Humans and Other Animals

John Dupré presents a set of provocative and highly readable essays exploring the ways in which we categorize animals, including humans: he comes to surprisingly radical conclusions. We must reject the idea that each organism has an essence that determines its necessary place in the unique hierarchy of things. Nature is not organized in a single system. It is a mistake to generalize about human nature--for instance, about the gender roles or sexual behaviour of our species. We must take a pluralistic view of biology and the human sciences.