>
> Substantively, talk of human nature or the nature of
> anything else implies talk of surrounding context.
> There is no such thing as the nature of humans or
> anything else apart from a context. The nature of X is
> its disposition or propensity to behave so-and-so in a
> given set or environmental circumstances. There, ipso
> facto, to talk of human nature is to talk of the
> conditions in which dispositions or propensities are
> manifested.
>
> I have no idea why this point is so hard to grasp,
> especially because the alternative is wholly
> incoherent. I guess it is a testimonial to the power
> of ideology that when even smart, philosophically
> sophisticated, scientifically educated people hear the
> words "human nature" they find it difficult to get
> past a notion of a nature which unlike the nature of
> anything else in being independent of circumstances,
> despite the fact that the idea of such a nature is
> self-evidently nonsensical once it is stated.
>
> Arrggh.
J,
I agree wholeheartedly with your conception of human nature. The problem is, this term is often enthusiastically used in the way you ridicule (see most evolutionary psychology!). Thus it's understandable to me that social scientists are wary of claims about "human nature", because many people who use the term have the nonsensical misconception that human nature is "just the way people are", regardless of environmental circumstances. Unfortunately, what you consider a "self-evidently nonsensical" conception of human nature is quite prevalent.
And this raises an interesting question (for me, at least): why do so many people embrace a conception of human nature that cannot be supported in any meaningful way by evidence? (And we're back to ideology!)
Miles