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Cognitive Variations: Reflections on the Unity and Diversity of the Human Mind
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, and the history of ideas to
redefine the problems and clarify how our evident psychic diversity can be reconciled with our shared humanity.
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, and the history of ideas to
redefine the problems and clarify how our evident psychic diversity can be reconciled with our shared humanity.
- GenresNonfiction
210 pages, Paperback
First published April 19, 2007
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52 people want to read
About the author
G.E.R. Lloyd
38 books15 followersSir Geoffrey Ernest Richard Lloyd is Emeritus Professor of Ancient Philosophy and Science at the Needham Research Institute. His University career has been based chiefly at the University of Cambridge, where he held various University and College posts, first at King's College and then at Darwin. From 1983 onwards he held a personal Chair in Ancient Philosophy and Science and from 1989 until retirement in 2000 he was Master of Darwin College. He served as Chairman of the East Asian History of Science trust, which is the governing body directing the work of the Needham Research Institute from 1992 to 2002, and afterward Senior Scholar in Residence at that Institute.
Prof. Lloyd has held visiting professorships and lectured across the world, in Europe (France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Portugal, Holland, Belgium, Greece) in the Far East (Fellow of the Japan society for the Promotion of Science in Tokyo in 1981, visiting professor at Beijing daxue in 1987, visiting professor at Sendai in 1991, and the first Zhu Kezhen Visiting Professor in the History of Science at the Institute for the History of Natural Science, Beijing, in 2001), in Australasia (Hood Professor at the Department of Philosophy at the University of Auckland, 2006) and in North America (Bonsall professor, Stanford in 1981; Sather professor Berkeley in 1984; AD White professor at large, Cornell from 1990 to 1996; also lectured at Harvard, Princeton, the Princeton Institute for Advanced Studies, Yale, Brown, University of Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh, UCLA, Austin, Chicago among other places).
He has served on the editorial committees of 10 journals, including Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science, Journal of the History of Astronomy, Physis, History of the Human Sciences, Arabic Sciences and Philosophy, Endoxa and Antiquorum Philosophia.
Prof. Lloyd has held visiting professorships and lectured across the world, in Europe (France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Portugal, Holland, Belgium, Greece) in the Far East (Fellow of the Japan society for the Promotion of Science in Tokyo in 1981, visiting professor at Beijing daxue in 1987, visiting professor at Sendai in 1991, and the first Zhu Kezhen Visiting Professor in the History of Science at the Institute for the History of Natural Science, Beijing, in 2001), in Australasia (Hood Professor at the Department of Philosophy at the University of Auckland, 2006) and in North America (Bonsall professor, Stanford in 1981; Sather professor Berkeley in 1984; AD White professor at large, Cornell from 1990 to 1996; also lectured at Harvard, Princeton, the Princeton Institute for Advanced Studies, Yale, Brown, University of Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh, UCLA, Austin, Chicago among other places).
He has served on the editorial committees of 10 journals, including Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science, Journal of the History of Astronomy, Physis, History of the Human Sciences, Arabic Sciences and Philosophy, Endoxa and Antiquorum Philosophia.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
April 20, 2020
“It’s not this extreme, or this other one - it’s somewhere in the middle”. Lloyd arrives at this conclusion for basically all the issues he discusses, so it gets tiring after like, the third chapter.
Displaying 1 of 1 review