Browsing by Subject "Human beings -- Social aspects"

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    All in the family: learning about human society from observing gorilla social structure
    (1992) Cohen, Melanie; Perloe, Sidney
    An observational study of a captive group of gorillas (G.g. gorilla) was conducted over a seven month period in response to the birth of an infant on July 4, 1991. Observations began when the infant was two months old and continued until she was eight months of age. The development of infant independence and how infant independence corresponded with the development of play were the main foci of the study. Another aspect of the study involved the analysis of family cohesion and silverback-immature interactions. The amount of time the infant spent in contact with the mother decreased over the course of the study, although the difference was not significant. The type of solitary play the infant was involved in more often significantly changed from object to locomotor play over the course of the study (x²=26.86, p<.01). These results and others suggest that the infant's social development relies upon a decrease in the amount of time spent in close proximity with the mother and on active exploration of the environment.
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    What is the Human Being?: Examining the Animal, Social, and Rational
    (2013) Ziff, J. I.; Macbeth, Danielle; Miller, Jerry
    This essay seeks to explain the metaphysical nature of the human being. It does so on three levels: the animal, the social and the rational. To explain the animal nature of a human being I take from Michael Thompson's book Life and Action. Using his theory I motivate the existence of a category of life separate from mere matter. To explain the social nature I adapt Grice's theory of non-natural meaning. Using this I separate out actions that animals take whose meanings are not fixed by their animal nature. This together with an adaptation of Foucault's notion of the power-structure I hypothesize that between a mere animal and our rational selves there could exist a social animal that has not rational powers. Finally using John McDowell's understanding of the Sellersian space of reasons I motivate the nature of rationality as centered around self-consciousness. Self-consciousness I understand as being able to perceive the signs that one performs as objects in of themselves thereby placing them in the space of reasons. This together with theory from Danielle Macbeth will allow me to show how the space of reasons relies on having well-developed social practices. The world that one gets via John McDowell's notion of Bildung will be re-conceptualized as the world that is encompassed by our social practices.