'Human Specialness': The Historical Dimension and the Historicisation of Humanity

Peter Xavier Price, who is based at the Sussex Centre for Intellectual History, responds to Neil Paul Cummins' 2010 book, 'Is the Human Species Special?: Why human-induced global warming could be in the interests of life'. He seeks to explore and challenge many of the epistemological suppositions undergirding the central ideas of 'Is the Human Species Special?'. Why, the author speculates, does the application of history play such a minor role in considerations of the supposed uniqueness of humanity? Likewise, can mankind's sense of its own historical nature pave the way towards a better informed and responsible future? Questions such as these, amongst many others, form the basis for this short book, in which humanity's eternal struggle to find inherent meaning in its surrounding world - as well as humanity's place within it - is reconsidered.