Interview with Jesse Prinz

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The exchange seems somewhat jumbled *, but the interplay of innate tendencies and environmental influences which produces culture (=cultureplaces) does come through.

(*)  Prof. Prinz presumes a baseline capacity across humanity that is then modified by experience, but he discounts that learning may be influenced by hereditary biological traits shared by a particular race or ethnicity, e.g., the role of testosterone. Evolution can change the genome after only a small number of centuries on the group level, which is why we can talke about the Russian or German Character. 

Prinz sees twins, for example, as half empty glasses and ignores the half full part (similar similar norms and tastes when raised apart in very different circumstances).  The moderator should have brought up this non emotional/cognitive hardwiring which of course can be swayed and somewhat modified by social conditions.
 

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