Table of Contents
Ancient and Early Modern Views of Human Nature
Plato, Republic
Aristotle, Nocomachean Ethics; Politics
René Descartes, Principles of Psychology
Francois de la Rochefoucald, Maxims
Earl of Rochester, A Satire Against Mankind
Christian Views of Human Nature
St. Augustine, Confessions; On Free Choice of the Will
St. Thomas Aquinas, On the Virtues in General; On Free
Choice
Martin Luther, The Freedom of a Christian
John Locke, The Reasonableness of Christianity; The Second
Treatise of Government; A Letter Concerning Toleration
Joseph Butler, Fifteen Sermons
Immanuel Kant, Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, A Testament to Freedom
Liberalism
Immanuel Kant, An Answer to the Question: What is
Enlightenment?
Antoine-Nicolas de Concordet, Sketch for a Historical Picture
of the Progress of the Human Mind
Wilhelm Von Humboldt, The Limits of State Action
J. S. Mill, On Liberty
L.T. Hobhouse, Liberalism
John Rawls, Political Liberalism
Conservative Individualism
Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince
Thomas Hobbes, The Leviathon
James Boswell, The Life of Dr Johnson; Samuel Johnson, The
Rambler, The Idler
Simone Weil, The Need for Roots
Ayn Rand, For the New Intellectual
Michael Oakeshott, Rationalism in Politics
Dialectical Theories of Human Nature
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on the Origins of
Inequality
G.W.F. Hegel, Phenomenology of Mind; Philosophy of Right
Karl Marx, Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844; Thesis
on Feuerbach; The German Ideology
Friedrich Nietzche, On the Geneology of Morals
Biological Theories
Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man
Edward O. Wilson, On Human Nature
Freud
Sigmund Freud, Character and Culture; Civilization and its
Discontents
Behaviorism and Non-Self Theories
David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature
Julien de La Mettrie, Man a Machine
J.B. Watson, The Ways of Behaviorism; Behaviourism
Margaret A. Boden, Artificial Intelligence in Psychology
Daniel C. Dennett, Consciousness Explained
Feminism
Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Women
Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex
Juliet Mitcell, Psychoanalysis and Feminism; Women: The Longest
Revolution
Carol Gilligan, In a Different Voice.
Katha Politt, Marooned on Gilligan’s Island: Are Women Morally
Superior to Men?
Some Contrary Voices
Jean Paul Sartre, Existentialism and Humanism
Camille Paglia, Sexual Personae
Twentieth-Century Views in Sociology and Anthropology
Ferdinand Tonnies, Community and Society.
Marvin Harris, Cultural Materialism; Our Kind.
Works Cited and Recommended Reading
About the Author
Peter Loptson is Professor of Philosophy at the
University of Guelph and also the author of Reality: Fundamental
Topics in Metaphysics (University of Toronto Press, 2001).
Reviews
“The readings are skillfully selected. […] Although there is a
decided emphasis on the moral, social and political dimensions of
human nature, yet another nice feature is the inclusion of
scientific approaches. On the whole this is a commendable
anthology, […] expansive and engaging, filled with an instructive
assortment of classical and contemporary readings, with just enough
little-known, off-the-beaten-path selections to pique the interest
of most any veteran instructor or beginning students.” — Philosophy
in Review“I look forward to using the readings in my class on human
nature—the selections are balanced, sensible, and promise to engage
the reader. Loptson has done a fine job.” — Frederick Kaufman,
Ithaca College“I cannot think of a better book to which to refer
someone who wants to understand in a short compass what Aristotle,
liberalism, Rousseau, Marx or feminism are all about. And Loptson
makes a genuinely novel contribution to scholarship.” — Julian
Young, University of Auckland
