Description
Book SynopsisThis volume addresses key questions about the puzzle of human origins by focusing on a topic that is largely unexplored thus far, namely, the evolution of human wisdom. How can we best understand the human capacity for wisdom, where did it come from, and how did it emerge? It explores lines of convergence and divergence between Christian theology and evolutionary anthropology in its search to identify different aspects of wisdom. Critical to this discussion are the philosophical difficulties that arise when two very different methodological approaches to the manner of humans becoming wise are brought together. The relative importance and significance of human language is another area of intense debate in defining the meaning of wisdom and its expression. How far and to what extent does a theologically informed wisdom discourse push evolutionary anthropology to formulate new questions and vice versa?This volume shows that there is no simple consonance between evolutionary anthropology a
Trade ReviewThe Evolution of Human Wisdom is an informed engagement with one of the great questions of our time—a question I doubt will ever be answered, in part because we don’t know how to ask it. The contributors, fortunately, seem to recognize this and, for the most part, maintain a consistently open, exploratory, tentative, and even humble tone. The invitation to the conversation is wide open. * Reading Religion *
Seldom are books on wisdom as wise or cogently argued as Celia Deane-Drummond and Augustin Fuentes’ splendid new collected volume. Their interdisciplinary inquiry will be an invaluable resource for scholar and student alike interested in the evolutionary origins of human wisdom, both secular and sacred. -- William O'Neill, Santa Clara University
Homo sapiens may have evolved, but what about human sapientia or wisdom? Can we explain how it emerged from biological evolution? The Evolution of Human Wisdom takes up this challenge. Contributors agree that wisdom requires intelligence and language. They all insist, however, that wisdom is much more than cleverness. It is something deeply human, coming into existence and making possible the complex totality of our creative interactions with nature, technology, and society. Wisdom arises within our evolution and affects its course, both in the shrouded past and the uncharted future. The Evolution of Human Wisdom is intelligent, informed, creative . . . in a word, wise. -- Ron Cole-Turner, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary
Table of ContentsIntroduction by Celia Deane-Drummond and Agustín Fuentes Prologue: Philosophical Parameters Chapter 1: The Human as World-Open Spirit: An Exploration into Philosophical Anthropology and the Foundations of Human Wisdom by Dylan Belton Part I: Signs in Evolutionary Anthropology Chapter 2: What Can Anthropology Say about the Evolution of Human Wisdom? by Marc Kissel Chapter 3: In the Minds of Others by Marcus Baynes-Rock Part II: Evolving Homespun Wisdom Chapter 4: Growing Wisdom by Ben Campbell Chapter 5: Homo Sapiens Sapiens: The Human as Homemaker by Julia Feder Part III: The Wisdom of Speech Chapter 6: Speaking Truthfully: A Thomistic Perspective on the Peculiar Origins of Human Language by Stewart Clem Chapter 7: Precursors to Explanations of Action: Collective Intentionality and the Wisdom of Early Childhood by Craig Iffland Part IV: Evolving Wisdom as Virtue Chapter 8: Change and Constancy in the Nature of Wisdom over Time by Adam Willows Chapter 9: Practical Wisdom in the Making: A Theological Approach to Early Hominin Evolution in Conversation with Modern Jewish Philosophy by Celia Deane-Drummond Epilogue: Questions and Puzzles in Evolutionary Anthropology Chapter 10: Manipulating Materials, Bodies, and Signs: How the Ecology of Creative Problem Solving, Tool Manufacture, and Imaginative Sociality Set the Context for Language in the Later Pleistocene Human Niche by Agustín Fuentes
