'History and human nature' an essay by G E R Lloyd with invited responses

A special double issue of Interdisciplinary Science Reviews

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This title is a special double issue of Interdisciplinary Science Reviews, to visit the journal home page click here.

In a commissioned essay for “History and human nature” Sir Geoffrey Lloyd presents his argument about the unity and diversity of the human mind and its operations, particularly as embodied in Cognitive Variations (Oxford 2007). He argues that on the one hand, as humans we all share broadly the same anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, and certain psychological capabilities, but that on the other, different individuals and groups have very different talents, tastes, and beliefs. These issues are highly charged, for any denial of essential unity of mind savours of racism, while many assertions of intrinsic mental diversity raise the spectres of arbitrary relativism, the incommensurability of belief systems, and their mutual unintelligibility. Lloyd refers to recent work in social anthropology, linguistics, cognitive science, neurophysiology, and the history of ideas to redefine the problems and clarify how our evident cognitive diversity can be reconciled with our shared humanity.

Seventeen major scholars, representing a wide range of disciplines and approaches touched by Lloyd’s work, then provide critical responses and further argument: Sir Patrick Bateson (Ethology, Cambridge), Alan Blackwell (Computer Laboratory, Cambridge), Pascal Boyer (Psychology and Anthropology, Washington), Lorraine Daston (History of Science, MPG Berlin), Philippe Descola (Anthropology, Collège de France), Robert Foley (Human Evolution, Cambridge), Carlo Ginzburg (Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa), Ian Hacking (Philosophy, Toronto and Collège de France), Francesca Rochberg (Near Eastern Studies, Berkeley), Simon Schaffer (History and Philosophy of Science, Cambridge), Dame Marilyn Strathern (Anthropology, Cambridge), Amiria Salmond (Anthropology, Auckland) and Dame Anne Salmond (Maori Studies and Anthropology, Auckland), Tim Ingold (Anthropology, Aberdeen), Eduardo Viveiros de Castro (Anthropology, Museu Nacional, Rio de Janeiro) and Zhang Longxi (Comparative Literature and Translation, City University of Hong Kong).  In both methodology and subject matter the variety of contributions is rich, a suitable reflection of the complex issues about the human mind opened up by Lloyd’s argument.

To borrow words from Lloyd’s concluding remarks in “History and human nature”, the results of this “rather bold, pioneering, collaboration” constitute significant contributions both to the question of the unity and diversity of the human mind and to ISR’s own efforts in helping to build “beachheads of intelligibility” among the disciplines of the humanities and the sciences.

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