ハビエル・ペレス・ハラ氏講演会
"Beyond Nature and Nurture: Perspectives on Human Multidimensionality."

日時 : 2025年6月13日金曜日 15:10-16:40
場所 : 東京大学駒場キャンパスI　101号館2階セミナールーム（階段真正面）
言語 : 英語
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要旨 :
This talk pursues two interrelated aims. First, I will briefly present the key themes, aims, and chapters of a forthcoming volume I have coedited, Beyond Nature and Nurture: Perspectives on Human Multidimensionality (Springer Synthese Library). The book gathers several of the world’s leading scholars in the nature vs. nurture debate, offering a timely reconsideration of the dynamic interactions that shape human multidimensionality.

Second, I will present my own chapter in the volume, which builds on a central tenet of cultural sociology: the relative independence of culture. A central focus of my analysis is human plasticity—our species’ distinctive capacity for transformation across neurobiological, bodily, and sociocultural domains. This plasticity challenges both biological reductionism and the blank-slate hypothesis. While biological processes undeniably shape and constrain social life, I argue that cultural structures and social interactions can in turn reshape biological traits once considered immutable. To support this claim, I propose a philosophical framework grounded in concepts such as vertical causation, ontological and epistemological discontinuities, asymmetries, and emergence. Drawing on recent scientific and philosophical advances, I aim to overcome the simplistic yet persistent opposition between nature and nurture, offering a far more complex and dynamic—yet richer and epistemologically manageable—picture of the human being.

主催 : 東京大学大学院総合文化研究科・教養学部附属共生のための国際哲学研究センター（UTCP）