Preserving the Person: A Look at the Human Sciences

The human quest for self-understanding is ancient. It transcends the boundaries between ordinary folk and philosophers and it over- laps with many academic disciplines, including psychology, sociology, philosophy and theology. Actually, the quest is not essentially academic; it is a human quest, pursued by persons in every age. With this in mind, philosopher C. Stephen Evans takes a look at the human sciences and their contribution to this self-understanding. Evans first presents a basic problem in these sciences today: the attack on the concept of personhood. He reviews the contemporary understanding of mind and brain: Is a person only a thinking machine or a programmed organism? Then he evaluates the impact of Auguste Comte, Sigmund Freud, J.B. Watson, B.F. Skinner and Emile Durkheim on what Evans terms ?