human mind.
1:39.1	So people were being told that human behavior is largely a result of evolves processes, that men are
1:45.1	biologically different from women, and that affects the way we think. And it really struck me
	...

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