I would like to begin with one short story that I have heard some time ago and which is still in my head. Answering the question what is man, Plato said that a human is a two-legged animal with feathers. Then, he proposed such alternatives: 1) but if to pluck the feathers from a cock, will he become a human; 2) and if a man is without legs then he will be not a human anymore?
According to this, it is important to think about human not only as one of the biological kinds of mammals, not only as a biological creature, but a spiritual one. What really makes human a human, probably, not only two legs and the lack of feathers?
Finding the definition of human is one of the main eternal questions that have ever been existed. Nevertheless, I found some contradictions as I was thinking about the components that make us what we are. As many philosophers and psychologists presented their conceptions of human, there follows a question about the existence of one general definition. In my opinion, it is not possible that we can define a human with one objective definition, because, even though we all are humans, we, at the same time, all are different. The most interesting and appropriate theory about a human nature for me was presented by existentialists.
What is important here, and this problem also describes Kaufmann in his book, is the perspective from which we explain human nature. Either it is a subjective position, which “is the moment in which solitary man attains to himself” (Kaufmann, p. 346) or we try to explain not our own nature, but the essence of the mankind, in other words, find some general characteristics that differ us from the animals. Despite what race, color of skin, nationality, we all have something similar, and I think these similarities first of all makes us humans.
For instance, such human characteristics are:
- A man is a social being. Only being as a part of the society in human emerge qualities such as language and the ability to think. Each child that was born becomes person only in the society.
- A man is a creative thinker. So, the second feature is the ability to think. Through thinking man not only adapts to the natural environment, but also he can change and convert it, create something new.
- A man is self-determined creature. The third difference between man and animals is the ability to work purposefully, the human capacity for self-realization. Human life is not very long. To my mind, we should measure it not in years, but the things that person did during his life and what he left after himself. It is true that man lives as long as live memories about him.
Despite these general things, it is important to define when person identify himself as a human and what goes into the development of the sense of who we are. I used to think that there exist only one “self”, but after reading Ulric Neisser “Five Kinds of Self-Knowledge”, I opened other perspective of self-perception. I agree with him that according to different forms of information we can describe different “selves”. For instance, he presented “the ecological self”, according to the physical environment, “the interpersonal self”, which appears in the human interchange and communication, “the extended self”, based on our personal memories and anticipations, “”the private self”, which connects with the unique feelings and experience, and “the conceptual self” (Neisser, 1988, p. 36). So, as we can see, understanding of ourselves includes different types of information, which, at the same time create a “united self” and are components of human identity.
Also, important question is when person begin to understand its essence. According to atheist existentialists that “existence comes before essence” (Kaufmann, p. 348), I found the answer. Talking about this, it is really truth that each opinion about what is human is subjective and it is impossible to present one general definition of what makes us who we are, as each of us makes ourselves from his own perception of the world and the willingness of what he want to be. Also, as Kaufmann says, “there is no determination – man is free, man is freedom” (Kaufmann, p. 353).
A coward is responsible for his cowardice, a liar for his lie and t. e. In other words, every man makes himself and his life. He became a coward, a liar, a scoundrel, no one forced him to do it. “Man is nothing else but that, which he makes of himself” (Kaufmann, p. 349). It is one more argument which supports the idea of the subjective defining process of what is human.
Another argument about human identity is that “Man is responsible for what he is” (Kaufmann, p. 349). Here comes the deep sense of responsibility, as each of my decision influence on the whole humanity. By actions man creates a certain image of a person that he chooses, because choosing himself, he chooses men in general.
Love as a feeling is also make a human feel as something special and unique in this world, so it would be fair to admit that “Love is intensification of life, a completeness, a fullness of life” ( Merton, 1965, p.26).
References
Merton, T. (1965). Love and Need: Is love a package or a message? The Copyright Clearence Centre. pdf.
Kaufmannn, W. Existentialism from Dostoevsky to Sartre. The Copyright Clearance Centre. pdf.
Neisser, U. (1988). Five kinds of self-knowledge. Philosophical Psychology, Vol. 1, NO 1.
