261024 Human Evolution: Philosophical Issues (S) (SoSe 2012)

The course will be an intensive, 4-part seminar (4 SWS). It will begin with an introductory part to the philosophy of evolutionary biology that covers key concepts and controversies including the status of biological laws, reductionism, fitness, levels of selection, adaptationism, systematics, and socio-biology and evolutionary psychology. There will be a take home test closing this part of the course. The course will then proceed to identify a broad range of philosophical issues that emerge from recent research in human evolutionary biology with a focus on five major regions of the world: Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Australia, Europe, and the Americas. At the end of this part, students are required to write a short book review. The course will then move on in the third part to a survey of recent philosophical contributions to three important topics concerning human evolution: under-determination and the reconstruction of human evolutionary history, race and racism, and the evolution of language and culture. The first three parts will be taught by guest professor Lisa Gannett. The fourth part of the course, taught by Maria Kronfeldner, will have an explorative research character. Given the range of topics discussed in the first three parts of the course, students will be required to decide on a special topic of their interest within that range, and prepare a bibliography. For this, they will be introduced to two professional databases (philosopher’s index, web of science), with which they will work to construct their bibliographies. From the bibliographies presented, the group makes decisions about further readings for six special topics. Students will give short presentations (10 min) on one of the chosen readings.

Bibliography

Course Materials
• Elliott Sober, 2000, Philosophy of Biology, second edition, Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
• Steve Olson, 2002, Mapping Human History: Genes, Race, and Our Common Origins, Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin.
These books and any additional book chapters or articles assigned as required reading will be made available for photocopying, placed in the Semesterapparat at the library, or posted electronically (Stud.IP).