The Evolution of the Human Mind: From Supernaturalism to Naturalism - An Anthropological Perspective

This is the first single book to document the evolution in human thinking from a belief in supernaturalism to a belief in naturalism. The author shows how the ideas that people have held through the centuries about the world have developed from human experience - particularly during the last four hundred years - to the point today where, for the first time in human history, we see scientists in whom a belief in naturalism is complete and all-encompassing. As a philosopher of science, the author is concerned not so much with the ideas of particular individuals as he is with a system of ideas; as a cultural anthropologist, he is primarily interested in culture as the product of human thought.