Volume 16, Issue 1, Spring 2011
Truth, Reality and Religion New Perspectives In Metaphysics
Eric Charmetant, S.J.
Pages 59-72
Contemporary Naturalism and Human Ontology
Towards a Different Essentialism
Contemporary naturalism, especially through ethology, neuroscience and cognitive science, challenges the traditional ontological points of reference
for determining the specificity of human beings. After illustrating the full measure of this upheaval, I will show the inadequacy of a return to traditional essentialism
and will then defend the relevance of a different type of essentialism: an approach to human specificity in terms of a homeostatic property cluster.