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Is human nature the subject of philosophy, or of the empirical sciences?

June 25, 2011

Response from Sean Greenberg on June 30, 2011
I myself am inclined to think that both philosophy and (certain) empirical sciences--including psychology--investigate human nature, although they investigate it in different ways. For example--and oversimplifying--the genetic differences between human beings and other animals can be investigated by biology; philosophy, however, can investigate whether there is some ultimate, natural end that all human beings seek, a question that does not seem to me to admit of resolution by natural science but squarely to fall within the province of philosophy. (Aristotle, for example, claims that 'all men by nature desire to know': I do not think that this claim admits of empirical confirmation or disconfirmation.)

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