As it traces the emergence of organic life and the gradual transformation of species, Erasmus Darwin’s treaty in verse The Temple of Nature develops a poetics of what eludes our sense of sight, of the viewless and eyeless beings at the radical origins of life. The chapter thus retraces a poetic journey back to a perceptual framework in which sight does not yet exist. Erasmus Darwin tries to apprehend life before the first eye opened, to envision a world so young that sensation itself had just been born. That journey also goes back to the origins of the alliance of poetry and science in Lucretius’s De Rerum Natura and its poetics of corpora caeca, those viewless bodies that create entire worlds through blind contact. It lastly registers some of the aesthetic and epistemic aftershocks of Lucretius’ and Darwin’s poetics of blind bodies in the poetry of William Blake.

Ancient theories of human diversity and identity strongly influenced most modern forms of scientific racism, including eugenics, tropicalism, craniometry, environmental theories of human development, social evolutionary theories, and theories connecting ‘race’ and intelligence. This chapter explores three of these areas of influence: (1) environmental determinism; (2) models of evolution and the ‘progress’ of civilisations; and (3) population management schemes linked to eugenic thinking. These ideas spread throughout Europe as part of the Enlightenment project to classify everything and throughout much of the globe under the influence of European imperialism and colonialism culminating in the Nazi eugenics program. But this chapter focuses on developments in the United States, the country that pioneered the colour-based bioracism that still dominates contemporary racist thinking between 1870 and 1930, the years when the ‘science of man’ became academic and political dogma.

Since the discovery of the first Neandertal fossils, the neurocranium has been of particular interest to specialists and the general public, particularly in relation to the question of what cognitive abilities can be inferred from the braincase. Here we present a detailed description and analysis of the neurocranial morphology of Neandertals and compare it with that of living humans and the fossil hominins that likely represent our last common ancestor. Our analyses show that the Neandertal neurocranium provides relatively few clues about the structural and functional characteristics of the brain it once contained. The unique morphology of the Neandertal braincase is best understood as a compromise between the spatial demands of a large brain and the biomechanical demands of a large and evolutionarily derived face.

I begin with the bodily good of health, which perfects our organic functioning beyond the rudimentary level required for life. I detail how such functioning operates at different bodily levels, e.g., within cells, tissues, vessels, glands etc. I then move on to bodily abilities, which (not being autonomic functions) reflect the exercise of agency or voluntary control. Such abilities can be divided into active and passive powers, these affording a wider relation to the world in virtue of their intentionality. The third topic is bodily beauty. I argue that this is not a bodily perfection, since it is beholden less to our bodily powers or their configuration than to judgements of character and the social context in which our bodies operate. Finally, I explore body alteration. This constitutes a spectrum, from (perfective) medical intervention to (imperfective) mutilation, with what I call mere body ‘modification’ in the middle. I conclude with two cases that are difficult to place on this spectrum: namely male circumcision and cosmetic ‘surgery’. I argue that the former is likely a bodily imperfection or bad and the latter likely bound up with further imperfections.

This chapter argues that large-scale biological and energy systems were an important environmental concept in Victorian literature. It traces two intertwined cultural narratives. On the one hand, the transition to a fossil energy economy raised fears of coal exhaustion that were echoed by narratives of entropy: In both geology and the thermodynamic physical sciences it was proposed that the eventual exhaustion of energy sources would lead to the end of civilization or even human life. On the other hand, narratives of biological degeneration and atavism arose from a certain interpretation of evolutionary theory; some writers claimed to see unhealthy symptoms of species decline in “degenerate” artists and criminals. We can see how these cultural narratives functioned as environmental concepts in Victorian literary genres of science fiction and decadence, through texts such as H. G. Wells’s The Time Machine and Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray.

I begin by explaining why ‘goodness as natural perfection’ is a metaphysical rather than linguistic or conceptual thesis (even J. J. Thomson’s sophisticated version of the latter). I then unpack what I call the ‘Aristotelian functionalist schema’, which informs my view of how human faculties or powers are teleologically ordered to various natural perfections or ultimate intrinsic goods. This schema embodies a ‘bottom-up’ movement, which culminates in our governing, rational, function; and also a ‘top-down’ movement, which reveals how rationality conditions our subordinate (vegetative, perceptual, productive, locomotive) functions. I then go on to look at two post-Darwinian analyses of function, that of Cummins and that sponsored by the ‘standard evolutionary conception’. I argue that the first is relativistic and the second hyper-reductive – so neither gives us reason to abandon the Aristotelian functionalist schema. Finally, I explore the theory of ‘natural goodness’ elaborated by Philippa Foot and Michael Thompson. I maintain that it improperly reduces natural goodness to moral goodness, and, moreover, ends up being more Kantian than Aristotelian – rendering its form of ‘naturalism’ highly etiolated.

Chapter 7 begins with Kornblith’s attempt to resurrect a teleology of the mind or intellect. I countenance his semantic, desire and pragmatic arguments, maintaining that none of them shows truth or true belief to be an objective good. By contrast, Aristotle’s idea that the intellect is constitutively directed at truth does show this (in virtue of the Aristotelian functionalist schema: i.e. all functions are correlated with perfections or goods). And Aristotle’s idea is corroborated not only by ‘folk’ and theoretical psychology, but also by cognitive science. For the latter is wedded to the notion that the brain is a cognitive system, functionally directed at cognition (viz. true belief). I go on to address three critiques of this intellectual teleology – those put forward by William James, evolutionary biology and global scepticism respectively – and argue that none of them is cogent. Next, I unpack two alternative accounts of the relation between truth and goodness – those of Ayer and Davidson – and maintain that they, too, fall short. Last, I tackle intellectual goods beyond true belief – such as knowledge and understanding – asking whether they or their objects form discernible hierarchies.

Spoken language is a complex signal that evolves over time and conveys rhythm across multiple timescales. Beyond the signal level, there is rhythm in social aspects of speech communication such as joint attention, gestures, or turn-taking. Neural oscillations have in many cases been shown to directly reflect the rhythmic features of speech. However, the knowledge about origins, specific functions, and potential interactions of different rhythms and their neural signatures is far from complete. An integrative perspective that builds on phylogenetic and ontogenetic developments can provide some of the missing components. Here we propose that speech production and perception engage evolutionary ancient temporal processing mechanisms that guide sensorimotor sequencing and the allocation of cognitive resources in time. Slow-wave (delta-to-theta band) oscillations are the designated common denominator of these mechanisms, which interact in a speech-specific variant of the perception–action cycle with the goal to achieve optimal temporal coordination and predictive adaptation in speech communication.

Sex is the most dramatic normal human polymorphism. A single gene triggers remarkable physical differences in gonads and gametes, in anatomy and behaviour of men and women via a network of genes that induce a ridge of cells to become either a testis or an ovary. These very different gonads make hormones that activate other whole networks of genes in far-flung tissues and organs. Here I explore the role of sex differences in health, longevity, reproduction and evolution, societal roles and discrimination. Sex is genetically complex, and wide variation results from variation in genes of the sex pathway, in hormone-producing genes, and in downstream genes that receive these messages in other tissues. This throws up ethical dilemmas of whether, or how, to treat, babies with atypical sexual development. And how to create a ‘level playing field’ for sport. Some variants may influence gender identity, and mate choice so that transgender and homosexual, may both be seen as simply the edges of normal curves of male and female sexual development. I conclude with the hope that we are heading for a more enlightened world in which variation in sexual development and behaviour, and sexual identity is accepted and celebrated.

This chapter argues that the wellspring of theatre can be found in childhood pretend play – a universal human phenomenon that leaves us all capable of theatrical behavior, whether as performers who enact make-believe “realities” or as audience members who imaginatively engage in others’ make-believe. Such play is likely associated with an evolutionary adaptation for advanced symbolic thinking. Theatre might be a by-product of pretend play, carried over into adult life, but it might be an exaptation in which childhood pretend play has been co-opted for the new evolutionary purpose of allowing performers and audiences to explore “what-if” situations in ways that compel attention through the performers’ presence and artistry, and the empathy given to their enacted characters by the audience. The universality of pretend play suggests this behavioral trait evolved more than 50,000 years ago, at which point humans had begun their globalizing expansion from Africa.

The USA has among the highest levels of mental illness of all countries, together with the most treatment. We seek happiness through mechanisms that produce pleasure, most of which are not effective. Those lower down in the hierarchy use more destructive means to gain gratification, thereby becoming worse off. Americans may suffer more pain than people in other rich nations, especially social pain in response to chronic stressors present here. We consume 80% of the world’s opioids Smartphone use, especially among youth, may be harmful for mental health. Evolutionary pressures make us live to reproduce and nurture the progeny until they can have children. Various mental illnesses that don’t impact propagation can manifest, especially in later life, such as anxiety to cope with danger. Mental health is political, like other aspects of health

This chapter introduces the central ideas in Darwin’s Expression, poses the main interpretive questions that scholars have raised, and outlines my answers to those questions. Why does Darwin analyze expressions in terms of heritable habits, recalling Lamarck’s debunked theory of evolution, when his own theory of natural selection provides a superior alternative? My answer is that Darwin embraces Hartley’s associationist theory of mind, which posits habit as the basis of thought. I claim that multiple puzzling features of Expression are resolved once we view Darwin as an associationist philosopher.

This chapter argues that Darwin’s philosophical theory of emotion has been forgotten due to paradigm shifts in biology, psychology, and philosophy. These shifts have caused researchers to neglect associationist theories of emotions, including Darwin’s contributions to this school of thought. Having explained why Darwin’s philosophy was forgotten, I conclude by explaining why it should be remembered, given its relevance for contemporary emotions research.

This chapter examines Darwin’s analysis of emotional expression. It is widely accepted that Darwin wrote Expression to refute Sir Charles Bell’s theory that God created humans with special muscles to express their emotions. However, scholars have overlooked the fact that Bell developed his theory to refute Erasmus Darwin’s associationist analysis of emotional expression, inspired by David Hartley, and that Charles Darwin defends his grandfather’s analysis against Bell’s objections. I demonstrate that Charles’s defense of Erasmus’s associationist theory, which denies that expressions occur for the sake of communicating emotions, explains Charles’s puzzling reluctance to claim that expressions evolved to serve as signals in communication.