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earwicker 's review for:
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
by Vasanti Phadke, Jeffrey Keeten, Yuval Noah Harari
How would an intelligent creature from another part of the galaxy tell the story of humankind? Like this.
Harari sees history in scientific terms: in terms of artifacts, biology, and evolution, and while he is careful to note that the scientific method makes room for doubt, his tone is remarkably self-assured. I know I'm not the first to balk at his brazenly materialist approach -- part of it is his tone, but part of it is his discounting of the human spirit. Religion and Justice are not real -- they are simply the stories we tell so that our society will function. This is true, but what he misses is that the ways in which our stories function tell us more about homo sapiens than our DNA does. Maybe not from the macroscopic perspective, but in terms of human existence -- what Heidegger calls Dasein -- our stories matter more than the bones we've left behind. And will continue to leave behind.
Despite my qualms about Harari's conclusions, it is a fine and lucid account that anyone interested in the history and the fate of homo sapiens should read and argue with. It's an argument that goes to the heart of human existence, an argument worth having, and I would wager there are few better than Harari to have it with.
Harari sees history in scientific terms: in terms of artifacts, biology, and evolution, and while he is careful to note that the scientific method makes room for doubt, his tone is remarkably self-assured. I know I'm not the first to balk at his brazenly materialist approach -- part of it is his tone, but part of it is his discounting of the human spirit. Religion and Justice are not real -- they are simply the stories we tell so that our society will function. This is true, but what he misses is that the ways in which our stories function tell us more about homo sapiens than our DNA does. Maybe not from the macroscopic perspective, but in terms of human existence -- what Heidegger calls Dasein -- our stories matter more than the bones we've left behind. And will continue to leave behind.
Despite my qualms about Harari's conclusions, it is a fine and lucid account that anyone interested in the history and the fate of homo sapiens should read and argue with. It's an argument that goes to the heart of human existence, an argument worth having, and I would wager there are few better than Harari to have it with.