Summary of Charles Foster's Being a Human

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview:

#1 I have tried to understand what humans are by immersing myself in the sensations, places, and ideas that characterised the first two periods of human history: the early upper Palaeolithic, when humans were wanderers intimately connected to lots of land and many species, and the Neolithic, when humans settled down and began to own things.

#2 The last period is the Enlightenment, in which humans have strangled themselves with codification and constriction. The universe was no longer pregnant with a soul, but with the laws of nature.

#3 The best hope for us, since Enlightenment reductionism has metastasized so far through our culture’s vital organs, is the Enlightenment itself. Scepticism and rigorous empiricism were central to the original Enlightenment manifesto. We see neither in the citadels of the modern Enlightenment.

#4 We are materially richer than ever before, but we are ontologically queasy. We feel that we’re significant creatures, but have no way of describing that significance. We are laughably maladapted to our current lives.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Jun 4, 2022
• ISBN: 9798822509450

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Insights on Charles Foster's Being a Human

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

I have tried to understand what humans are by immersing myself in the sensations, places, and ideas that characterised the first two periods of human history: the early upper Palaeolithic, when humans were wanderers intimately connected to lots of land and many species, and the Neolithic, when humans settled down and began to own things.

#2

The last period is the Enlightenment, in which humans have strangled themselves with codification and constriction. The universe was no longer pregnant with a soul, but with the laws of nature.

#3

The best hope for us, since Enlightenment reductionism has metastasized so far through our culture’s vital organs, is the Enlightenment itself. Scepticism and rigorous empiricism were central to the original Enlightenment manifesto. We see neither in the citadels of the modern Enlightenment.

#4

We are materially richer than ever before, but we are ontologically queasy. We feel that we’re significant creatures, but have no way of describing that significance. We are laughably maladapted to our current lives.

#5

I have tried to get the facts right and not to misrepresent scholarly consensus where it exists. Some of the leading figures in prehistoric archaeology and anthropology kindly answered my questions and tried to put me right.

#6

The book is divided into three Ages: the Upper Palaeolithic, the Neolithic, and the Enlightenment. The Upper Palaeolithic and Neolithic sections are based on the seasons of the year. The Enlightenment section is not. The Enlightenment has no seasons. Seasons happen in the natural world.

#7

We are all Scheherazades: we die each morning if we don’t have a good story to tell, and the good ones are all old. We must try to decide what we are for ourselves.

#8

I had eaten a live mammal on a Scottish hill. The dissonance between my two lives became an irritating but not particularly intrusive tinnitus. I got on with traveling and killing and reproducing and speechifying, and I sometimes even persuaded myself that everything was fine.

#9

We take a train from Derby to a wood near Sarah’s Peak District farm. We change in Derby, where we drink tea, play cards