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Article: HUMAN NATURE: Deeper into the Brain.
- Article from:
- National Review
- Article date:
- January 24, 2000
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2000 National Review, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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WE, Homo sapiens, are about to learn how to alter human nature at roughly the same time that we finally learn for sure what that nature is.
Our ignorance about the underlying truth of human nature has not been for want of trying. Philosophers took up the question as one of the very first that human beings systematically asked about themselves. But philosophers produced answers as various as Aristotle's and Rousseau's. Since the late 1900s, behavioral and social scientists too have tried to understand human nature. But while they have illuminated many useful bits and pieces, they have failed as system-builders. What is left of Freud, out of the beliefs that were ...