Helen Longino, “Studying Human Behavior: How Scientists Investigate Aggression and Sexuality” (University of Chicago Press, 2013)
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What is the central argument of Helen Longino’s book on human behavior?
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Hello and welcome to New Books and Philosophy, a podcast channel in the New Books Network. I'm Carrie Figner of the University of Iowa and I'm co-host of the channel along with Robert Talise of Vanderbilt. In our bimonthly podcasts, we interview philosophers about their new books across a wide variety of philosophical topics and areas. Today's interview is with Helen Longineau, Clarence Irving Lewis Professor of Philosophy at Stanford University. Her new book, Studying Human Behavior How Scientists Investigate Aggression and Sexuality, is just out from the University of Chicago Press. What explains human behavior? It is standard to consider answers from the perspective of a dichotomy between nature and nurture.
With most researchers today in agreement that it is both. For Longinot, however, the both answer misses the fact that the nature nurture divide is itself problematic. First, there is no one right way to divide nature from nurture within the scientific approaches to the study of behavior. And second, the dichotomy re reinforces and reflects an undue emphasis on explanations that focus on the dispositions of individuals rather than than those that look at patterns of frequency and distribution of behavior within populations. In this groundbreaking volume, Longino looks closely at a variety of different scientific approaches to the study of human aggression and sexuality to reveal the different and incompatible ways they define the factors that explain behavior.
How these different explanatory approaches are related to each other and how the knowledge they provide is publicly disseminated. Let's turn to the interview. Hello, Helen.
Hi, Carrie.
Hi. Welcome to New Books in Philosophy. Thank you. Um, I'm very excited to talk about your new book, Studying Human Behavior, How Scientists Investigate Aggression and Sexuality. I guess before we get into the uh body of the book, uh it'd be a good idea if you could give us a little bit of background about how you came to the topic of human behavior and these particular um aspects of human behavior. Um and then how you came to write this book in particular.
Okay. Um well I came to the topic in general because I have Or a long time been looking at Um certain aspects of research on human behavior. In the past it was mostly um focused on uh sex and gender differences. Um and I Went back to look at research on both aggression and sexuality some years after I'd finished science and social knowledge. Just to see what was going on and I was very interested to find uh a couple of things going on. One was the um My tuberative character of interchanges among uh proponents of different approaches. Not all of them, but there were some some that quite stood out and I was curious to understand what that was about.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the central argument of Helen Longino’s book on human behavior?
0:00–7:56
2
How did Longino become interested in studying aggression and sexuality?
7:56–17:06
3
What are the main scientific approaches Longino examines for aggression and sexuality?
17:06–24:01
4
Why does Longino claim the nature‑versus‑nurture dichotomy is problematic?
24:01–31:59
5
How does pragmatic pluralism reshape explanations of human behavior?
31:59–40:07
6
What did Longino discover about how research on behavior is reported in the popular press?
40:07–47:06
7
How can cross‑disciplinary interaction improve the study of aggression and sexuality?
47:06–55:23
8
What future research directions does Longino suggest after this book?
55:23–1:03:32
Speakers
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