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nature nurture vs
debate or controversy
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How far are human behaviors, ideas, and feelings, INNATE and
how far are they all LEARNED? These issues are at the centre of that
ongoing controversy that is referred to as the nature versus nurture debate or controversy.
The nature vs nurture debate is one of the most enduring
in the field of psychology. In the 17th century the
French philosopher René Descartes set out views which held
that people possess certain inborn ideas that enduringly underpin
people's approach to the world. The British philosophers Thomas
Hobbes and John Locke, on the other hand, took a more empirical
approach emphasising the role of experience as fully contributing
to behavioral development.
Since the days of Descates, Hobbes, and Locke, the empirical
"nuture" approach has possibly tended to have the best of the
argument but the debate is far from being settled.
Consider the following which may represent an insight into general Human Nature as inherited, in-born, Human Potential:-
Our site features many pages that consider the inherently persuasive
insights of the poets and mystics. This gives rise to questions about the just
exactly why such insights are, in fact, persuasive - could there be some empathy perhaps
with an "inborn human nature" that all people have in common. Are "Wisdom Quotes" held to "Somehow?" Encapsulate Wisdom
because they reflect key spiritual / psychological truths which "Somehow?" Resonate within the Human Psyche?
We hope that you will be very seriously intrigued by assessing how the "Poetical" wisdoms,
the "Inter-Faith" wisdoms and the "Christian" wisdoms that are collected on our site are both individually valid and also have
strong similarities despite their diversity of origin:-
Wisdom Quotes from the Great Poets
- A Disdain for Materialism
-
Poor and content is rich, and rich enough.
Shakespeare
- A Distrust of Intellect
- The intellectual power, through words and things,
Went sounding on, a dim and perilous way!
Wordsworth
- A Yearning for Divine Edification
- God guard me from those thoughts men think
In the mind alone;
He that sings a lasting song
Thinks in a marrow-bone;
Yeats
- Charity
- That best portion of a good man's life,
His little, nameless, unremembered acts
Of kindness and of love.
Wordsworth
- Purity of Heart
- A peace above all earthly dignities,
A still and quiet conscience.
Shakespeare
- Humility
- The best of men
That e'er wore earth about him, was a sufferer,
A soft, meek, patient, humble, tranquil spirit,
The first true gentleman that ever breathed.
Thomas Dekker
- Meekness
- Since my dear soul was mistress of her choice,
And could of men distinguish her election,
Sh'hath sealed thee for herself, for thou hast been
As one in suff'ring all that suffers nothing,
A man that Fortune's buffets and rewards
Hast ta'en with equal thanks; and blest are those
Whose blood and judgement are so well co-medled,
That they are not a pipe for Fortune's finger
To sound what stop she please: give me that man
That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him
In my heart's core, ay in my heart of heart,
As I do thee.
Shakespeare
Wisdom Quotes from Inter-Faith Sources
These spiritual insights quotations demonstrate the recognition of individual important Spiritual
Truths by
one of the world religions in the case of each "Truth":-
- A Disdain for Materialism
- Chuang Tzu put on cotton clothes with patches in them, and
arranging his girdle and tying on his shoes,
(i.e. to keep them from falling off),
went to see the prince of Wei.
"How miserable you look, Sir!" Cried the prince. "It is poverty,
not misery", replied Chuang Tzu. "A man who has TAO cannot be
miserable. Ragged clothes and old boots make poverty, not
misery".
Chuang Tzu - (Taoism)
- A Distrust of Intellect
- Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment; Cleverness is mere
opinion, bewilderment intuition.
Rumi - (Islam)
- A Yearning for Divine Edification
- This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye
henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of
their mind. Having the understanding darkened, being alienated
from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them,
because of the blindness of their heart:
St. Paul - (Christianity)
- Charity
- He that does everything for Me, whose supreme object I am, who
worships Me, being free from attachment and without hatred to any
creature, this man, Arjuna!, comes to Me.
Bhagavad Gita - (Hinduism)
- Purity of Heart
- The path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more
and more unto the perfect day. The way of the wicked is as
darkness: they know not at what they stumble.
Solomon - (Judaism)
- Humility
- Would you become a pilgrim on the road of love? The first
condition is that you make yourself humble as dust and ashes.
Ansari of Herat - (Islam)
- Meekness
- Let a man overcome anger by love, let him overcome evil by good;
let him overcome the greedy by liberality, the liar by truth!
Speak the truth, do not yield to anger; give, if thou art asked
for little; by these three steps thou wilt go near the gods.
Dhammapada - (Buddhism)
Wisdom Quotes from Christian Sources
A selection of wisdom quotes that demonstrate the profound depth of the insights that are recognised
by Christian authorities
are set out below. They are sourced from the Bible and
also from the works of Thomas a Kempis whose "Of the Imitation of Christ" ranks as the second
most widely read Christian text after the Bible itself.
- A Disdain for Materialism
-
Some have Me in their mouths, but little in their
hearts.
There are others who, being enlightened in their understanding
and purified in their affection, always breathe after things
eternal, are unwilling to hear of earthly things, and grieve to
be subject to the necessities of nature; and such as these
perceive what the Spirit of Truth speaketh in them.
For it teacheth them to despise the things of the earth and to
love heavenly things; to disregard the world, and all the day and
night to aspire after heaven.
Thomas a Kempis
- A Distrust of Intellect
- Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain
deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the
world, and not after Christ.
St. Paul
- A Yearning for Divine Edification
- It is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have
entered into the heart of man, the things which God has prepared
for them that love him. But God has revealed them unto us by his
Spirit: for the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things
of God.
...the natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of
God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them,
because they are spiritually discerned.
St. Paul
- Charity
- Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and
every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that
loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.
St. John
- Purity of Heart
- Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my
presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own
salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in
you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. Do all things
without murmurings and disputings: That ye may be blameless and
harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a
crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the
world;
St. Paul
- Humility
- Neither be ye called masters: for one is your Master, even
Christ. But he that is greatest among you shall be your servant.
And whomsoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that
shall humble himself shall be exalted.
Jesus
- Meekness
- Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear,
slow to speak, and slow to wrath: For the wrath of man worketh
not the righteousness of God.
St. James
If you will be so open-minded as to give our presentation of the QUITE AWESOME
Wisdoms that have been won by the Mystics and Poets a fair hearing we believe that we can firmly establish
your own opinion of their collective insights as one of appreciation and respect.
We genuinely believe that it is the case that
the mystics and poets have been capable of genuinely important insights into
the human psyche or being. Freud himself was prepared to recognise the importance
of such insights.
Poets are masters of us ordinary men, in knowledge
of the mind,
because they drink at streams which we
have not yet made accessible to science.
Sigmund Freud |
We feel that the truths featured on our pages cannot but be relevant to
all interested in the nature vs nurture debate or controversy and have made an attempt to
structure our intended contribution.
If you refer to our Carl Gustav Jung link you will see that he
takes the view that human behavior is influenced both by
individual experience and also by an innate "collective
unconcious" that vests all of us with certain proclivities and
tendencies.
Another famous psychologist, B.F. Skinner, seems to take the
view that behavioral development is determined largely by
previous consequences. If a behavior was previously rewarded, the
behavior recurs; if the behavior was previously punished, it is
unlikely to recur.
More dramatically if you refer to our William Sheldon link you
will become aware that Dr. Sheldon goes so far as to suggest that
we, all of us, are inevitably born with human personality traits
that govern whether we will individually tend towards being
sociable, or physically active, or nervy and introverted!!!
Some of the more revealing, and disquieting, findings of the Social Psychologists
are considered through the works of Sherif, Tajfel, Asch and Hasdorf & Cantril.
Social
psychology seems to accept a number of principles the implications of which are
fraught with consequence. If we accept the principles that:-
A) People construct their own reality.
B) Social Influence pervades all Social Life.
It can surely be suggested from a Social point of view, that human minds and their
workings are of truly immense influence in events. The workings of our Human minds may
well tend to reflect nature ( natural, instinctual, existential promptings) as well
as nurture (education and cultural indoctrination). It is probably better to be aware
of the existence of such disquieting tendencies discovered by the Social Psychologists than not!!!
Our Evolutionary psychology link meanwhile leads to a number of
pages that show how some persons are attempting to provide
evolutionary explanations of very many of the aspects of human
behavior in the modern world.
To quote John Tooby and Leda Cosmides, two leading figures in
this somewhat controversial, but increasingly influential, field
of study:-
"Evolutionary psychology is not just another swing of the
nature/nurture pendulum. A defining characteristic of the field
is the explicit rejection of the usual nature/nurture dichotomies
-- instinct vs. reasoning, innate vs. learned, biological vs.
cultural. What effect the environment will have on an organism
depends critically on the details of its evolved cognitive
architecture."
Our Spirituality and the wider world link leads to a page that
details how several world faiths, Plato, Socrates, Pythagoras and
Shakespeare ALL take the view that each person has a "Tripartite
Soul" where "Desire", "Spirituality" and "Wrath" all command some
claims on deciding individual human actions.
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