On successful completion of this subject, students should be able to:

1. Demonstrate their familiarity with the most pervasive ideas of human nature in the western philosophical and anthropological traditions.
2. Recognise the complex and intricate links between concepts of human nature and epistemology, religion, ethics and art.
3. Be conversant with debates surrounding the idea of 'the human' and the very possibility of theorising at this level of generality.

1. Classical and contemporary philosophies of human nature
2. Contemporary anthropology and cross-cultural studies
3. Perspectives on human nature from science, especially contemporary biology
4. Postmodern critiques of the possibility of the 'sciences of man'
5. Implications for ideas of human nature on epistemology, ethics, and art
6. The idea of the 'post-human' and technology