HOW THE NONHUMAN MADE US HUMAN (original) (raw)
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That man is rational, is the most universal concept, the most axiomatic concept and yet, intrinsically not understood. Plato, in his philosophical inquiry thought of man as a composite of soul and body, with the 'soul' being a part of the divine reason that is capable of knowing the eternally real things of the universe. Later, Aristotle refuted this duality principle and conceived man as an embodied spirit. This position saw to the definition of man as a 'rational animal' (Zoon logikon): an animal that is conscious of its existence and capable of reasonableness. Therefore, the act of being 'man' essentially became a demand for understanding, and to reach a state where man can realise that to exist rationally, is to exist with other actualities. Therefore, this discovery of other rational beings must impose on oneself a responsibility for care, where 'to act out of reason is to choose for humanity.' As such, the question of 'what is in it for us?' ought to be the fundamental principle for man's moral judgement. However, this is not the case with the contemporary man. When faced with 'choice', man seems to opt for animality -to flight into selfhood and to act as though everything solely depends on oneselfand yet we find pleasure in being addressed as the only Homosapiens to have ever evolved.
Studia Gilsoniana, 2022
While the Catholic intellectual tradition upholds the uniqueness of humans, much contemporary scientific research has come to the opposing conclusion that humans are not significantly different from other animals. To engage in robust dialogue around the question of human uniqueness, we utilize Aquinas’s model of disputatio to focus on an attribute of human beings that is unexplored in the literature – namely, the human capacity to garden – and address five scientific and philosophical objections to our position that the capacity to garden makes humans distinct. Engaging with various branches of science, we demonstrate that human capacities and modes of gardening are not only incrementally different, but also fundamentally different in kind, from those of nonhuman creatures. Philosophically, we utilize the power-object model of division and Aristotle’s categorization of knowledge to express the difference in kind between human beings and other animals. These responses allow us to set aside each major objection.
Beyond the Bodily View and Psychological View of Human Beings: Human Beings are Rational
Journal of Philosophical Investigations , 2023
We are... So, to reframe the inquiry: who are we on a metaphysical level? Which aspects of ourselves are the most universally representative of who we are? How do we fare in the face of the passage of time? For decades, philosophers have debated the concept of diachronic personal identity, which focuses on the question of what keeps us alive. An intricate debate has developed between those who hold the body view (animalism) and those who hold the psychological view (memory) on the question of who we are. The two groups will eventually become so firmly set in their views that they will be unable to compromise. Hylomorphic animalism, or the view that humans are rational animals, living bodies made of prime matter and a rational soul, is an alternative answer to this divisive question that I propose in this study, following in the footsteps of Aristotle and Aquinas. We only survive if matter and rational souls do.
Considerations on our "Man" Argument
published only on Academia.edu , 2019
There are two main axes concerning “The Animal Question” in philosophy: the Anglo-American (Bentham, Singer, Regan, Clark…) approach and the Continental approach (Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Derrida, Deleuze…). This article aims to deal with the question ontologically in order to reach proper ethical and political consequences through paths in the History of Thinking. The paper therefore intends to reinterpret the Human-Animal indiscernibility zone.
Not Coming to Terms: Nonhuman Animals and the Edge of Theory
In the emerging field of animal studies, criticism turns to questions of ethics and animal rights by reading representations of nonhuman animals in philosophy and literature. A rhetoric of coming to terms often shapes such readings and points to a lack of satisfactory answers to two questions: why read nonhuman animals, and why now? These questions are crucial to animal studies but can only be answered by understanding this critical approach as an element of the anthropological discourse, fundamental to philosophy. Examining Aristotle's and Heidegger's approaches to thinking about the human-animal relation, it seems that the interest in reading how animals are presented in philosophy is not in coming to definitive terms with this relation or in correcting earlier theories. Rather, it appears to lie in reading the concept of the Animal as marking a limit of terminological language, and thus of theory. The Animal marks the point at which philosophy touches on poetry and withdraws. Criticism is concerned with animals now because the concept of "the animals" keeps casting doubt on theoretical conceptions of the Human and of human language.
Reason and Animals: Descartes, Kant, and Mead on the Place of Humans in Nature
1987
The question of our place in nature has long been with us. One answer lies in comparing humans with other animals (brutes), thereby highlighting the uniquely human. To this end, I examine the distinction between humans and brutes as delineated by Descartes, Kant, and the Chicago pragmatist George Mead. This selection not merely assures a wide-spectrum of opinion still alive today, it marks a general historical shift from the metaphysical dualism of Descartes' mechanical world and spiritual self, to the epistemic dualism of Kant and his double sense of self, finally to Mead's naturalistic monism, wherein consciousness emerges naturally from the non-conscious. Apart from illuminating issues current in the animal-rights literature, examining this single topic casts a new light on these figures, especially Kant (whose discussion of brutes has been almost wholly overlooked) and Mead (for whom the human/brute comparison is a central yet seldom explored component). Descartes' dualism is understandable simply given his scientific commitments, and the chasm he found in the human/brute gap was as much a result of this scientific motivation as any religious or moral one. For Kant, brutes lack the power to judge, understand, or reason. But more importantly, they lack autonomy and are therefore without moral worth. The unbridgeable chasm, metaphysical for Descartes, became for Kant primarily moral. Brutes do have representations and desires, however, and, by virtue of being alive, an immaterial principle; Kant consequently rejected Descartes' animalmachine hypothesis. Darwin's account of the human/brute gap and Mead's Darwinistic psychology are discussed. Selfhood and consciousness (in one sense) are unique to humans, although brutes are conscious in another sense. Mead's different uses of 'consciousness' are separated so as to clarify this difference as well as the role of language in the emergence of mind. Mead argued that humans perceive social objects (selves) prior to physical objects while brutes perceive none of these, lacking the capacities of universalization and object-manipulation. Like Descartes and Kant, Mead minimized brute experience, thereby maintaining a wide gulf between humans and brutes despite his Darwinian naturalism.