Homo Prospectus PDF
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Homo Prospectus Homo Prospectus Martin E. P. Seligman Peter Railton Roy F. Baumeister Chandra Sripada 1 1 Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries. Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America. © Oxford University Press 2016 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above. You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer. Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data Names: Seligman, Martin E. P., author. Title: Homo prospectus / Martin E.P. Seligman, Peter Railton, Roy F. Baumeister, Chandra Sripada. Description: Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, [2016] | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2015049376 (print) | LCCN 2016005609 (ebook) | ISBN 9780199374472 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780199374489 (UPDF) | ISBN 9780199374496 (EPUB) Subjects: LCSH: Prospective memory. | Cognition. | Knowledge, Theory of. | Social learning. | Experiential learning. | Psychology. Classification: LCC BF378.P76 S45 2016 (print) | LCC BF378.P76 (ebook) | DDC 153—dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015049376 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Printed by Sheridan Books, Inc., United States of America On this page Martin Seligman expresses his affection and profound gratitude to Jack Templeton (1940– 2015) Contents Preface ix Part 1 Homo Prospectus ONE Introduction 3 TWO Intuitive Guidance: Emotion, Information, and Experience 33 THREE Deliberative Guidance: Intuitive Guidance in the Counterfactual Mode 87 FOUR Imaginative Guidance: A Mind Forever Wandering 103 FIVE Collective Prospection: The Social Construction of the Future 133 Part 2 Prospection and Life’s Enduring Questions SIX Pragmatic Prospection 157 SEVEN Free Will and the Construction of Options 191 viii | Contents EIGHT Emotions: How the Future Feels (and Could Feel) 207 NINE Morality and Prospection 225 TEN Prospection Gone Awry: Depression 281 ELEVEN Creativity and Aging: What We Can Make With What We Have Left 305 Afterword 351 Author Index 357 Subject Index 369 Preface Martin Seligman What This Book Is About We are misnamed. “Wise man” is the intended meaning of Homo sapiens, but in contrast to Homo habilis, “handy man,” and Homo erectus, “upright man,” our name is not a description, but only an aspiration. And hardly one that we all achieve. If it is not wisdom, what is it that Homo sapiens actually does so well that no other species even approaches? Language, tools, killing, ratio- nality, tasting bad to predators, cooperation—t o name a few—h ave all been proposed. But closer examination of what other mammals, birds, and social insects can do causes us to doubt our uniqueness with regard to each of these. So with Gilbert (2006), we believe that the unrivaled human ability to be guided by imagining alternatives stretching into the future— “prospection”— uniquely describes Homo sapiens.
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