Creating Consilience

Edward Slinglerland is Associate Professor of Asian Studies, Canada Research Chair in Chinese Thought and Embodied Cognition, University of British Columbia. Mark Collard is Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair in Human Evolutionary Studies, Simon Fraser University

• Introduction ; Edward Slingerland and Mark Collard Creating Consilience: Toward a Second Wave ; Part I: Theoretical Issues ; Section One: Ontologies for the Human ; Ch. 1The humanities and human nature ; Ch. 2 The meta-physical realities of the un-physical sciences: Why vertical integration seems un-realistic to ontological pluralists ; Ch. 3 Mind-body dualism and the two cultures ; Ch. 4 On the psychological origins of dualism: Dual-process cognition and the explanatory gap ; Section Two: Consilience Through The Lens of Anthropology ; Ch. 5 From studious irrelevancy to consilient knowledge: Modes of scholarship and cultural anthropology ; Ch. 6 Whence and whither sociocultural anthropology ; Ch. 7 Unconsilience: Rethinking the two-cultures conundrum in anthropology ; Part II: Case Studies ; Section Three: Culture ; Ch. 8 Culture in songbirds and its contribution toward the evolution of new species ; Ch. 9 When does psychology drive culture? ; Ch. 10 Quantifying the importance of motifs on Attic

The book is written for a mixed audience of scientists and humanists, and as such is widely accessible in style, with technical terms being explained in the text. The wide ranging case studies show it to be an important read, not just for those who consider themselves to be in disciplines 'near the boundary' between the humanities and sciences, but for all scientists and humanists. The book well serves the most important function a book of its kind can - to provoke debate among scholars who might not ordinarily communicate with one another.