Nature and culture, body and mind are intertwined, the one mutually constituting the other. The present volume explores what this insight means for the human race. The human being is embodied and through corporal actions helps shape the course of evolution.
From its beginnings, the theory of evolution has unsettled fundamental anthropological assumptions about the place of human beings in nature. The integration of human originsinto natural history by Darwinism was countered by the philosophical anthropologies of the 20th century. Their attempts were to hold on even more resolutely to the special status of humans as beings 'open towards the world'. Today, evolutionary and philosophical anthropology have moved closer together via the paradigm of embodiment. Building on embodied cognitive science, this volume aims to establish how far the human mind and human cultural cognition can be attributed to the structures of human existence, structures which have emerged in the course of evolution and have in turn been affected by culture. The traditional dualism of nature and culture is transformed into an explanation of an evolutionary process in which body and mind are understood to be intertwined and mutually constitutive.
Survey of contents
Gregor Etzelmüller/Christian Tewes: Introduction
1. Philosophical Concepts and Perspectives of Embodiment Christian Tewes: Introduction –
Mog Stapleton: Leaky Levels and the Case for Proper Embodiment –
Christian Tewes: Embodied Habitual Memory Formation: Enacted or Extended? –
Karim Zahidi/Erik Myin: Radically Enactive Numerical Cognition –
Christian Spahn: Beyond Dualism? The Implications of Evolutionary Theory for an Anthropological Determination of Human Being
2. The Embodied Evolution of Symbolic Competence Magnus Schlette: Introduction –
Thomas Fuchs: The Embodied Development of Language –
Terrence Deacon: On Human (Symbolic) Nature: How the Word Became Flesh –
Jordan Zlatev: Preconditions in Human Embodiment for the Evolution of Symbolic Communication –
Matthias Jung: Stages of Embodied Articulation
3. Embodiment as a Bridging Concept for Evolutionary and Historical Anthropology Alexander Massmann: Introduction –
Gregor Etzelmüller: The Lived Body as the Tipping Point Between an Evolutionary and a Historical Anthropology –
Eve-Marie Engels: The Roots of Human Morals and Culture in Pre-Human Sympathy. Charles Darwin's Natural and Cultural History of Morals –
Christoph Wulf: The Creation of Body Knowledge in Mimetic Processes –
Annette Weissenrieder: »It Proceeded from the Entrance of a Demon into the Man«. Epileptic Seizures in Ancient Medical Texts and the New Testament
4. The Mutual Intertwinement of Nature and Culture Miriam Haidle: Introduction –
Lambros Malafouris: On Human Becoming and Incompleteness: A Material Engagement Approach to the Study of Embodiment in Evolution and Culture –
Duilio Garofoli: Metaplasticit-
ies: Material Engagement Meets Mutational Enhancement –
Shaun Gallagher/Tailer G. Ransom: Artifacting Minds: Material Engagement Theory and Joint Action –
Wolfgang Welsch: Bodily Changes during the Protocultural Period and Their Ongoing Impact on Culture
