We have divided this volume into several sections. We recognized both that this is a daunting task and that some limits had to be placed on the material to be covered. We wished to explore some of the parallels and differences in these respective debates and see if they can help us understand why, in some cases, highly specialized and even esoteric research programs in sociobiology or artificial intelligence can become overriding visions that carry large intellectual, social, and political implications. Second, we wanted to link related but usually separate discourses about humans and animals, on the ond hand, and humans and machines, on the other. We believed such a question could best be addressed in an interdisciplinary forum bringing together humanities scholars with researchers from sociobiology and artificial intelligence, who, despite their overlapping concerns, largely remain isolated from one another. By asking what it means to be human, these relatively new areas of research raise the question that is at the heart of the humanistic tradition, one with a long history. First, we wanted to address those recent developments in biological and computer research-namely, sociobiologya nd artificial intelligence-that are not normally seen as falling in the domain of the humanities but that have reopened important issues about human nature and identity. The subject was "Humans, Animals, Machines: Boundaries and Projections." The essays in this volume grew out of a conference held at Stanford University in April 1987 under the auspices of the Stanford Humanities Center. We wish, nonetheless, to thank Nicholas Barker of the British Library, Davydd Greenwood of Cornell University, Bruce Mazlish of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Langdon Winner of the Rens. Not all who participated in the conference could be included in the book. Several members of the planning committee, John Dupré, Stuart Hampshire, and Terry Winograd, contributed to this volume. Other Stanford University members of the conference planning committee to whom we are very grateful include James Adams, Program in Values, Technology, Science, and Society William Durham, Department of Anthropology and Thomas Heller, School of Law. We are also indebted to James Gibbons, Dean of Stanford's School of Engineering, who committed both his time andthe Engineering School's resources to our efforts Michael Ryan, Director of Library Collections, Stanford University Libraries, who, along with his staff, not only made the libraries' facilities available but arranged a handsome book exhibit, "Beasts, Machines, and other Humans: Some Images of Mankind" and John Chowning, Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics, who orangized a computer music concert. Special thanks are owed the staff of the Stanford Humanities Center and its director, Bliss Carnochan, who generously assisted and otherwise encouraged our endeavors in every way possible. We also wish to thank Ellis and Katherine Alden for their generous support. We are particularly grateful to Stanford's president, Donald Kennedy, and its provost, James Roose, for this support of the conference in connection with the university's centennial. The editos would like to acknowledge some of those who made possible the 1987 Stanford University conference, "Humans, Animals, Machines: Boundaries and Projections," on which this volume is based. The Stanford Humanities Center ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Preferred Citation: Sheehan, James J., and Morton Sosna, editors The Boundaries of Humanity: Humans, Animals, Machines. Berkeley: University of California Press, c1991 1991. For Bliss Carnochan and Ian Watt, directorsĮxtraordinaires, and the staff and friends of