Concepts of History
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Seating for class
Front of Room
Lawler: P109 (Thur 12)
P101 (W 12)
P104 (T 9)
P103 (M 12)
P102 (M 11)
P105 (T 12)
P106 (F 12)
P108 (W 10)
P107 (F 11)
P110 (F 10)
Coleman
Dolun
Burke
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Question: Who said this?
• “Tonight is not an accident. There are no accidents.
We have not come here by chance. I do not believe
in chance when I see 3 objectives, 3 captains, 3 ships.
I do not see coincidence, I see providence, I see
purpose. I believe it is our fate to be here. It is our
destiny. I believe this night holds for each and every
one of us the very meaning of our lives.”
• What is the word for this?
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And Who said this?
• “Nothing happens by accident.”
• Hint: it takes place on a desert planet after a
certain Naboo spacecraft is forced to make an
emergency landing because of a leaking
hyperdrive.
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Evolution of human species 1
• Apes with upright posture, bipedalism
– adapt to plains at edge of forests: spot anthills
– Frees forelimbs for other uses
• Large brain
– Intelligently Designed complexity (by God)?
– Selected or genetically engineered by ET breeding program
(artificial selection)?
– Failsafe defense against heat stroke through natural
selection? (one Darwinian-type of explanation)
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Evolution of human species 2
• Bipedalism liberates forelimbs, allowing for other
uses
– That is not the purpose of bipedalism, but its effect,
one of its consequences
• Arms/hands adapt to tool use
– clean sticks permit the drawing out of ants
– Frees jaws for other uses
• Mouth, larynx adapt to speech
– Permits communication, group cooperation
– survival advantage of this v. individualism
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Evolution of human species 3
• Two levels of evolution
– Biological organism (previous slides)
– Evolution of tools outside the body
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Evolution of non-biological components of
the human being
• Evolution of material tools
– Simple to complex (as in 2001: A Space Odyssey)
– Paleolithic > Neolithic
• Evolution of mental tools (transmitted through
language, songs, writing, etc.)
– Culture is elaborated
• Evolution of group social relations
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What makes humans human?
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Naked Ape?
• Clothes
– Robert Ardrey’s The Naked Ape ???
• Same anatomy, same biological species
• What explains the differences between
peoples, civilizations?
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Explaining the differences
• 1) Material Tools—operating on nature
– Spears to computers
– Clothes included
• 2) Various social arrangements in which people
relate to each other
• 3) Mental tools: Education, Culture of huntergatherer Eskimo and 21st c. professor
– By which people communicate with each other
– And understand their relations to nature and to each
other
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Difference between animal and human
• Animal’s biological tools
– Darwin: produced by chance variation and natural
selection
– Animal is born with its “tools” built in
• Human’s non-biological tools
– outside of the body
– produced by human beings themselves acting
purposefully
– = purposeful self-creation (teleology)
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When did human history begin?
• 1) History of biological presuppositions of human
being
– Changes in biology, physiology
– Ardipithecus ramidus/ australopithecus afarensis to
homo sapiens (sapiens?)
• 2) History of non-biological creations of human
activity (material, social, and spiritual tools)
• When did 2 become more important than or
replace 1? = take-off point of distinctly human
society
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Biology
Tools
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Homo sapiens
• “Our species has not changed anatomically
since the earliest known appearance of Homo
sapiens in the archaeological record about
200,000 years ago. The skeletons unearthed at
the Klasies River mouth are no different from
our own.” (Spodek, 21)
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Homo sapiens sapiens
• “About 120,000 ago, however, a new creativity
appeared in the cultural and social life of Homo
sapiens, perhaps the result of a modification in the
internal structure of the brain. The people who lived
before this development are called ‘archaic’ Homo
sapiens; those with the new cultural capabilities are
considered a new subspecies, Homo sapiens sapiens
(Human wise, wise). They are us.” (Spodek 21)
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Evidence for Homo Sapiens
Sapiens?
• 1) Not physical: anatomically the same as Homo
Sapiens
– So why should there be a new species or subspecies?
• 2) Evidence of cultural differences: “Unlike their
predecessors, Homo sapiens sapiens developed
forms of symbolic expression, apparently spiritual
and cultural in nature, including burial rituals and
artwork that is sometimes stunningly beautiful
and creative.” (Spodek, 21)
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Cause of cultural creativity?
• 1) Biological-evolutionary cause (changes in brain
structure) is postulated in “perhaps,” not proven
by facts (anatomy)
– =Biological (brain) changes (new species) cause
changes in culture (form of consciousness)
– = Causal scheme (scientific mechanism)
• 2) Success of group allows time for free creativity
by homo sapiens individuals
– =Thought uses brain creatively: symbolic expression
and interchange with each other
– = Teleological explanation
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Three theories of history
• Biological (nature)
• Environmental (nurture)
• Challenge and Creative Response (freedom in
context)
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Continued biological adaptations:
racial differences
• Adaptation to Tropical climates:
– increased melanin (eumelanin) protects against harmful sun rays (UV
radiation)
– But blocks vitamin D absorption
– However vitamin D is available in abundant vegetation (also fish oil)
• Adaptation to Colder climates
– Lack of such abundant vegetation
– Lower melanin allows for vitamin D absorption by skin (rosy cheeks of
Caucasian baby); less danger of skin cancer from exposure to sunlight
• >Secondary nature of such adaptations compared to
differences in types of tools and patterns of cultural
interchanges
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Human history is extra-biological
• Social Darwinism > Hitler’s racial theory of history:
– superiority of “Aryan race” explains Europe’s (esp.
Germany’s) ascendency in the world
• Do racial-biological factors explain difference between
India and China?
• We will see that non-biological explanations, based on
challenge and creative response, can account for the basic
differences
• Course hypothesis: no need to invoke biological
differences to explain main differences between
civilizations
– No mention of biological causes in Spodek’s text after first
chapter
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Two kinds of non-biological
approaches
• Externalist:
– explain differences (between early societies) as
result of geographical conditions
– =different behaviors are learned not innate
– = This is still a mechanistic explanation
• Inner creative response to external challenges:
– E.g., the difference between India and China as
creative responses to different conditions
– Incorporates teleology (purposeful choice)
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Freedom and Determinism
• Environmentalism: deterministic -- outside
causes, non-biological, historical science by
external causes
– Mechanical causes
• Internal causes: Human creativity and
freedom
– Teleological purposes
• Combine: Environment as necessary
challenge, not as sufficient, determining cause
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How explain “leap” from animal to
human?
• Radical difference between two levels
– biological presuppositions
– human (purposeful) activity--extra-biological tools
– continuity and discontinuity
• Can lower level cause higher?
– Through a natural process of growing complexity?
– But human history primarily relates to extrabiological factors: no continuity with biological
evolution
– so “leap” to a radically different, irreducible level 25
Relation of brain and mind
• Is mind a product of matter, outside causes
(mechanistic philosophy)
• Or can mind move matter (body) by free
thinking
– Teleological cause in consciousness
• Demonstration of mind moving matter
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Mind over matter
• Am I free to move my body?
• Does my computer cause me to think?
– Does my brain cause me to think?
• Or is it a tool I use to help me think?
• >My brain is also a tool I use
• Yogis can radically change brain wave levels at will
(after much practice).
• New medicine (psychosomatic):
– change your mind, release stress
– and stop producing unnecessary adrenaline
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