Our Inner Ape: A Leading Primatologist ...

The work of one of the world's most famous primatologists, Frans de Waal, focuses on the evolutionary origins of human nature, its duality and biological roots. De Waal examines four key aspects of our nature - the desire for power, the need for sex, the propensity for acts of violence and acts of kindness - and proves, based on many years of observations of great apes, that all this is also fully characteristic of them. In his work he argues in favor of the idea of man as a social animal, a 'bipolar ape,' equally similar to the aggressive, competitive chimpanzees and the empathic, hedonistic bonobos. Without ignoring the baser aspects of human nature, de Waal focuses on its positive, moral manifestations and how these two sides combine and complement each other, being equally important to the evolution of our species and to the survival of civilization as a whole.