Sir Geoffrey Lloyd presents a cross-disciplinary study of the
problems posed by the unity and diversity of the human mind. On the
one hand, as humans we all share broadly the same anatomy,
physiology, biochemistry, and certain psychological capabilities --
the capacity to learn a language, for instance. On the other,
different individuals and groups have very different talents,
tastes, and beliefs, for instance about how they see themselves,
other humans and the world around them. These issues are highly
charged, for any denial of psychic unity savors of racism, while
many assertions of psychic diversity raise the specters of
arbitrary relativism, the incommensurability of beliefs systems and
their mutual unintelligibility.
Lloyd surveys a fascinating range of subjects, examining where
different types of arguments, scientific, philosophical,
anthropological and historical can take us. He discusses color
perception, spatial cognition, animal and plant taxonomy, the
emotions, ideas of health and well-being, concepts of the self,
agency and causation, varying perceptions of the distinction
between nature and culture, and reasoning itself. To avoid the
pitfalls of misleading dichotomies (especially between
cross-cultural universalism and cultural relativism) he pays due
attention to the multidimensionality of the phenomena to be
apprehended and to the diversity of manners, or styles, of
apprehending them. The weight to be given to different factors,
physical, biological, psychological, cultural, ideological, varies
as between different subject-areas and sometimes even within a
single area. He uses recent work in social anthropology,
linguistics, cognitive science, neurophysiology, andthe history of
ideas to redefine the problems and clarify how our evident psychic
diversity can be reconciled with our shared humanity.
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