Who am I? Who are we? What is human nature? This class will survey historical and contemporary attempts to philosophically answer these questions. We will distinguish how philosophy approaches these issues from the approaches of religion and science. Attention will be given to how one's conception of human nature limits or enables (and is limited or enabled by) one's moral and social theory, one's understanding of wisdom and knowledge, and one's conception of progress.

Required text: Leslie Stevenson, ed., The Study of Human Nature, 2nd Ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999). ISBN-13: 9780195127157. (It can be purchased used at  www.powells.com and elsewhere.) This text will be supplemented with handouts.