The Nature-Nurture Problem Revisited. Some Epistemological Topics in Contemporary Human Sciences

Arnulf Kolstad

Nesna University College, Nesna, Norway.

DOI: 10.4236/ojpp.2013.34074                

Abstract

Humans are from nature biological organisms who become cultural individuals. An essential task for psychology is to clarify the inter-functionality between biology and culture and how higher psychological functions are created when culture “creeps inside” and establishes new human nature in the mind and the brain. Knowledge of the ways in which genes and the environment interact to affect maturation of the brain has changed our understanding of the relationship between nature and nurture, between biology and culture. Hereditary or genetic outfitting unfolds in concert with the environment from the time of conception and during pregnancy. The dynamic interplay between gene action and the environment continues through life. The human mind is a conscious mind developed with cultural tools like language and able to subjugate the non-conscious instinctive and lower psychological “mind” functions. These lower functions are part of the non-volatile mind developing to something else when combined with the higher and cultural mind functions. The psyche is a functional system which acquires a socio-historical character in the transition from the animal organism to the human organism for each individual during the ontogenesis.

 

Keywords

Biology; Culture; Lower Psychological Functions; Higher Psychological Functions; Epigenesis

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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