Social action and human nature

Contents
Foreword
Introduction
1 Anthropology and Historical Materialism
	Ludwig Feuerbach’s anthropological materialism
	Marx’s critique of Feuerbach
	Positions in the Marxist discussion of anthropology
2 Anthropological Foundations of Social Action
	Preliminary remarks on the German tradition of ‘philosophical anthropology’
	Philosophical anthropology as a theory of action. Arnold Gehlen’s attempt to construct a systematic anthropology
	Action and intersubjectivity. The difference between Mead and Gehlen
	Human expressiveness. Helmuth Plessner’s anthropological hermeneutics
	Instinct and need. Agnes Heller’s social anthropology
	Human perception as sensuous cognition. The Critical Psychology of Klaus Holzkamp
3 Historical Anthropology
	Control of affect and the weaving of the social fabric. Norbert Elias’s theory of the civilising process
	The disciplining of the body and decentralised power. Michel Foucault’s structuralist analysis of history
	Moral evolution and domination of nature. Jurgen Habermas’s theeory of socio-cultural evolution
Suggested Reading
Bibliography
Index